Muscatine High School

Muscatine High School has done a great job evolving over the last several years to meet the needs of its students and the community. This is evident in programs like "Portrait of a Muskie Graduate," which helps students find their path to prepare for life after high school. The shift allows for students to 'change tracks' easier without fear of falling behind and ensures they're able to graduate. The MHS staff are dedicated, caring, and compassionate. The recent additions of the STEM wing and student center prove an ongoing investment. Muscatine is a one high school town, and I'm grateful for having MHS.

The principal of Muscatine High School is a joke. They have on numerous occasions hired friends and family that are less qualified for positions over experienced and higher qualified teacher with a great track record from other schools. In this school district which is terrible, I would think that they would want to work on improving rather than tearing it down further. I have moved away to Le Clair as their schools are amazing and get a 9/10 score compared to the Muscatine 2/10 score! The property may be more expensive, but my children are worth it.

Parts of the science department at the high school are atrocious. Honors classes with the purpose of preparing students for AP classes have been cut. Instead, the school strives for skewed growth with the number of AP classes it provides. While this increases the difficulty of classes at MHS, by no means does it better the education the student receives. This can especially be seen by some of the AP science teachers at the high school. My child is expected to self teach themselves the material. All the teacher simply does is grade tests and quizzes and tells the students which principles to google and read in their books. When my child asks for help from the teacher, it is of little help at all. At this point I'd seriously consider transferring your child to a more reputable school.

I graduated from Muscatine High School with a high cumulative GPA. I took many classes at Muscatine Community College through the guidance of counselor Karey Hawkins, she is wonderful. I can not express how much I wish my parents would have put me in a better school district. The experiences I had with Karey Hawkins and MCC were the only positive experiences I can recall. Muscatine is an extremely weak school district and I will never allow my future children to be put in to it. While I am aware that there are good and bad teachers everywhere, the concentration of weak teachers within this district is extremely high. My parents moved my little brother to a new school district because of the many bad experiences I had in Muscatine.

Despite complaints made against unsatisfactory teachers we have failed to see any change made to staff. My child saw his marks drop in his English (a class my child passed with very high grades in the past) class simply because of the irresponsible and unprofessional actions of the teacher such as losing assignments and acting in a very condescending manner when addressing students. The teacher even went on to blame the lost assignment on me and made several remarks in snark. I give Muscatine High School a 1/5