Still Valley

My daughter is in 5th grade, her teachers are so encouraging. She is now on high honor roll, and really enjoys all the clubs they offer like battle of the books. I am proud of her and grateful to her teachers.

This school is a terrible disappointment. My family member attends this school and he is not having a good experience for years while in attendance. The school needs to uphold IDEA laws. Children are not being given appropriate accomodations for learning disabilities. The school lacks a full time guidance counselor. Bullying is a problem at this school with both other students and some teachers who do nothing to stop it or tell the child who is being bullied "It's your problem". This is unacceptable. The school lacks full time special education teachers or resource rooms. I do not know why this school shows no budget for special education from Warren County. This is just not a good school. They fail to include students at their own IEP when old enough to speak for themselves. It seems these teachers are tired of their jobs and do not have the patience to understand what it's like for children with learning disabilities who need more time to complete things. Children with learning disabilities need access to special education teachers as needed. This school does not prioritize this. Their lack of budget exemplifies this fact. Many, many times my family member has been deeply upset and crying due to the atmosphere at this school. His self esteem has been hurt due to this school experience. They need to seriously review the competence of the teachers. The state should intervene. There are students who cannot sit still for 7 hours. So they get anxious and fidgety. Let the children have fidget spinners or take frequent breaks. There are many therapeutic accessories for students with ADD/ADHD to use to help them. Why does no teacher seem to know about this or utilize them? There are visual coding resources available for students with visual impairments but thus far none of this has been offered. The IEP meeting is not professional. They put the parent on the defensive instead of showing compassion. Instead of the school itself taking the initiative and identifying students who are struggling they instead ignore it. Criticizing students or making them feel ostracized is not helpful which is how they have handled things. This school is in desperate need of full time special education teachers. You cannot mainstream children into 2 classrooms and give them no individualized teaching on 1:1 basis and expect them to learn. Children who have a learning disability need accomodations. That is their legal right. That is the law. This school has severe issues.

My experience with GES has been a positive one so far. The teachers are always willing to listen and assist when necessary. My child has learned so much the past few years with no intervention. As with any school there are good and bad teachers. Don’t be afraid to speak up if there is an issue. I feel safe sending my so there and there is a good diversity of students.

I rate the school 3 because there is always room for improvement.

An ideal school for families looking for a sense of assurance that their children will become well-thought, self-assured and morally aware students. As a Christian school dedicated to education and values, this establishment provides parents, teachers and principal to interact on a regular basis to discuss progress, feedback and needs for their children. As an example, a teacher came to our rescue as we got hit by the economy and save my child from an embarrassing mid-year transfer . To this day we don't know who that teacher or staff was - but one thing is clear, this school has a Soul and is run by Angels!