The Estates at Stonegate

I’m sharing this in hopes of helping other families make an informed decision. This isn’t written out of anger, but out of concern for student well-being.If you are considering moving into this school’s attendance area or enrolling your child here, I strongly encourage you to research carefully before committing. In our experience, bullying was not occasional—it felt frequent and ongoing, creating a stressful environment for student. Over time, this had a real impact on our child’s emotional well-being, feeling accepted and willingness to attend school.Equally concerning was the lack of consistent support when issues were raised. While there may be caring individuals within the school, our experience was that concerns were often minimized and meaningful change was difficult to see. This made it hard for family and student to feel protected or heard.If you have flexibility in where you live, you may want to consider other areas. If you must remain nearby, exploring alternative education options—including homeschooling—may provide a safer and more supportive environment for your child.Every family’s experience may differ, but based on what we went through, I felt it was important to share this perspective so others can ask the right questions before making a decision.

I am writing this review with mixed emotions. On the one hand the teachers, especially the SPED teachers, are wonderful. They are there for the students, day in and day out going above and beyond. On the other hand, our family's experience with principal De La Garza left much to be desired. The focus was skewed towards test performance and when my SPED child was having processing issues, the care was not about the child holistically but rather test scores and how that would impact the school. It saddens me to know that with such a great community, including the community of teachers, such a bad experience could be had because of one person in control. In fact, we always felt like a number to her, in our interactions she was not very personable nor seemed to care about what was best for the child. She even tried to have our child switch schools and we later found out she pressured other families to do the same.Again, it saddens me to write this on what otherwise is a very good school.

We spent 4 years at BFSMS and although the younger grade teachers were phenomenal the older grades lacked discipline and did not follow a curriculum well. The lack of accountability from administrators and some teachers became disheartening and was one of the main reasons we unenrolled for the following school year.

I am not sure if the issue is the school or the required NEISD curriculum, but focus seems to be solely on STAAR-test preparation and computer assessments. Math and reading assignments seem to be a mixture of packet and tablet and seems incredibly disjointed and hard to follow. My child tells me that most instruction is watching a video. With the exception of weekly spelling/vocabulary tests, the majority of the assessment are on computer, so I have no idea what my child is actually learning or what he is missing. A large number appear to be computer-based District End of Unit Assessments, and I have been told it is frequently hard for even the teachers to understand what the questions are asking (and parents never see them). Content instruction appeared to end in March to review and take practice tests for the STAAR. After the STAAR tests, my student had project-based weeks on economics and Ancient Rome that appeared educational and finally discussed a book in class, so I think maybe the teachers are trying, but everything else since has just been review. Until this book study, my 3rd grader, to my knowledge, had discussed no books in class. Short passages as presented on the STAAR test have replaced any discussion of high-quality literature. I saw maybe three writing assignments of any substantial length, with everything else solely short responses.Equally concerning is that content in science and social studies seems almost non-existent. Time is scheduled for either, not both, and for the past two years my child has frequently said they ran out of time to get to it. It makes no sense to me as this content, with varied information and types of material, could be used to augment language abilities and introduce concrete math and analysis concepts and thereby innately improve test performance. Grade and assessment wise, my child is doing well and with 12 MAP tests and other countless practice tests, progress well-monitored (no wonder there is no time for anything else). I just believe he is not being provided with a well rounded education or love of learning and it is reflected by his comments that school is a waste of time. I believe the exposure to a diverse study body is equally important, so other options are not ideal, making it incredibly disappointing that what is supposed to be a top public school in the area is so lacking in a quality education.

This used to be a good school. Top educators, faculty and staff that was engrained in your child's success and well being. This year, there was a recent shift in staff -with new leaders, teachers, even nurse. My child has since been miserable. There is no accountability for student's actions, no individual plan for various student's educational needs and you truly just feel like a number. My child complains daily regarding teachers' moods. Shares that they get yelled at and disregarded. Their solutions for almost anything seems to be to pair your child up with an adult mentor, why would this be an option for involved, educated and present parents? Why would I want a random volunteer to be involved? The school should be taking more accountability! Several times, I have called in for other reasons and was met with "an issue" that I was never made aware of. I have watched the joy and excitement slowly drain from my child's eyes. Beware-these scores are from year's past, unfortunately its not the supportive, inclusive school it once was.