South Mountain Elementary School

Having just moved here from out of state, I have been doing some research on area schools. This school seems amazing! I attended their End of Year Awards Ceremony last week and was thoroughly impressed with the achievements at each grade level. They have taught 3 year old's a lot of information in just 1 year. They had kids 3 years old reading and putting together a sentence! They knew information on our solar system including planets, the sun, the moon and which ones revolve around each other. The kindergarten kids were reading paragraphs, without ever having practiced that particular text before, those same kindergarten kids were reading spanish as well! They could also do simple addition and subtraction. The 1st and 2nd graders had memorized somewhere around 35 bible verses (though the bible verses may not be too important to you, it was quite an impressive feat to hear them rattle off each one of them when given only the reference)! The 3rd and 4th graders, from what I understand, learned 2 digit multiplication and long division as well as in depth social studies and science. Apparently they also spent a good amount of time (extra time not class time) learning/practicing advanced techniques on dealing with people. ie team work, forgiveness, awareness and understanding. Those types of things. I thought that was a really neat thing to have them work on and for there to be an emphasis placed on since I know throughout my adult life I have run across/had to work with plenty of people that were completely void of any social skills. Overall I was extremely impressed with the results of one year of schooling, plus their tuition is the least expensive for a private school around this entire area. This is definitely a school that has moved up on my list and I will absolutely heavily consider enrolling both of my young ones. - Tiffany M.