Garfield Elementary School

This school is academically very, very poor. In two years here, my child has learned less than nothing. And I mean that literally; my child is backsliding due to lack of stimulation and presence of qualified educators. Worse than a daycare. I may as well start homeschooling, since I'm already doing it to keep my kid from falling behind despite being enrolled. This school uses substitutes, including long term subs, that are not equipped to teach or even tolerate children. My child has reported alarming behavior from staff, like refusing to let kindergarteners use the bathrooms until they wet themselves (multiple students), using cotton swabs inside kids ears in the classroom, not disclosing incidents to parents, yelling, and refusing to release an entire class (to lunch, recess, end of day) because of one or a few students behavior, but refusing to actually intervene on physical misbehaviors that put students at risk. Communication is poor; you're expected to constantly monitor multiple sites for updates, which they may or may not actually give you access to. Policies change frequently and are inconsistently enforced. Leadership is incredibly ineffective (especially for whatever a "leadership academy" is). This school also encourages kids to be a friend to everyone, which is all well and good until you're being bullied, harassed, and/or harmed and your teachers response is to 'just keep being nice' while they do nothing about it. It's a toxic life lesson in how to accept abusive behavior and kids don't need it. The golden rule and fairness is always better.I have yet to meet a satisfied parent with a child who has attended this school. I suspect the only decent reason to attend this school is it's level of ESL support. I grew up in this city, and if this is the quality of education I had received, I think my parents would have left. If you have a choice, stay away.

This school is like the cup in Matthew 23:25 that has been washed on the outside but is completely rotten on the inside. I would say a lot more, but the Yelp review for this school explains it pretty well, so I will try to give a brief summary. The administration is incompetent and deceptive, the curricula are obsolete, and the students are rude and cliquey and just as duplicitous as the administrators. Grade inflation is rampant, and students regularly receive high marks for mediocre work - I once saw a classmate who submitted an essay about Margaret Thatcher inventing abortion in the early 1900s later go on to graduate with the highest honors despite openly cheating on final exams. Continuing on that thread, the school has a major cheating problem that the administration refuses to acknowledge despite being warned about it multiple times. To their credit, the teachers are very competent and work as well as they can with the fundamentalist gay-bashing young-earth creationist curricula they are forced to use. Reading between the lines, it’s clear that many of them have been compelled to dumb down their classes to accommodate the lazier students that the administration favors. Do not be fooled by buzzwords like 'Christlike character' and 'academic excellence' - if you pay attention for long, you will start to see through this school very quickly. I would strongly recommend online Christian schools like Scholé Academy or HSLDA for a better educational experience.