508 Edgemore Ave
Cary, NC 27519

I have had three kids in HDE, and each child has had a wonderful experience so far. Teachers have been great and have really cared about the kids, sense of community is wonderful, and academics are good. Our experiences with AIG program have been okay - ELA has been a better experience than math in terms of quality and rigor of assignments, and it seemed like our child had more in person classroom instruction with ELA AIG than math AIG. Homework in lower grades is minimal and focuses mostly on reading at home with parents, as reading with parents and having family dinner has the most statistical likelihood to improve learning for children (not homework in lower grades - no conclusive evidence it helps kids learn in younger grades). Math homework does begin to pick up around grade 2, but is not overwhelming. Concepts are taught well to give kids good number sense to think through the logic of problem solving, rather than rote memorization. Overall, a wonderful experience for our kids. We feel so blessed to live in the school district for HDE and look forward to the remaining years our family has here.

This school is a terrible choice for parents and students looking for a supportive teachers. Teachers will rarely listen to or try to understand a student's point of view. The administration will ignore many student concerns without any investigation unless parents interfere. Many of the work handed is just busy work and rarely has an impact on student learning. There are some helpful teachers but there are even more cruel teachers. It's incredibly hard to fix grades that a student didn't deserve without parental interference. The courses offered are very restrictive as well.

I am writing in regard to special education, which sucks in this school. we had a bad experience, particularly teachers and they won't try to help special needs kid, they don't have resources and they just want to push him to another school. To make to happen, they start complaining about kid from initial days and they will make parents of special needs kid guilty. All the school staff in IEP meets will talk only bad behavior of special need kid and eventually recommend parents to look for an alternate school or program. My guess this school may have good ratings due to brilliant students who do not require any teacher support. These are the bare facts.

I have had an amazing experience as a student at this school. This has made me not only ready for college but also the professional world. Throughout my four years here I was able to grow and learn through the help of the incredible students and staff. I can't wait to see what Wake STEM becomes.

While we have had a few bumps getting our boy engaged, the leadership have been great partners with looking at options. This school is a college prep school so there is not an emphasis in the Arts, but more a focus on core curriculum. We love that there are male teachers teaching our boy as they provide examples of strong role models. We love the uniforms!

All teachers are very attentive and helpful especially Principal Baker during this pandemic. We are very lucky to belong to a school who treats the children as their own.

My son was assaulted on the bus by a much larger peer who had bullied him for weeks. Worthless administrators ignored evidence of the assault, painted my son as the instigator, punished my son, and didn't even suspend the boy who attacked him. When my wife and I confronted the counselors about the consequences, they were almost incoherent, could barely string a sentence together, and were not concerned with my son's safety at all. This school has the worst leadership I've ever encountered in the Wake County Public School System.