Pierce Middle School

Schoolcraft is amazing. My daughter has some behavior challenges and they are very supportive, they have high expectations but help the students excel. The environment is always welcoming and positive even when my child has had a rough day.

I strongly recommend this school to any parent who has a child who struggles with reading. The extra one on one time that my son received when he was behind in reading was amazing. His reading level doubled in 3 months!

This has been a great school for our kids and entire family. My children’s are excelling academically and emotionally. The community is amazing and welcoming. We couldn’t ask for a better school!

Yes, Montessori schools are great in general. However, this one does not measure up. The middle school teachers here are not even certified to be teaching Montessori and are not always treated appropriately by the administration. We have had a few teachers quit because their level of pay did not reflect the amount of work they were tasked with handling (Some have to create their own curriculum). We have gone through so many teachers throughout these last couple of years and for some reason, we can't manage to hold janitors. The school does not have adequate funding for all its necessities (half the rooms are poorly insulated and do not get warm in the winter). We don't have a counselor for the middle school and students do not receive specific mental health services unless they have accomodations. Recently the school did try to implement a "Mental Health Day" into its schedule but that was completely ridiculous. It was just a normal day of school but filling out different worksheets and assignments about depression, anxiety, or whatever else. Maybe that day was fine for learning about mental health, but it did nothing to help the current state of students' mental health. Also, the school has fake recycling bins around the school. All the paper that gets put into those bins just gets dumped into the dumpster with the rest of the trash. Although, I can confirm the academics here are not terrible. In most classes students will learn what they need for the state tests and whatnot. But the students here are definitely NOT excited about what they're learning. But I guess it is hard to make students exciting about writing tone analyses and doing math homework. The student community here is not completely supportive or kind. You can make friends of course, but I can't guarantee anyone who is not your friend will treat you favorably. There are unkind students, and although the school will tell you there is zero tolerance for bullying, that is not true. It could most likely be that most negative interactions between students go unreported, but even when teachers notice it the worst they do is give the perpetrator a warning or scold them, which never puts an end to the behavior and does nothing but create grudges between students, so I would say there is definitely tolerance. Overall, this school should be your last choice. I've never heard anyone here say "I love this school!" in a non-sarcastic tone. It's only good for decent academics.

Truly disappointed with our two years at Oakdale Academy both academically and how our son was treated. I think anyone would be better off academically in public school. If your student is above average it really isn’t worth attending Oakdale. There was a challenging amount of busy work, at least two hours of homework each day, but it wasn’t academically rigorous. And even then I would often have to teach the topic first, making it seem like I was paying a lot for what was effectively home schooling. We discovered our student was being disciplined but without being notified of this. Then when we inquired about this disciplinary action it was denied by the administration. So there was an intentional lie of omission and then another lie denying it. All of this was attempted to be done in a very sly manner. It was extremely disappointing to discover this un-Christian behavior.I will say that the students were wonderful but think they would all be much better off at another school.