Riverwood International Charter School

My son has been in the SPK class for three years. year 1 was cool because his teacher was experienced and attentive to all of her students. the second year he was assign a new teacher who was teaching for the very first time, so we gave a LOT of grace. going into year two, there has been too many para teachers. Random "float" teachers who would have been handling my son in the bathroom and sent home a huge fist sized poop in my son's bag when he had an accident. any time I ask a basic question its typically met with an "idk it wasn't me" or "you should ask someone else I'm not sure". The icing on the cake was the parking protocol was functional in the first two years. in year three, the assistant principle who is tall and a male, approached my car with my son in it demanding I move my car because the parking system has changed. Even though there wasn't an email or message on the ck12 app. this new system involved only the SPK car riders to park in a traffic lane and literally walk across the parking lot of bus/ vans and other cars. I calmly expressed that it was dangerous, and my son gets excited for school and can run to his teacher as soon as we get out the car and his response was "hold his hand then". then he sent the campus police to me threating to "write me a ticket" for not parking in a traffic lane and away from vehicles. the cop approached me with his hand on his gun as if we weren't at a school but instead like I'm a criminal. the principal Ms. Alford and she seemed understanding to the issue and agreed the new drop off/ pick up policy wasn't the safest. she then the very next day of this talk tell my fiancé and myself that they have launched an "investigation" because I "drive wreck less" around children in their parking lot of no visual reminders of the flow of traffic and at the time no traffic enforced personnel. after the clear discrimination and segregation of my special needs son, i used the main lot to walk him to and from school for about 1.5 months. during our monthly meeting with his teacher, another AP expressed to us that we were allowed to join the NEW and safer policy for drop off and pick up with no evidence discovering that i was in fact not recklessly driving. as we joined the line, it was VERBATIM where i would park to drop and pick him up. to this day they cannot look me in my face or respond to an email. needless to say, we will never see Brumby after this school year.

HPE is the best! I researched other public/charter options in the area and HPE is by far the best! Dr. Hill is a fast acting principal, who does not allow issues to go unresolved. On most mornings, Dr. Hill greets every student at the front door, by name! My daughter is HF ASD and the special education teachers and support have been top notch! They recommend appropriate accommodations because they have taken the time to get to know my child. The teachers go above and beyond for their students to ensure they are learning in the best learning environment. I can't say enough about HPE! But we love it here!

Have two kids at Heards Ferry and have been very pleased. Gave it a shot rather than private school and it’s far exceeded all expectations.

Our son attended HSP for 3 years, but ultimately we chose to transfer him to another school. The teachers want to support students with learning differences, but the school lacks the expertise. As stated by many others on this site, administrators are oblivious to the bullying and high stress levels their students experience. Some of the parents are bigger bullies than the kids, but as long as they continue writing checks, everyone looks the other way. Sports (but not Sportsmanship) seem more important than academics at HSP. It’s a top down issue, as their program emphasizes winning over inclusion or Godliness.

Our family is very new to Atlanta and had never needed to navigate the private school scene in a metropolitan area before. Perhaps some of my poor rating is due to that of the private school scene in Atlanta in general. Nonetheless, we applied to The school after being told there were openings only to then be waitlisted. This was an enormous time effort all to be “waitlisted”. I felt as if the school misled our family by saying there was an opening and just took the application fee. Perhaps some of this is just par for the course in Atlanta, but overall, very poor experience with admissions and expectations. Also, quite devastating as recent transplants to Atlanta. This has been a far from welcoming experience.