Northwest Raleigh

I can’t speak to the rest of the school but beware if your child is on special education. The administration treats the teachers like dogs. At the end of 23-24, the entire CCR and self-contained teams left and so far this year as of mid-October 2024, 4 of the 6 CCR and self-contained teachers have quit, so students will not be receiving the support they are legally required to receive. The admin will tell you it was the teachers, but that is not true. A new principal was just announced, so I hope she is able to turn it around, but be aware and ask questions if your child is in sped.

This school needs to “clean house” starting with ALL front office staff! Next “special” education teachers.

This is a tight knit community school. I love that children can attend from kindergarten through 8th grade. The small class sizes and STEAM focus allows for more hands-on learning and critical thinking than I've seen in other WCPSS options.

As a former employee, I can proudly say I had a great relationship with most of the students and staff at BCES. However, some of my colleagues of color and I agreed we experienced discrimination from Principal Eric Taylor to some extent. Many of us removed ourselves before the start of this school year due to this toxic work environment. During my employment, teachers left me positive feedback after working in their classes, with themselves and their students even asking me when I would return. However, my former boss was quick to belittle me, switch me to a special needs classroom that I had no credentials/support/say in transferring to, and even told me that "no one will want to work with you next year," which went completely against what my colleagues have told me. I hope this is investigated further, because the last thing schools need are more educators (especially POC educators) leaving the classroom due to that kind of treatment.

Our children attended this school years ago before recent leadership changes, and we have mixed reviews. We had some wonderful teachers and experiences, and some that were terrible. The lower school teachers were a mix of nice and some of the meanest women I have yet to encounter in a school. I had a terrible experience with one of them and they have since replaced her, thankfully, and I reported her strange and abusive behavior after the fact, and I regret not handling it swiftly at the time. There was definitely some bullying which fell on deaf ears, so I will say the experience there trained me to be a strong advocate in defense of my children. In general, many parents were unhappy with the leadership most of the time and there was a lot of gossip about that, which was tiresome. The teachers who were great kept the school running and my kids had a great time in those classes. They participated in wonderful musical shows, field trips, art classes and field days. In all, you can have a good experience here, but as a parent make sure they know that you are not going to put up with anything from the staff but completely appropriate behavior. For us, that was becoming a full time job, so we left for a school with better leadership.

Our family has been at Follow the Child for three years, and our experience has been nothing short of outstanding. We have one child in Toddler House and another in the Children’s House, both of which have exceeded our expectations across the board. I love that the school’s administrators are out front every morning greeting students as they arrive, always warm and welcoming. All of the teachers and staff are kind, respectful, and genuine, and it is very clear they care deeply about each child’s development. I have seen them go above and beyond to foster each child’s unique strengths and abilities, and as a result, we’ve seen incredible growth in our children during our time at the school.Our children feel safe, nurtured, and supported, and it shows in how much they love going to school each day. I truly believe Follow the Child has instilled a love of learning in our kids that will stay with them for life. Enrolling our children in the school is one of the best decisions we’ve made as parents, and we feel grateful every day to be part of such a thoughtful, caring, and close-knit community. We could not recommend the school more!