Maury Elementary School

The strong community at Miner is exactly what we are looking for in a neighborhood school, and I am thrilled that my daughter will be going there for the next 7 years - from Pre-K and up. Boiling down a schools' performance to standardized test metrics does not in any way reflect the learning, the support and the experience-based learning going on at this school. If you pass on this school experience because of what some website says about test numbers, you will really be missing out.

Our son has attended for K and 1st. We've been very happy with the teachers and the community (PTO).Main complaints are: 1) IEP services -- the instructors who provide the services are great. However, each year I've had to flight for 6 weeks to get the services started. The VP, who is over the coordination of the services, is no help. Parents have complained each year about this same issue and no improvements are ever implemented.2) administration -- communication is very lacking. They also seem out of touch. Before we started K another parent did "warn" me about the administration.

Tyler is absolutely exceptional! Led by Dr Jasmine Brann, one of the best principals the district has to offer, and a talented and dedicated staff and teachers who really invest in our children. We couldn’t be happier to be here.

Our experience at Peabody was frustrating and disappointing, particularly at the height of the pandemic but also in the months that followed. Teachers, staff, and even many of the high-income parents that drive discussion around school policies were dismissive (and often openly rude) about concerns from parents like me (I am a single mother) about how the inconsistent and confusing Covid restrictions were harming those families that couldn't afford nannies and tutors to get them through the constant school closures. Even once the children had returned to in-person learning, school staff had seemingly lost interest in teaching the kids, and staff refused to provide insight into what was going on in the classroom or how my child was progressing once he was back in school. I felt that essentially this was a school community catering to privileged families, pretending to care deeply about doing social good, but utterly failing those of us who didn't have the luxury of seeing things the way they did. Once I moved my child to a different school, his new teachers immediately identified that he had fallen behind his peers significantly and got him the help he needed, even though Peabody teachers never mentioned nor answered questions about how he was struggling academically. That was a lower priority for them than scolding him about pulling his mask down on the playground outside.

I am a parent of a PK3 student. My husband and I could not be more pleased with Payne Elementary. The teachers are warm, engaging and professional. We are so impressed with the curriculum - my son's class has specialized weekly instruction in science and Spanish. Even at the early childhood education level, the students have access to enrichment activities in the after school program - this fall, the activities were soccer and "Joy of Motion" (yoga and dance). We are excited for our younger son to start at this school in a few years if he is able to get a space through the lottery!

The staff work very hard but the expectations of them from administration seem unreasonable. There always seem to be staffing issues- high teacher turnover, unfilled teacher positions, staff out/ resigning. In the primary classrooms, the class sizes are more reasonable than lower elementary and upper elementary. In primary, there are also 2 adults in the classroom and only 1 in the upper grades where the class sizes are over 25 students in most classes. Supervision of students during non-academic times seems to be a challenge due to the staffing issues. Behavior issues are not addressed consistently which results in undesirable behaviors increasing instead of decreasing and ultimately disrupting learning. There don't seem to be any consequences in elementary for misbehavior. There are also issues with communication from administration to both families and staff. Do not expect to receive prompt responses from administration unless you have an important role in the school community. I think that this school could improve significantly if administration was more open to disclosing the problems within the school and working with families and staff to create and implement a plan to address the problems.