The Agnes Irwin School

I have wanted to write this review for a long time. SAA was perfect for our son and our family. When you send a child to school during this time in history, SAA gave us peace of mind. This school produced a young man well on his way on the path of life. He is our third child and our first boy. SAA provided both education for his studies as well as social guidelines for life that we value and see our son exhibit time and time again. This school was the right choice. They tolerate the learning curve of boys but hold them accountable and have shown such basic love and kindness to the boys that I now understand why as we have seen alumni return to this little school time and time again through our years here. Sister Margaret weathered the storm of Covid very well and her level of communication has made her feel like family. She is very passionate about this school and it shows. All of our sons teachers here have had a positive impact upon our son and he will feel their impact for years to come. This school is small but as we hear other families’ stories of other schools we believe this was the best school for our son. Sports outside of school was a norm for us as well as his larger music world. They were current with technology use and were ahead of everyone when it began. Their robot team won awards and their football team is well known. We had three other boys who played hockey with our son in the school but we did not have a team unfortunately. We truly love this school and we highly recommend it for the development of young men especially during these challenging times in the world. We feel very fortunate that we had this school available for our son.

Terrible leadership… the head of school, middle and elementary school leadership show an incredible amount of mismanagement. The teacher turnover is completely out of control leading to hiring of inexperienced teachers who stay 1 year (or less). Favoritism is given to students and families of donors and board members. The priority here is to the almighty dollar. The head of school is outright dismissive and condescending to families that aren’t large donors and just pay tuition. Don’t get me started on how they treat the families receiving financial aid! Not a very Christian philosophy if you ask me. Starting in kindergarten the children are given way to much homework. Much of the classwork given in lower years is busy work, worksheets photocopied from antiquated workbooks. They give the same work week after week with different vocabulary words. The is nothing innovative here. There are so many better options in the area.

My child is 2e and profoundly gifted and is absolutely thriving at The Grayson School. My child has been there for several years, has many valuable friendships, is safe, supported and is excelling academically. Any issues we have had have been minor and addressed immediately. The administration has been supportive, knowledgeable, and extremely approachable. We would be lost without this school.