North Hickory

As a parent of two students who have gone through Hickory High School, I am saddened to say that I am very disappointed with the education that my second child has received. It's as if some of the teachers there do not care whether the students understand the material or not. The state needs to review the data and analyze the effectiveness of teachers who have a high percentage of students failing in their classrooms. It's one thing to know the material that you are supposed to teach and an entirely different thing to be able to teach it to fluency/mastery.

I have had a child at this school from Kindergarten to 3rd grade and each semester, I make it a point to introduce myself to each instructor and make sure that they are comfortable and open enough to discuss my child with me. Kindergarten, I found to be nothing more than preschool in which the children were supervised, but not challenged or taught a curriculum that would prepare them to advance to 1st grade. When my child entered 1st grade, the students were given placement exams to see what they could comprehend and majority of the class placed below grade level because the teachers didn't have a plan to teach, they continued to babysit them and group them together rather than walk around and give them attention. In 2nd grade, They started the I-Ready assessments and things actually got worse. I had a conference with my child's teacher and she gave me permission to record it and she said that even she didn't understand the testing and that I shouldn't put so much into it. I was appalled. She said they give Ipads to our 7year olds, and the Ipad reads the questions to the kids and the kids are supposed to choose the answer, even though they can't read. She said that Teachers are not allowed by state regulations to help the students when they are taking the I-ready exams. How absurd is this? They actually score our children and put that number in their files to determine their competency. Now we are in 3rd grade, my kid is coming home with graded homework and its all 100's and 99's and smiley faces, and when I asked my child to read to me what they wrote, they couldn't even read what they wrote. I had a conference with the teacher and she told me, on record, that the state just has them read the curriculum and write it on the board and our children basically trace the answers that the teacher writes on the board. Its truly no wonder that this school is the lowest performing school in our district. The staff care more about what the Princpal and the state are directing them to do, than they do actually upholding what makes teaching such a valuable and critically important role in our education system. They are not teaching at this school. They do not go around to each child and make sure they are comprehending what they are writing and it seems that this generation of educators are okay with doing the bare minimum to get a paycheck and have a career title. In closing, all of this is a reflection of the leadership of the school. IE the Principal

The Community at HCA is friendly and consistently strives for Christian ideals. Nowhere is perfect, but I have known the administration at HCA for over 15 years, and I am consistently impressed by their commitment to doing whatever is eternally best for my children. The classes are challenging, and the graduates are informed and skilled. Every teacher I worked with cared about having a Christian worldview and taught the authority of the Bible. No school is perfect. if people were perfect, we would not need schools. But this school is focused on the right objectives and is passionately pursuing those objectives.

My daughter has been at this school since she was 3. The teachers have always went above and beyond to make sure she is in the right class and that she is learning to the best of her ability. Most of the teachers she’s had has even stayed after school with her to give her more one on one time to help with her learning.