Pickard Elementary School

Finkl is a bit of a mixed bag. on one hand, the educational environment is pretty strong. the teachers are genuinely nice and clearly love what they do, which makes the students actually excited to learn. while there are a couple of teachers that were truly bad, the vast majority of the staff is supportive. the school also does a decent job with special education support and is very good at engaging with families, they really make an effort to include parents in the community. however, there are GINORMOUS issues with the administration that impact the schools safety and culture. during my time there, i found the social emotional support to be very poor, more importantly, there is a serious lack of fairness from the principal and assistant principal, and i truly mean it, i was at that school for a long time and by far the current AP and Principal are genuinely THE worst people in that school, they are comparable to that of a dictator. now with the fairness, there appears to be a heavy bias in how discipline is handled. any race other than african americans recieve a slap on a wrist for doing anything wrong, while other races face heavy punishment for similar or lesser infractions. because of this administrative bias and the inconsistent environment it creates, this school will continue being a mid place with the only the staff being the good part.

My child is in her second year in the school. She has loved her teachers and they do a lot of social emotional learning as well as academics. The school has many cultural events. Most of the students are Mexican American and my kid loves those events. Because she's not Mexican, they also accomodate her to observe and teach about our cultural customs. The Special Education is especially strong. Many surrounding schools push out disabled students to raise test scores. But Telpochcalli accepts all students and supports them. The curriculum is not only about academics, but helps students feel love and support for themselves and others with disabilities. The multilingual program is strong. It starts from Pre-K but you can enter at any time and they have special classes to catch you up if your kid is coming from a monolingual schools.

This school showed me a lot of values and a lot of responsibilities there might be people who cant used to an environment where there supposedly missed treating their child when nobody is the staff is basically the best and the overall school also the passion for things exists here best program to say to have is the boy's soccer team is the best in the network and the best for discipline and overall show yu the passion for the sport and academics there a lot of responsibilities and the kid is taught good enough to be independent later on

"It’s a school that does nothing in situations involving bullying. Good teachers, but a terrible principal."

The entire staff works to make sure everyone feels welcome at Ruiz!