David Ellis Academy

I love the atmosphere for my daughter. The whole staff from Ms. White and Ms.Beard are so amazing ,passionate and encouraging.

The teachers here are very disrespectful and sometimes even put there hands on the kids. One day a teacher pulled a students chair and made them fall out, rarely get homework, way to many breaks for unnecessary reason, they have a therapist but they don't keep up with weekly schedule and forget about it. Don't bring your kids here, just send them to Bates or anywhere else. Teachers even curse at students.

The school overall is awesome, the principal and assistant principal are awesome and the teachers are about there students

My 2/½ years there for kindergarten to 2 second was the best years I've had from every school I've been to I'm now going to 6th grade

It is extremely hard to communicate with teachers. My kid has been at this school for 5 years and over the 5 yrs only 2 teachers have communicated properly & that is the 4th/5th grade teachers Mrs.Williams & Mrs.Lewis. Also I can honestly say the principal Mr.Baily is very supportive of parents, students & teachers. He is very hands on and communicates well.

My son has attended this school since pre-k and is now in third grade, a straight A student and loves to learn but this school has downgraded drastically since my daughter attended. They have had 3 principals in the time period that my son has attended, the office staff is rude (I've never had a good experience with anyone in the office although Ive rarely had to go into the office) which is quite disturbing because if their attitudes are that bad dealing with parents then I question how they are with our kids. They do not work hand in hand with the parents and as a matter of fact the ONLY way to get a real response from the the principal is to tag the board of education in the email which is extremely sad. The school implemented a new pickup in 2025-2026 school year, where you have to give a number to have your child released which isn't a problem except for the parents having to stand outside in all increments of weather. Several parents have offered suggestions including but not limited to having us stand in the gym or lunchroom when its raining, snowing or the weather is just too bad but we were informed by the Principal but also A P. Sims that we will have to follow these same procedures when the weather changes as well. So from what I see and have experienced they DO NOT take parent recommendations on making this a smoother process. As far as the language part my son has just started learning Spanish this year consistently since kindergarten when his teacher passed away on break. Japanese, French and Chinese are amazing though but Spanish got lost for many years. I've even overheard teachers talking about how the culture of the languages (mainly Spanish) got lost over the years and Woodley doesnt show too much interest in bringing it back. Last but definitely not least parents would step up more if the school would stop dismissing any and all parent suggestions because it makes a lot of parents not even want to assist due to staff always pushing back especially when we are supposed to be working together for the betterment of our kids future. This will be my son's last year at this chaotic school.