1944 Lafayette Ave SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49507

as a former Blandford school student, my experience was amazing. the only way to fully understand the greatness of this program is to experience it. the teachers push you to your limits and beyond. blandford is the place that I met my 5 best friends, and we are still as close as ever. the way they slip nature into the daily learning is simply amazing. I love when we went into the woods and learned about everything around us. sometimes we would even go out there to have a conversation about math! the teachers create a friendly environment for the kids, while making it easy for us to respect them. I loved every minute of it, even when I was struggling a bit. I hope that this post may convince you to let your child go on to what I thought of as the best experience of my life.

The metrics on this school are not as straightforward. As I imagine is the case for many schools that are on this website. In regards to the large gap between test scores and progress, students have a test score requirement to apply. As for progress, our personal experience saw exceptional progress, though not necessarily in test scores. Our student learned how to manage multiple projects with varying deadlines, work with a team, and how to study independently. Also, the metric on teacher to student ratio is off. There are two teachers that teach 2 subjects each and they work with half of the students at a time. The students rotate classrooms. Please do not take these scores at face value. There is so much learning and progress happening at John Ball Park Zoo School. Reach out to the school, or a parent or even a former Zooie themselves. Highly recommend this program.

I used to work at this school, and it was the worst experience of my life. There is no leadership at this school. The principal wrote unprofessional emails and doesn't have an understanding of confidentiality!!! There is no behavior plan for student's negative behavior. Students can basically do whatever they want and have no real consequences. I would literally send students to the office for physical altercations, and the office staff would simply send them back. I couldn't believe how bad behavior was swept under the rug. The office staff/principal basically promoted an 'unsafe' learning environment because of how bad behavior was dealt with. Also, the parents that send their children to this school are completely passive and uninvolved when it comes to their child's learning and behavior.When I worked here, I would have anxiety once I walked through the doors of this school. If a teacher was sick/out, there would always be no substitutes, so basically, all of those students in that class would be liquidated to other classrooms adding fuel to an already problematic classroom. (That happened a lot too!! I would say weekly) In addition, whenever a special's teacher was sick/out, the teacher would never get their planning time. The general education teacher would just have to deal with the students during their planning time WITHOUT NOTICE. No one in the office would inform the teaching staff that the special's teacher was out either. In addition, there was absolutely no support for special education services either. The Sped teacher would come around 1x a week for like 30 minutes. I was completely in shock that students who needed services were not receiving proper services. (At a typical school, students who needed special education services would see the Special Education teacher a minimum of 3x per week. This by no means was fault of the special education teacher as there was only 1 teacher for the whole school!! She was servicing students in all grades (K-8 grade). If you are a parent and care about your child's education, not only would I not recommend Dickinson Elementary School, but I would steer clear from the GRPS district entirely. If you are a teacher looking for a job, RUN. You are NOT going to feel supported working at the school. You will leave this school exhausted. I was constantly putting fires out in my classroom and had no time to actually teach. The whole situation is entirely sad, as these students deserve more.

What a fantastic neighborhood school! The passionate caring teachers and strong leadership throughout, encourages our kids in all ways! We are proud to be Bengals!

They care about your grades rather than your mental health. I was in the worst place of my life, I failed on a test, and I explained this to my teacher, that I had too much homework every day and that I have a disability to concentrate, and after all of that, she just simply said, “Well, welcome to city.” No retakes, help in the future, nothing. And that’s one of my teachers. Save yourself your mental health, and don’t go to this school. This was made February 4, 2023, sophomore. Two years at city.

This school is amazing and helps us a lot.

This is a former school of mine. I went here two years ago while it was at the old location and I am in 8th grade now. Great school.

This school need help They have mice They have roachesNo safety

sense the moment i arrived here it has been nothing but constant behavioral issues for the other students. they hit and cuss at the teachers. and nothing happens to these students. the materials we are sought to use are old and writen on scrolled with gang signs . i will not be returning here ext year kids here , are the worst kind , they never stop spreding rumors. kids smoke in the bathrooms its truely terrible.