St Marys School

1) How they treat kids with disabilities is completely unacceptable. I could write a book on this, but I won’t. 2) Parents are constantly asked for money but you are not included in anything unless you are part of the “clique.”3) Communication is severely lacking.

My daughter experienced multiple schools in her early childhood due to Job relocation. N.O. Nelson Elementary is one of the best schools, where all kids have equal attention and opportunity to excel and learn. I reckon it deserves more than an 8 out of 10 rating in all the parameters.Great Teachers & Staff!!

The teachers, for the most part, are really unfriendly here, except for a few exceptional ones. They don't go the extra mile to help students who are struggling on some material to round them out before moving on, or offer opportunity to correct/learn for the mistakes for some half credit to help redeem the situation. One teacher personally admitted they cram several subjects in just to make it all work administratively, forget what it means to a child trying to learn a lot of material that just thrown at them so the teacher can say they covered it. There is a lot of homework assigned in several of the grades/teachers while some other grades/teachers have little to none. Very inconsistent homework policy here. For the grades that load up the homework - typically 3 to 5 subjects of homework every night so expect at least 2 to 4 hours of homework every day with the average leaning more towards the 3 hours mark. Don't be sick day or you'll be buried in homework. Paper Tests galore like its the 90's - they have no creativity to evaluate the students here outside of an examination. There is no science fair here. Band - some of the teachers are talking bad things about the band staff and being very difficult with them to get a concert which is killing off this art form at the school. Seriously - they can't even get along with each other here and are way too tight on things that have nothing to do with anything. The teamwork that the teachers want to have with parents in the learning process is very lacking to non-existent (except those exceptional few teachers). Want to send questions and clarifications to a teacher about a newsletter's content or an assignment several times a week - they get angry you are contacting them too much and see it as a threat to their teaching skill! This school likes to dish out detentions and suspensions like no other instead of taking a more counseling/guiding approach to help the child grow from the situation and working with the parents to aid in that growth. They can't find it in their hearts to be different than an average public school in helping a child change their direction or actions (should it have truly been a wrong action), but default to seek punishment as the sole answer. Sports is King here. The principal doesn't run the show there and must get validation from others, so don't expect him to stand up for anything/decision on his own. Not a great place once the onion layers are peeled. God bless them