St. Stephen's Lutheran School

I have had a child at this school from Kindergarten to 3rd grade and each semester, I make it a point to introduce myself to each instructor and make sure that they are comfortable and open enough to discuss my child with me. Kindergarten, I found to be nothing more than preschool in which the children were supervised, but not challenged or taught a curriculum that would prepare them to advance to 1st grade. When my child entered 1st grade, the students were given placement exams to see what they could comprehend and majority of the class placed below grade level because the teachers didn't have a plan to teach, they continued to babysit them and group them together rather than walk around and give them attention. In 2nd grade, They started the I-Ready assessments and things actually got worse. I had a conference with my child's teacher and she gave me permission to record it and she said that even she didn't understand the testing and that I shouldn't put so much into it. I was appalled. She said they give Ipads to our 7year olds, and the Ipad reads the questions to the kids and the kids are supposed to choose the answer, even though they can't read. She said that Teachers are not allowed by state regulations to help the students when they are taking the I-ready exams. How absurd is this? They actually score our children and put that number in their files to determine their competency. Now we are in 3rd grade, my kid is coming home with graded homework and its all 100's and 99's and smiley faces, and when I asked my child to read to me what they wrote, they couldn't even read what they wrote. I had a conference with the teacher and she told me, on record, that the state just has them read the curriculum and write it on the board and our children basically trace the answers that the teacher writes on the board. Its truly no wonder that this school is the lowest performing school in our district. The staff care more about what the Princpal and the state are directing them to do, than they do actually upholding what makes teaching such a valuable and critically important role in our education system. They are not teaching at this school. They do not go around to each child and make sure they are comprehending what they are writing and it seems that this generation of educators are okay with doing the bare minimum to get a paycheck and have a career title. In closing, all of this is a reflection of the leadership of the school. IE the Principal

Saint Stephens High School is an amazing school. Everyone in the school is very nice and respectful of the other people around them. There is something there for every student to get involved in.

This school is not a good school for special needs children. My son had been in special education since first grade and every IEP meeting I was told everything was great. As he got older he stopped wanting to go to school and started missing a lot of days. He was labeled with an attendance issue and without modification was failing most classes. Still, every meeting, I was told by his teachers and the powers that be that everything was great and he was doing fine. Toward the end of 5th grade we moved to city schools and his personality completely changed. His attitude towards school completely changed. It turned out that while at Snow Creek he was being bullied and nothing was being done. The teachers and IEP team weren't telling me anything and he was afraid to. I have two other children that went through this school, they said that bullying is a big issue at this school. My child has only been in city school district for a short time and is already being evaluated for autism. Despite being asked about it at every meeting an evaluation was never brought up or offered.Snow Creek is only a good school if your child does not have special needs, has a strong personality, can advocate for themselves, has something to offer, or if you as the parent has something to offer. If you don't fall into any of those categories and have any other options? Choose any of those.