Gates Ave
Northfield, MN 55057

Horribly dissatisfied with this school. They placed my child here for their autism program stating it was a great school for my child when in reality it was not. The special ED staff are very rude, unprofessional and do not have the child’s best interest at heart. They put in my child’s IEP that they would use a weighted vest for anxiety if needed, put the IEP into effect without me signing it and was putting a weighted vest on my child over half the day at school then when asked about it stated “She enjoys it and comes in asking for it” yet my child was complaining of it when coming home due to her body being sore from carrying that weight all day. They wouldn’t communicate properly and claimed my child had horrible behaviors to the point “she needed a one on one” yet once she transferred to another school out of this district she has thrived and the new school has not once mentioned any of the said behaviors that this school had. She has also really blossomed with her speech and learning since leaving this school. She would also mention that certain paras were mean and the school would tell me my daughter would refuse to work with the paras she was stating were mean. Definitely not a school for a special needs!!

There is no structure when it comes to student discipline or keeping a safe environment for the students when it comes to bullying, harassment, discrimination, etc. The safety of students highly impacts the academic engagement of a student and with the school turning a blind eye to important matters like this highly affects our students and this safety concern comes from the behavior of students and even the staff themselves and nothing is done. What a shame to have such a beautiful school and city have such poor learning environments for our children.

It seems unless you are star student or an athlete, you are lost in a mix. School is more focused on nonsense rather than teaching and my child has learned practically nothing. One of the band teachers tries to make students state their pronouns and actually said that she wanted to focus on composers besides "white men". How about we stop bringing race into everything and focus on TALENT. There is absolutely no reason to bring racial divide into my child's education, nor is there any reason to focus on someone's sexuality. My child has since dropped band because he didn't feel comfortable with some of the things she was saying. Most of the other teachers seemed OK. The student parking area is trash, so many potholes and we have to pay a yearly fee for them to park there! For a district that has this much of a tax base, how are they spending their money when always talking about budget cuts, cutting extra-curriculars and teachers and staff. And now they want to build an entirely new high school?! No dude, fix the one you have and stop trying to raise our taxes. We are taxed enough in this state already!