400 Drexel Pl
Swarthmore, PA 19081

I believe the only reason that the school receives low improvement scores is because they did so well guaranteeing the students still received full, high quality curriculum education during the quarantine period, so they didn’t have far to go to get back to the top. Look at how advanced the scores are overall! I am extremely satisfied as a parent. The teachers work in teams and education is personalized to each student, despite being a large public school. The clubs and activities are awesome and the community is fabulous. There is little diversity. That is the only other low mark against it. Looking at this school’s number rating on great schools, one would never imagine how amazing it is. The ratings system needs improvement. Parents are aware and they do pay high taxes for their children to attend such excellent schools.

SRS is terrible at supporting student well-being. They time seven-year-olds going to the bathroom, send upset first-graders to the bathroom to finish crying so the teacher can get on with class, and are inconsistent in their application of playground rules. The principal also selectively (discriminatorily) takes down from public display projects done by older students when they're about "sensitive" topics like gender identity. Bad decisions are constantly made that add up to a clear picture of the school not serving or supporting its students.The office staff, many of the teachers, and on occasion the principal are supportive of families and receptive to hearing from them, but overall the school has a cookie-cutter approach to education as a whole, and especially to dealing with problems. They're terrible at communicating with parents, and seem to purposely misunderstand parent communications about problems children are encountering. Every time we push to solve an issue, we're treated as a nuisance and are offered false choices as "solutions". They also often redirect the conversation to highlight how much of the fault of a situation lies with our child and not their handling of the situation, or, more importantly, how to actually resolve the situation. Often they seem to be trying to make us feel shame as parents for problems our child has at school.The assembly-line approach to education, which SRS excels at, is the surest way to leave students behind. The victim-blaming, deflection of responsibility, and total lack of support for students don't help either. Many students seem to have a good experience, but so many we know do not; unfortunately, this includes our own, who doesn't feel respected or heard. Our child went from loving school to saying suicide was preferable in just a year and a half at SRS, despite enjoying academic pursuits at home and having lots of friends at school. Having not gone to great schools myself I've seen some things, but SRS really takes the cake as an all-around bad experience for a sizable subset of the kids who go there.Parents thinking about sending their children to SRS should consider whether their children will be among those well served by the school or those ignored and actively held down by the school.

I was someone who was in special education as a child. Wssd put 5 years of time and effort into getting me out. When I was given academic independence in middle school, I struggled. My grades slipped, however, my teachers and guidance counselors noticed and helped me. By the time I was in high school, I was on the honor roll. My teachers, peers, and guidance counselors were extremely supportive of me. This has allowed me to attend a highly-ranked university. Do not listen to these other reviews from people who attended over 20 years ago. This school is great!