Gibbs High School

This is by far the worst school i have had the unfortunate necessity of dealing with. In the past 15 years dealing with kids progressing through school....never in my life have i seen such a horrible disregard and disorganization. My child is loudly bullied regularly because she has tan skin instead of black. The administration does not return phone calls about bullying nor do they care. The principal and assistant principal are paid to either not show up or lock thenselves away and not pay attention to what is going on around them. According to the written county statutes on student progression my child should be passing to the next level, the school feels they dont have to follow it and want to retain my child. Not happening. Im reporting this school to the national organization for bullying and to the pinellas county school board. Your child us better served by sitting at home rotting their brains on tv than by going to this school.

We feel incredibly lucky to have our child at Perkins. Many of her teachers have been there for over twenty years, and it's easy to see why. There is a light-hearted love for learning and the arts permeating the entire school. Every child has weekly tutorials (with six or less children per class) in dance, visual art, violin, music and drama. They also have three days of Spanish and science labs. P.E. and recess is offered every day. Orchestra class is available twice a week. My child is also part of the Gifted program -- and the teachers for that are excellent. The school is as diverse as the city (which we love), and my child loves to go to school there. We were initially worried about the test scores of the school, but, once we broke down the district's test results according to gender, race and socioeconomics, we realized our child was less likely to fall behind at Perkins than at other higher rated schools in the district. Perkins is great.

My family was very excited when we were accepted unfortunately, it was short lived. The teachers are very hard on the students. The homework load is absolutely insane. My son had nothing but issues with his teacher who made it clear her job was to provide parents with the materials to teach their kids. She tried saying my son was behind in math but was previously suggested to skip a grade due to high math and reading levels. He ended up testing at one of the highest levels in the state. She didn’t seem to care very much nor know my child at all. My scholar who loved school since preschool who was doing math on the sidewalk at age 2 was severely let down and he would beg me not to make him go to school. It was incredibly disheartening. My daughter who has an IEP ended up doing well this year but that’s mostly because I spent 4hours a night working with her. At the beginning of the year her special education teacher told me she was just lazy and wouldn’t accommodate lazy kids. (She was in 5th at a 2nd grade level) at the end of the year I begged for retention I was told flat out that I could try and fight it with the superintendent but they would not call retention. In the state of Florida you have to pass a third grade exam to move to 4th at the time she was still at a second grade level (we moved to Florida in 4th) I asked them to give her that exam to prove she was ready they again said no. The principal was so unhelpful. The only person we liked was her 5th grade teacher who happened to be the only person willing to advocate for her. I wouldn’t recommend this school to my worst enemy.

My student attended this school for a semester so far. The teachers and students are engaged in learning and there is a lot of hands on learning taking place. The administration does an excellent job of emotional & social education, motivating kids to learn, and providing opportunities for additional education. They are very organised and clearly very experienced professionals.The gifted program in the school is a single elective. I was worried about that because my child does not socialise well in public schools and is used to being in gifted programs separated from general education. My concerns were unfounded. My child feels very safe here, is able to make friends and has learned so much. There is very little homework, only classwork that must be taken as homework if not completed in class. In addition to class learning, there are field trips, including Kennedy Space Center and The Florida Orchestra. I highly recommend the school if your child is interested in engineering. The entire program is designed around helping kids to think creatively & scientifically and giving them basic information about a lot of different engineering disciplines.