Lancaster Middle School

LMS has lots of opportunities for kids. Teachers are dedicated. Lots of community support.

The district is awful. I am a graduate of Lancaster and regret purchasing our home here and sending the kids to Lancaster. The district wants to look great on paper. The teachers have no control over the students.

I'm finally leaving the district this year to go to private high school and I'm so happy I'm leaving. Most teachers are very nice and interactive, but there's just too many bad ones. My Spanish teacher didn't even teach us, she just gave us worksheets every single day. And I'm not even kidding when I say she literally had us do nothing but flash cards for an entire week. And if you missed a day for anything from vacation to a funeral, she wouldn't even give you the work you missed. I missed the day we received the flash cards because I had a dentist appointment, and she wouldn't give them to me, so I had to just sit there and listen for a week straight. And then of course I did horribly on the test. When we were taking the Spanish final exam, they put over 500 kids on one website server to take a test. And obviously It didn't work, so we all had to write a couple sentences in Spanish and that was our entire exam. The curriculum is horrible, especially for ELA, regents math, and regents science. The teachers are doing the best they can, but are left with no choice but to teach us how to do good on the state and regents exams instead of actually teaching us how to use this knowledge in our daily lives to become better, smarter people. Plus the class sizes are WAY too big. I had 27 students in my science last year... 4 or 5 kids couldn't even see the board good because the class was so packed. And the temperature difference makes it really uncomfortable to learn. Rooms that face the sun end up being so hot that you can't even focus on your work because you're sweating and thirsty. The cafeteria where we also have to take exams in is always freezing cold. Gym class is just horrible, the school is way too big (3 floors), the fact that it's old doesn't help, and overall it's just not a good school.

Very well- organized, great school. The teachers are fantastic and have the nicest personalities. The staff and teachers are always helpful and friendly. Academically, there is extra help for the students and the teachers go above and beyond with any assistance in that area and any other issues.

Overall pretty good. The building is quite old and outdated and even smells in some halls. Academics are run of the mill as most other middle schools tend to be, but most of the faculty is very good and interact well with the kids. The administration is a bit "old school" but are generally very supportive of the teachers and hold high expectations for the students. I do agree that the building is quite crowded. The district and area needs to look at alternatives besides these massive student populations that Lancaster has.