Watertown Middle School

This has been the worst experience for my family moving to Watertown with a middle school student. This admin and staff do not care one bit about the students their safety of well-being. TheY call every interaction between students “incidents” and give no opportunity for learning or growth. There are fights and racism and I am genuinely concerned for my child’s safety every second he is in that building. There is no diversity in the staff and they do offer a nurturing environment for you g adults to burgeon into great members of community. They are breeding more bitter kids to match the miserable administration. I wish I knew this before moving here my son was happy at his old school and never had a problem. Just know your kids will never have a chance to learn interpersonal skills in Watertown.

It's at the Watertown Middle School where you really start to notice just how substandard the public schools in Watertown really are. Students are not challenged, the parent community is very lackluster, and there are a number of lousy teachers at this school. The one department that really needs improvement is the Math Department. My kids suffered through a Math teacher that spent more time focused on baseball than teaching the Math curriculum . Absolutely pathetic. If your child is heading into WMS be sure to inquire about their teachers. Not at all uncommon for teachers to end the year not having taught the full years curriculum . During my kids time at WMS we saw so many families leaving the district for either private schools or completely moving out of Watertown into a town with far better public schools. I don't see the schools improving any time soon.One other big concern for us was the amount of racism and bullying that occurs. Very sad and troubling.

The school lacks academic leadership. This has been a long term issue. The new principal comes in with a humanities background and a lack of commitment to STEM, based on multiple conversations with her. The school shortchanges both its underperforming students and its gifted students, with an over-emphasis on generic teamwork experiences in math, science, and humanities classes. Plus, no leader has emerged for math nor for science in the school. There's a reason why the STEM scores continue to lag, with no improvement in sight.

I would give the school a C. Not much available for students that are motivated and need more. Lots of A's & B's given out and not necessarily earned. Students seem to lag behind in academics compared to other public middle schools. By 8th Grade there are a number of top students that either move out of the district into better schools for high school or look to attend private.

Terrible. Apathy at the district level. Concepts taught in elementary school are the focus of a 6th grade curriculum. Advanced students paired with disinterested underachievers and chastised for 'working ahead'. That is why people move out of this district. When you see how much better others are, it reinforces the level of apathy in this district.