Walden Ln
Stapleton, AL 36527

Our child attended Stonebridge Elementary from 2023 to 2026, and it was an incredibly frustrating experience.The school’s communication with families is abysmal. Notice for special events, supply needs, and activities was routinely sent just a few days prior via ParentSquare, making it nearly impossible for working parents to arrange time off or prepare. Compounding this, the PTA meets mid-day on weekdays, effectively shutting out working parents. Academically, parents are completely sidelined. Teachers do not provide syllabi or schedules, making it impossible to prepare for upcoming tests or projects. Due to the school’s heavy reliance on computers and i-Ready, past exams and quizzes are not shared with students or parents. We were left with no way to review mistakes or help our child study at home. When instructions were sent home, they were often poorly written and incomprehensible.When we reached out to teachers for help, we were met with dismissiveness. Parent-teacher meetings were unstructured, lacked specific feedback, and offered no actionable steps forward. Most frustratingly, the Gifted and Talented program (Project Jubilee, the one thing our child loved) pulls students out of their regular classrooms one day a week. This penalized high-achieving students; our child constantly missed core instructions and exam prep, and had to play catch-up. When we raised this concern, we were literally told, "That’s the price they pay."Alarmingly, Stonebridge has a severe issue with bullying and cultural ostracization that administration refuses to handle. Our child faced constant harassment, had property stolen, and was physically assaulted. The gym teacher once told our child to "stop complaining" after being bullied and hit in gym. Formal reports filed through the online bullying system only resulted in a single follow-up phone call with zero actual resolution or further communication. Despite multiple escalations of our concerns and complaints about the harassment and mistreatment, we have never received anything more than cursory dismissals or “we’ll look into it” with no further communication after.It appears that due to the tight-knit local social structure, the teachers and administration are more invested in maintaining social status and friendships with certain parents than holding troublesome children accountable. Stonebridge is failing its high-performing students. It needs a serious realignment of priorities and real accountability.