Wayne St
Landover, MD 20785

As a concerned parent, I feel compelled to share my experience with Bladensburg High School. Unfortunately, my child has had a very negative experience at this school, and I do not feel that the environment is supportive or inclusive.There appears to be a serious lack of support for students, particularly those from diverse backgrounds. My child has repeatedly expressed feeling unsafe and unwelcome at school. The teaching methods seem ineffective, and there is a noticeable lack of professionalism and respect from some of the staff.One of the most disappointing issues has been the repeated denial of my child’s attempts to join the soccer team. He is very passionate about the sport and has tried multiple times to be part of the team, but he feels that he is being excluded due to racial or cultural bias. It is deeply troubling to see a student with genuine interest and talent being denied the opportunity to participate.The overall school environment does not feel inclusive or safe for students who are not originally from the area. As a parent, I am deeply concerned about the well-being and education of my child, and I sincerely hope that the administration takes steps to address these issues.

This school is horrible. I pulled my child out after 3 months. I would ask my child on a daily basis, what did you do, what did you learn and I was always told nothing, the teachers don’t teach. They might give 5 minutes of instruction and the rest of the class was just free time. They expect the kids to teach themselves. During an open house tour they showed us slides of the school’s performance and they had a near 0% proficiency score in math. That’s a total failure of the school. They had fights on a daily basis. Kids fight for fun and target innocent students so they can record it on social media. The children also don’t know how to express themselves appropriately and deal with anger. They had a major teacher shortage for multiple subjects and the ones they did have don’t care about doing their jobs or about students. Teachers have little respect for the children and curse at them frequently. The administration either doesn’t care or is in denial. When I mentioned my concerns I was told that this is normal, we’re not that bad, we don’t have that many fights. Don’t expect anything to improve if the administrators can’t even acknowledge they have a serious problem and get defensive when you bring it up. They actually had the nerve to get mad at and blame parents who don’t volunteer their time to the PTA and help in the classrooms. Instead of hearing about real solutions and changes in their newsletters, families were constantly attacked for saying bad things about the school which they were in denial about, and for not volunteering their time to help with their “non problem”. Many parents work and have their own jobs which includes raising their children right (we hope) and are not getting paid to do the school’s job. I also didn’t like that fact that they punish the whole school every time a fight broke out or someone did something stupid, which was frequently. How does that make those that try to do good and follow the rules feel. My child said to me what’s the point of trying so hard to be good and do your best if we are just punished with all the rest. The students are never rewarded. You can’t miss what you never have and all they know is punishment which is not the same as discipline. It’s not effective. The main ones causing problems seek joy in hurting others. They could care less if you take something away from a whole group. The school is simply reinforcing the negative behavior while not supporting those with good behavior.

This is our first year and so far, we’re pleased.