Madison Richard Simis School

My children loved this school. They still talk about how great their experience was when they went here. From school lunches to individualized help, this school was amazing. The campus is also beautiful with so much natural light.

This year i am working on obtaining an IEP for my son and with the new teacher , she is very much involved. The teachers there are great . My son is on 2nd grade and loves his teacher . If there was any issue I reached out to the teacher and it was handled . I'm glad the teachers use class dojo now .

Overall we feel that Simis is a great school, and I had 2 kids go through it. I would highly recommend it given the overall education situation in AZ. There are some drawbacks however. It is a very large elementary school and its easy to get lost in the shuffle. If your kid has different learning abilities, it can be challenging to get them to help taylored to their learning abilities, IEPs are hard to establish, and the testing that they are supposed to do when you request and by law, there is a lot of pushback from school not to do it (we ended up using our insurance to have my child tested for ASD b/c the school said "we didn't observe any "...." behavior therefore he is not autistic and doesn't need ot be tested"). The classes are large (28-30 students). However, most of the teachers we have met and been with have been absolutely wonderful and gone out of their way to accomodate my child. They did a great job during the pandemic in keeping kids safe and adhering to all the rules while dealing with our crazy governor and his idiotic executive orders. This is an IB school though I am still trying to figure out what that means lol. They give a fair amount of HW and actually try to complete everything in class - homework is usually only things that child didn't complete in class. They have lots of after school clubs in non covid times (you have to pay extra for them) as well as MAC which is the after care school program. Yes we would recommend this school.

I’ll start with the good: our child’s first grade teacher was phenomenal. Despite being overloaded with 34 kids in her classroom and no assistant, she created a supporting atmosphere. This school has one objective: keep up funding through high test scores. Our third grade experience was so awful we pulled our daughter out to home school after the first semester. Her teacher would stand in front of the class for the majority of the day to teach the math that would be on the standardized tests as fast as she could, with “no questions allowed.” The excuse for this rule was that hers was an “advanced class” so students should be intelligent enough not to have to ask questions. For such an advanced class, I’d think they would have gotten to multiplication, division, geometry, or something more than addition and subtraction by the time kids are 9.Additionally, this same teacher, told the students in their first day not to come to her with anything unless they were “dying, bleeding, or barfing.” Through the first half of the year, the only subject they were taught in the classroom was math. When asked about social studies, science, or English, I was told that their English classes are addressed by asking the students to read for 15 minutes every day when they get home. And that Simis actually has a very advanced approach to English and Social Studies in that they teach English by having students read non-fiction historical lessons. These lessons consisted of 125 word fictional accounts of historical figures such as Ben Franklin, so these teachings weren’t based in fact and felt like a way to check a box by doing the bare minimum.Our daughter was consistently bullied on the bus and playground and was even stabbed with a pencil. When these concerns were brought to the school, they said they couldn’t see it on tape so they couldn’t verify that there was a serious incident, and that the school didn’t have a violent or bullying incident in the past 3 years, so it wouldn’t make sense that this actually happened. Sounds more like they need to report these incidents to the district, and opt not to in order to maintain a certain rating for public funding purposes.We moved, found a great community and school, and are happy. Our daughter still cries at the thought of returning to in person learning next year because she doesn’t want to be subjected to the same experience she had at Simis. No student should be this traumatized by their elementary school

We have had an extraordinary experience at Madison Simis. The teachers and fellow students have fostered a love of learning in my sons. My sons who have already graduated from Simis look back with fond memories. As a parent, I can see that Simis gave them a strong foundation as they are well prepared for what comes next. Thanks!