Zion Lutheran School

I'm generally familiar with this school and its treatment of guest teachers. I believe that guest teachers are already at a disadvantage walking into an unfamiliar school to ensure learning keeps happening without some teachers making this more difficult. This happens at GGES more often than not. Having spent over ten years managing classrooms and raising my own four children from birth to adulthood, I feel I have learned how to effectively communicate, how to engage children positively and constructively and how to reward students and encourage them to grow and flourish. I love being in the classroom interacting with students in a fun, dynamic and rigorous academic setting. Unfortunately, some teachers have a preconceived and negative view of guest teachers... sometimes it is subtle, sometimes not. I don't feel comfortable returning to this school because both the general and sometimes specific treatment I have received from teachers and staff at GGES leaves me with the impression that I am both unwelcome and unsuitable for this school. That saddens me, but I am going to continue performing in an exemplary fashion and striving to demonstrate excellence at other schools -- schools that recognize and appreciate the value we (I) provide as guest teachers who genuinely love this job.

We left at the end of the 2018-2019 school year. After years of an overall positive experience, things changed fast and even before the worst of it happened I had resolved myself to looking for a new school for our kids. It all started when they placed my twice exceptional child in a class with a brand new teacher - she had never taught before and knew nothing practical or legal about special education or GT kids and it showed. She was gone nearly every Friday out of town for a wedding. My daughter experienced bullying and instead of handling it the principal said of the bully “she will get hers eventually.” Not what anyone likes to hear from school leadership. There was a weird push to participate in the Leader In Me program which is a child version of a self help course used by corporate professionals. There was PTA drama where the group was split in two and made it impossible for those of us trying to help students actually do our part. I tried to stay out of it and ended up getting yanked in by one of the most conniving parents involved. When I stood up for myself, my kids and I were shunned. Which was fine, because we were already done there. A shame that a school that experienced such an incredible turnaround and Renaissance period was so short lived and ruined within only six years. I feel as though the pandemic played a small role - we saw the writing on the wall well before Covid happened. Covid merely accelerated the inevitable. Everything so many parents and teachers worked to build is basically gone. Plenty of amazing teachers quit or were pushed out between 2015 and 2020. A friend visited this week to consider the school for her child who will begin kindergarten in August and she was not impressed. The latest rumor is the school is going to be absorbed by another one due to low enrollment. All the people credited with making this school “great” left it behind and have political careers, and still pat themselves on the back for the work they did there. Well the work didn’t hold up, so that should tell you something.

Couldn't have had a worse experience. Reluctant to leave the full review until my kid is finally completely out of the school later in the year at which point I will come back and leave a comprehensive review. But would be doing a disservice to parents considering it now for their kids for next year. Run like a business where the kids are the product! Much more to come...