516 Washington Avenue
Beacon, NY 12508

My daughter graduated from BHS with Honors in 2018 and went on to be on the Deans List student at SUNY New Paltz where she majored in Education and minored in History. She also won a NY State Chancellors Award for creating a history app of the Hudson Valley. Now she is attending Teacher’s College at Columbia University in NYC. I say all of this because every child CAN reach their potential in the Beacon Schools; we have caring teachers and parents. Especially the latter. My daughter received an excellent education, and we supported that with outside activities and travel that the school did not have the budget for. No matter, she and her close friends are all success stories. Don’t rush to put your kids in private school, give public school a chance; support the admin & teachers; you won’t regret it.

My son tested out of reading intervention in Kindergarten and although we read all summer long, by his 1st grade year it was determined he needed help again. 3 times a week he met with a male teacher for extra reading help from November to February. This plan proved to be highly effective resulting in reducing the meeting down to twice a week from February to June. My son exceeded the reading level goals of G-H (P&F criteria) by 3rd quarter, successfully reading level I-J at 98% and 35wpm according to the 4th quarter report card. The head teacher ran a class size of 19 and for the most part remained relatively consistent throughout the school year with at-home assignments, snap words and 3 books sent home each night. I mostly appreciated that she graded the students' class work. Class work seemed to be progressive in nature, appropriate and challenging. 1st grade was really fast-paced and required my husband and I to dedicate an hour each morning and approx an hour or more after school with our son to be certain he wouldn't fall behind but overall our family is happy with his experience thus far. One concern I have is the lack of diversity within the teaching staff. I read that currently the school is 84% white female, I'm hoping more poc and male educators are recruited. Job postings alone may not be as effective today as they once were.

We raised 4 children in Beacon and all went to Rombout. It is a decent school, but it is a middle school; the hormones are raging and the students are beginning to break out from their parent-controlled childhoods. I noticed that most reviews are close to 10 years old. Beacon has come a long way in ten years, and Rombout is improving along with Beacon. As another reviewer noted, Beacon is multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-economic status; a lot like the U.S. If your children do well in school, they will do well at Rombout. Shielding them from the various aspects of society is not going to help them, and perhaps, they can benefit those less fortunate than themselves through their interaction (now I'm sounding like a Democrat, and I'm far from that :) ). I bet it would be hard to find a community where the middle school is rated higher than either the elementary or high schools.