St Joseph Catholic 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.

Great school and teacher are really helpful.

My kids currently go to Wilkins. We have had a wonderful experience here. The teachers are wonderful and the principal is like a ray of sunshine. She lights up everyone’s day. They have a program called Leader In Me, which helps develop well rounded, thoughtful, and emotionally intelligent minds. This school may perform lower with test scores than other schools but it does not actually reflect the education they are receiving. 41% of students in this school are low income. We all know the role socioeconomic status plays in these test scores. My kids have excelled here. They have learned everything and more than their cousins who attend a different Linn-Mar elementary school.

I was extremely disappointed by the education my kids received. By Tuesday they had completed their work and usually spent most of their time reading. By middle school they had no idea how to do long division and were missing basic math concepts. This was despite excelling at Echo Hill and being in the Leo program. I am very disappointed we put so much faith into the school thinking that the next year would be better. All while paying ridiculously high taxes. It was as though they tried something new every year, realized it didn’t work then tried something different. A big concept at the school is reading 1 million words. That is an odd standard to want to live up to when the fast track in middle school is based on math.