Newbern Middle School

We moved here from out of state and my children started attending Dewar in 2021. We are absolutely love having our kids at Dewar, the staff and teachers are amazing and my kids absolutely love it here. I have 2 boys on an IEP and the school has always been great with communication when it comes to the IEP and services for my kids. I have another son not on an IEP and I feel every teacher we have has always been eager to help them in their educational journey, even going as far as giving me suggestions of how I can support my boys at home. Every teacher we've ever had has been amazing and makes us feel like family. Teachers here make the learning environment fun and memorable for students by doing things such as making a lemonade stand to talk about money and math, a"coffee shop" in 4th grade and Harry Potter themed lesson to go alone with their math lessons. This type of environment has really encouraged my kids to learn and enjoy the process of learning. Admin is quick to respond to us whenever we've had questions or needed help/support with something and are quick to resolve any issues or concerns we've had.I work as a Para at another school in Lowndes County which gives me the ability to put my kids at any school of my choice as an employee. My kids refuse to leave Dewar and transfer to my school, which really says something about how much they love everyone at DES. I have complete peace of mind knowing my children go to school here!

This school is terrible and they no it they hold kids back for the slightest thing my daughter is seven meaning she was to start 1st grade they put her in kk while they was giving her cup cakes and hot chips during her placement test which she was more focused on the cup cakes and chips they placed her in kk cause she couldn't tell her what a lower case letters no chance no ok we are going to place her in 1 and see from there they didn't even give her a chance to try at this point the don't even give a chance to fail or pass they held my son back In 3rd grade years ago I finally got him in his right grade thru online classes now my other son they are holding him back in third grade again I refuse to have a school that's low ranked in everything tell me my kids are now worthy or smart enough for a chance.

I wanted to wait to write this,, since I needed to confirm that it wasn't just my own bias as a mother. Now I can safely and confidently say that I cannot recommend this school. Especially for neurodivergent children. My son is neither mean nor malicious, yet he was in ISS multiple times a week. The teacher and administrators had many meetings with me, we tried to work together and every time they were going to try a new approach to redirect his impulsively, they failed to try more than once. They effectively wasted all of my PTO on meetings, I almost lost my job. Please keep in mind, my son was in kindergarten! I didn't even know ISS was an option for kindergarten. Long story short, my son would come home crying, saying things like "I'm just a bad kid" or "I know what the problem is, I'm just no good. I can't behave." "I'll always be a bad kid". Talk about heartbreaking. I had to take him out and move to a whole new school district. Now he goes to Dewar elementary and just finished 1st grade with 0 days in ISS or the principals office. His teacher at Dewar has been a blessing. Post removal, I have met several parents from sallas Mahone who are all struggling with the same problems I was. They put any kid who is even mildly disruptive in ISS and then they push you to get them tested for ADHD and medicated. 5 parents, with the same story. They have a 3 write ups = ISS policy. I understand the need for this, but if a 5 or 6 year old gets to 3 write ups on Friday, then they go straight to ISS on Monday, they have no idea why and have already forgotten the three things they they last week. These kids are still learning how to be humans. Please, if you have the option, don't move to this district and if you don't have that option, there's online and local charter schools that would much better than this place.

We loved Open Bible and had we not moved we would have done our utmost to keep our students there.