Eno Valley Elementary

Hillandale is a richly diverse community school with a long tradition of excellence. The school and broader parent communities feel like a family. Teachers are dedicated, creative, and care deeply for our children. The school represents the community and is rooted in equity and respect.

Our family has had an outstanding experience at Holt the past 6 years with our oldest two children. We hope to be at Holt for the next 8 years until our younger two children have completed each grade. The leadership, Donya Jones and the assistant principals, are all outstanding and responsive. They are on top of issues as much as they can be and keep things positive. There is a huge range of where students are academically, but the school does a lot of differentiating so that kids get AIG services, ESL services, and remediation all within the school day.

We have two daughters who attend Little River. One is receiving speech services there (and has since she became eligible at 3). We looked at all of the different school options before starting there and actually got into one of the magnet schools. However, we decided to stay with our "neighborhood school," and we are so glad we did. Our experience has been extremely positive, from the quality of staff and teachers to logistics and communication. We also wanted an environment that brought together all different kinds of students and families, and Little River really does. Our girls are very different and each one is being well served academically and both are definitely being cared for -- it is truly a supportive and caring environment. The assistant principal and his daughter even started a fun and thoughtful Youtube show to keep the students engaged during the pandemic (and we are so happy it is continuing). The staff and teachers always seem to go above and beyond their call of duty. We feel that there are many great options in DPS, and Little River is definitely one of them!

I don’t want to pull the race card but I feel like it’s been an issue with me being Hispanic. I can’t speak very well English but I try my best to understand especially when it comes to my kids. I have explained my situation that I don’t have a car to pick up my kid so I take the bus and I come walking to pick her up, we don’t live far but it is a long walk to get to the school. When I came on the first day to the front office to pick up my kid, I see that the receptionist was talking nicely to the black lady that was in front of me, as soon as it was my turn, her tone of voice changed and attitude was different, I felt it because I was expecting a good welcome, instead I deal with something else, I asked for my kid and she said “you didn’t come to the open house?” “Yes I did, but my English is not good and I could only understand what I could” I asked for an interpreter and she try her best to explain too. From that day it’s been a lot of back and forth with picking up my kid, I’ve seen other parents parking where they’re not supposed to and I try to follow to the rules but again it’s a hard to understand when the staff doesn’t do a good job explaining let alone understanding. Last time, I was able to bring my work vehicle to pick her up but because I wasn’t parked at the right spot, they pulled my kid away from me and they told me to go in the front to pick her up, even though I was told to pick her up at the back of the school. That is where I’m asking which way am I supposed to pick my kid up? There’s a lot of miscommunication and the lack of teamwork and I don’t think that’s a good example to give to kids. I hope this is not how the staff treats the kids.