SW Yucca Ave, Ave, AR

Big picture, I really did not care for Bentonville ISD as a whole. One minute we have a no homework policy and the next minute we have a mandatory homework policy? I got so many emails from the school (an annoying amount of emails if I’m honest) but I always felt blindsided by these massive policy changes because they wouldn’t announce them. There were so many big changes up there that I would have to piece together to figure out what happened because they didn’t let us know! Bottom line for me is, I pay taxes and I am trusting you with my child, so I find deception on any level intolerable on this topic.As far as Osage Creek Elementary specifically, we did not have the best experience at this school. I found that many of the staff were enabling and reinforcing bad behaviors in children. The number of times I heard the phrase: "everyone makes mistakes" was very frustrating. Yes everybody makes mistakes but if we aren't going to LEARN from them how will we stop making the same mistakes? I saw my child regress in multiple areas while at this school. Just for contrast, every summer my child would participate in a summer program locally. We would see IMMENSE growth in so many areas every single summer. When the fall would come back around though, we were back to the regression within a few weeks back at Osage Creek Elementary.I definitely saw issues around bullying at this school as well. I’m not talking about just cracking silly harmless jokes at each other. No. More the flavor where the kids pick a target and ALL of them pile on the target constantly. To me this is an administration problem setting a bad culture. Some teachers up there are amazing so I do not want to minimize the teachers who are doing a fantastic job. This school is not all bad by any means! Just one example: Coach Bell really cares, he always went above and beyond at his job and I appreciate that so much as a parent. Many of the staff were this way, but if you are researching moving to Bentonville you deserve to know what is really going on at the schools so you can make an informed decision about what is right for you and your family.