6607 Thackwell Way #2205
Alexandria, VA 22315

The kids aren’t learning because they’re too busy having to deal with mistreatment, harassment, and bullying from peers/teachers. If your child is labeled in a negative way, they will allow your child to be bullied and mistreated by other students and teachers. Most teachers are unsupportive, disrespectful, unprofessional and discouraging. If you bring it to the attention of admin, they will invalidate your experience, minimize the issue, target your child, retaliate, gaslight and completely disregard your concerns. They are not beneath using other students and parents against each other to hide their incompetence and inconsistencies while covering up their lies and inadequacies. Staff at this school are highly protective of their athletes even when they are unruly, disruptive, late, disrespectful, and bullying other students. The drug use at this school is unbelievable. The exclusion and biased nature of many teachers at this school contribute to the poor mental health of the students. Again, if you bring it to the attention of admin, they will place a target on your child and begin to conduct random searches. The diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts are fake and simply an illusion. They only care about a certain demographic. If your child has an IEP, forget this school all together. They don’t hire qualified and licensed teachers to support students with disabilities. Resources are not provided. They do the bare minimum. They do not encourage progression. They lump most kids with disabilities in the “bad” box instead of providing them with tools to be successful. If you hold them accountable for doing bare minimum, they retaliate and take it out on your child. The meetings are a box checker for them. They have no true concern to help your child if they struggle with a disability. In fact, students with disabilities are punished the most primarily because they rather not have to deal with them. They rather create narratives to get rid of them.The only thing teachers are quick to do here is find a reason to get rid of your child because they lack the skills and ability to encourage, teach and develop students. Rules are arbitrarily enforced. Self serving agendas mixed with a total lack of integrity and accountability from staff. Avoid this school at all costs. Nothing but a bunch of lies and empty words from admin. Your child’s self esteem and mental health will diminish in this unsafe, untrusting and toxic environment.

This is our third year at Island Creek and the new principal has led the staff with great changes. There has been a renewed focus on social emotional skills for all students and teaching has become more student-centered. Communication from the new principal and the teachers has become more frequent, clear, and transparent, and is very responsive. My children love their teachers and learning and music class is their favorite. The teachers and administrators care about the children. The class sizes for the older grades are large but that is a district issue.