Maplewood

The best decision my family ever made was to move into this school district and the zoning for Madison Elementary. Private-school education in a public school system...win/win.

West Madison elementary school is now Midtown elementary school. They moved into a new building. The administration and staff in this school are outstanding! Honestly the best of the best schools in Madison city schools. Leadership sure does reflect, and Mrs. Demeester is an exemplary leader.The inclusion at this school and care they inculcate into the students to genuinely care for each other is one I have never seen before.The students are kind and support kids of all kinds. My son loves going to school and has learned and developed so well socially and academically. Special education staff is incredible. They genuinely care about your child and do everything in their power to help them. Giving me hope I wasn't too sure of prior to him starting here. This school is a heaven sentY'all this school has the best staff. Mrs. Sellers, Mrs. Rush, Mrs. Massey. Just an awesome staff and administration. A very rare find to get the best of both worlds.

I moved my family to Huntsville 6 months ago and 3 months later we chose this district for my child. It was the worst decision Ive made. Its not the school that a black family should consider. I have had nothing but bad experiences. My child is in Kindergarten and 3 weeks in the teacher “retired” leaving substitutes in and out of the classroom. They finally hired a new graduate, who treats them with Skittles of all candies, despite the harmful dyes in the candy. My child told me that. Then on a separate occasion, my child was placed on a bus and sent to a location she was not supposed to be at- despite the dismissal manager being updated 6 days prior. I was made to go pick her up. On a later date, The principal called me and said his secretary said I cursed her out when calling to ask about my child's attendance record being incorrect. That was a flat out lie, and no reason for it. Fast forward, today I realized that all of her checkout’s and absences were counted unexcused although some were presented with doctors notes to the online website the school requires you to upload them to. I would recommend black and brown families to choose a different school zone. We came from an elite school zone that scored 10/10 so I am no stranger to being the minority- its the school not the district that I loathe.

I was a previous student at this school and faces many issues with not only the students, but also the teachers. When i came to the counselors and teachers about being socially outcasted from the large majority of the students, they told me that i should ignore it. There was only one teacher in the school that i liked, and the majority of the others often had the same problem of being too overly strict. Some kids would miss out on certain aspects of the class because they would’ve rather gone the whole period without going back to their home room to get an item they forgot due to there being punishments for forgetting to grab things, and these punishments would stack into worse reprimands. The students are absolutely horrible as well. The teachers are well aware that some of the kids they teach are feigning a nice smile, but don’t do anything about it. The majority of the parents and kids are snobby and rude. I also rate them low for kids that are different because of the fact that almost everybody at the school will look at you different just because you behave in a certain way or look a certain way. The kids there are unkind to those with disabilities and you WILL be outcasted for being different from the cliche popular girls/guys. Sometimes teachers won’t be the best at adjusting for your kid as well. The teachers will treat your middle school kids as though theyve already arrive at high school and will begin “preparing” them for that and even more with unnecessarily harsh reprimands. Some teachers are also incapable of keeping the classroom unpolitical. I had to sit through almost 20 minutes of a teacher’s political opinions in one class that not a single student even asked to hear!!! The only students that would thrive in this school are the ones you see in Mean Girls, and i’d say that some kids at this school would even be comparable to some characters from there. Not all kids and teachers are horrible though, i know if your kid goes to this school, they’ll at least find support through the groups of students who are out casted and the teachers who do actually take issue with this. The only reason i held out for the entire school year was my two only friends and my amazing science teacher. There’s always light in the dark, and i think that this school should definitely rethink some of their choices, but this doesn’t mean that the issues are completely gone. Please choose carefully, this can be a good school for the able, but not for the different.