Bennie Wall
Lucedale, MS 39452

Lack of openness and communication with parents is atrocious. All of the teachers seem to have to filter everything through the principal. Parent/Teacher conferences tend to be Parent/Principal conferences where the teachers just sit there and let the principal take all of the questions about what is going on in their classrooms. If you want to be involved in your child's education, look elsewhere.

My experience with GCSD has been a good one so far. My daughter has been going there since 3rd grade, and she's in 10th grade now, and is in their honors class programs. She has motivated her boyfriend to get great grades too- the school fosters learning, and the teachers have seemed very competent thus far!

Students recorded my daughter being jumped by 5 other girls in the bathroom. Other students later, reluctantly and afraid of being hurt themselves, and shared other recordings and texts of this replanned jump by a gang of girls. The other girls had been threatened by the bullies to jump them next. I had faith in this school to protect the students so I reassured these other girls if they shared the footage the violence would end. I shared the footage with the school, and they did absolutely nothing. I climbed all the way to top officials and all video and social media footage submissions were ignored. I quoted their own handbook and asked if they were going to protect my child and the other children as threats continued from the bullies. I even got the police involved to protect my child. It came down to this small town and the people over our children’s safety doesn’t have our best interest in mind and they thought the best thing to do was nothing. Even though one audio following the jump stated these girls intended to “stomp my daughters head in”. This is a very violent and scary school since the principals and those in charge of our children’s safety just don’t care. I have now met other parents that have had to take their children also out of this school because of violence. We moved to this small town for the safety a small town could offer, but hiding in this quaint town is a school that brings the Los Angeles gang feel.