2227 Bisontine St
Friendswood, TX 77546

Great school and i Loved your dual lenguage

This school has reached its downfall since the establishment of a new administration and principal. Initially, I had enjoyed the unique prospects of this school from a diverse array of students to special learning opportunities. But with administration focused on the wrong issues, there's been failure to provide attention to relevancy that our students need to prosper. For starters, the administration fails to provide support towards academic achievement, but rather to the band and sports. Students participating in academic competitions fail to receive the same recognition, which hinders their potential in such a distressed environment. Administration is more focused on handing out "core value popcorn" than providing time to their students. The administration doesn't provide time to their students upon request, and talk down on students as if they're in elementary. Not to mention the special education students who are treated as toddlers and locked away into one hallway in the school. The scheduling here is completely disorganized and thoughtless to the schedules of students, who are often misinformed. There are at least eight different schedules at this school that change on a daily basis without notice, leaving them clueless of what goes on (completely unsafe in emergencies). Students who have off periods are clueless on when to arrive, and schedules that push the school day back by a hour affect those with work schedules. Administration demands things from both staff and students at late notice. High school is a time for students to learn and grow into young adults, not feel baffled and terrified of the overly harsh environment to where they don't feel comfortable enough in striving for success. The school and district will take credit and boast upon achievements of students for statistics, but fail to acknowledge them as actual human beings otherwise. This school needs to work on the treatment of students, as this learning environment should MOTIVATE students to be their best rather than feel ignored and controlled by adults. I've never felt so control-less and ignored in my eighteen years of life, and its problem spindles off the administration's disorganization and unreasonable decisions. There are better solutions to being a safe and positive environment, and this school is not taking those steps.

I want to explain that the school's high ratings and reported low student: teacher ratio is due to the WAVE program which pulls top performing kids in from across the district. The WAVE kids have their own meal times and classes, and does not reflect the rest of the school. Most 8th grade classes have 30 kids in them, not 18, and they reflect a drastically different demographic and standardized test performance profile. The school is not a "9" school outside of WAVE. The test scores of the advanced kids and their smaller class sizes make the school look better than it is. I used to teach at this school. I was not there long. I thought I was going to be teaching for an academically rigorous 9 school with class sizes of 18, as Great Schools suggested. I was appalled by the disruptive behaviors of many of the kids in my overcrowded classrooms, with most designated "at risk" for dropping out. The academic expectations for these other kids was very low and the kids were well aware of that. The AP told me that I was unable to send kids out of my class to her for an office referral without first doing detention duty with them myself first. There was no curriculum given to me except for the TEKS (which are standards for a curriculum, not itself a curriculum) and I was not allowed to assign "readings" because the district had adopted a Workshop model (which was intended for lower elementary grades, not 14-year-olds). There would be meetings for ELA teachers with people wondering how to get kids to comprehend literary allusions, because "they seem to be not getting that" on the standardized test--well, how about having them read literature instead of Diary of a Wimpy Kid or graphic novel? Now that's a novel idea! It wasn't just he unruly kids, the large teaching load (I had about 180), and the lack of administrative support (Who has the teacher doing detention duty alone in an empty school building with the child she gives detention to?), but the "Workshop model." I could not believe on-grade level 8th grade ELA does not have students reading or studying English literature. If your kid is not in the WAVE program, he will be in large classes without a textbook and no emphasis on academics with other kids constantly acting up and disrupting the class. There will be no literature and no homework. If you like that, then this school is for you.