Hillbrook

We moved from VA - my daughter went here by default because we moved after the lottery. We lived on the ward 5 boarder- other schools were closer.- but this was our zone. While the principal was amazing in helping my child with her self esteem & getting her into therapy. Plus her counselor for therapy here was amazing too- but my daughters teacher quit early the school year & then their class had to join the other class. Mrs. Rose (the other teacher) may be one of the best teachers in the world and was amazing with children- but at lunch the kids would run wild. Having food fights running on the tables while yelling. The lunch staff could not handle the children the way Mrs. Rose did. All the chaos at lunch was a shock to my child and really affected her in a negative way. The school did have great office staff and had events for families but the children at the school were so unruly and most of instruction time was spent doing behavior control and getting the kids to settle down for learning. Luckily Mrs. Rose was kind and used music and songs to teach and settle the children without yelling handling it well but her first teacher who quit was not equipped for this type of school. Nor were the substitute teachers- hence the classes joining with the other teacher- Mrs Rose. As you can see the test scores are extremely low here and your child will not learn much. I ended up sending my kids to a private online school (via homeschool) to bridge the gap and help my daughter become literate and understand critical thinking skills. Overall great staff but they can only do but so much. The children misbehave so much and instead of suspending them or expelling them the school (and all of dc school systems) force the teachers to redirect and control the behavior of the children. With no real consequences for misbehavior (because funding for dc schools go by attendance - the higher the attendance- the more funding your school gets) DC schools - even the charter schools -have children who are so disruptive and disrespectful to the class/teachers - & honestly nothing much is done about it. We came from VA where it’s 3 strikes your suspended for interrupting class instruction & 3 suspensions you are expelled. So much more learning gets done in VA. This review does not negate the excellent staff here at Smothers which is probably why the other ratings are so high. Compared to other dc schools we tried the staff here is by far one of best.

This school faces a lot of challenges being located in a neighborhood with such high rates of poverty, but the staff and leadership are incredible. The teachers work overtime to make sure kids feel engaged and excited to learn, and Principal Golden is a dedicated and tireless advocate for her students. Despite the challenges, the school has a number of resources to support families and kind, caring staff who go the extra mile to work with parents and caregivers. It's a truly special community.