Prairie Star Elementary School

Staff goes above and beyond. Great small neighborhood school. Excellent leadership. Blue Valley School District.

Best choice we ever made! Our son was attending a private school (where we paid a large "tuition") but still had to take him an hour a day over to MTE for extra help. Private school was really dropping the ball in many ways, including knowing my childs name and or me, even though I was there all the time helping out. It sounds silly, but it does make you question if your kids okay when the majority do not even know him. I noticed that nearly everyone knew him at MTE, kids and staff, people who never really came into significant contact with him, knew his name, stopped and talked to me about him or just to say hi. 5 hours a week at MTE and it felt more like home, a true safe place compared to the private school that has plenty of resources but needed to send him to a whole other school for adequate help with speech and reading. Well covid happened and school ended March of 1st grade, I had already been questioning where he fit best and I saw this as a sign it was time to go. The private school really sealed the deal while figuring out Covid and virtual schooling, I ran very quickly to MTE who welcomed us with open arms. We did virtual for all of second grade and it was a great experience and I have learned since that it was 100% because of the MTE Principal Mrs. Bond and all the staff. They are amazing and truly want to be there, the support, love and sense of belonging this place offers is a dream. Nothing is perfect anywhere but on everything I swear this place is as close as it gets! I have 3 kids all very spaced apart and all attended different types of schools public and private on both sides of the state line. So I speak from experience, if I could go back I would have them all attend MTE.

Unfortunately, we had a very poor experience. (I usually don't write reviews, but I thought I needed to share). Some teachers were really great, but overall, it was not somewhere I felt comfortable leaving my kids and we left after a few months of really trying to make it work. At drop off, no teacher would engage with the kids, I had to leave my child crying on the floor by himself while the teacher just stood at the front. (This happen everyday. Even on the first day, no one even cared he was starting a new school) This teacher never interacted with the kids in the morning or evening, she also would snap at kids. They said the ratios would be 7:1, it was 11-13 to 1 most mornings (I was not there during the day, so I don't know). During outside time, most all teachers would just sit in the shade, no interaction with kids. (Again, a few really good teacher would play, but they could not be with all of the kids, Many board kids). This are some of the main issues, but they also lied about food. I saw them serve breakfast and snacks, and the food they put in my "note" was different from what they served during the day. They said the kids had a low sugar food in my daily report, but it was really a very high sugar food when I was there in the morning and at snack. This did not happen all of the time, but enough where I did not trust the report. Etc, etc, etc . . . (end of 2019- early 2020, we left)