104 Ponce De Leon
Tallahassee, FL 32305

Rickards is the nastiest place I have ever been. They don't teach you much of anything and the teachers will let the kids do mainly what they want, there's probably a fight every day, and the school has 1400 kids inside of it with like 10 admin which barely give you suspension for the fights and I don't know how many times I heard of guns getting pulled out.

I wish this school rating was better. My 1st grader has thrived at this school. I can't say enough about the staff. They are all so hard working and love their jobs. I can tell every time i go. My daughter has an excitement for reading and learning. That doesn't just happen. The environment here is conducive to learning. Dr. Smith and her faculty are good at what they do. The test scores seem low, but that more to do with the school's geographic location and the large number of underprivileged and underserved students enrolled. It should in no way be a reflection of the staff's dedication to their students.

I'm part of the magnet program and I can certainly say that the teachers for IB are amazing. I have noticed that the non-IB side has had a lot of issues though. From my experience, a lot of swears get thrown around and even though the school has a no swear policy, none of the students get in trouble. There is definitely a bias (from most of the staff). The teachers I have don't give too much homework (this could be because of COVID-19), and have pretty basic schedules.