Springdale Junior-Senior High School

Acmetonia Elementary School has made many excellent upgrades like a new band/chorus addition and the newer addition for 4,5,6th students. The staff are creative and offer additional assistance for children who display a slower learning pace. The district keeps the school well supplied with learning supplies and equipment. Security at the school is better than 10 years ago and all access doors are always locked BUT would it would be desirable to have a full time armed guard at EACH school location in the AVSD district. All in all, this is a school that offers an exciting learning concept and excellent student/teacher ratios.

My intelligent son with sensory processing issues was treated like a second class citizen at Martin School. He was poked in the arm & shoulder multiple times while being screamed at, only inches away, by his primary teacher. I learned of this through classmates of his, he was afraid to tell. Refused to review kids for IEP's. 90% of recesses missed for punishments. My son had therapy for school anxiety. His therapists wanted me to press legal action, but instead I put my son in a different school & he immediately thrived! My intelligent daughter wears hearing aids and Martin School refused to provide any kind of assistance to her. When she switched schools with her brother, the new school immediately gave her an IEP, including an FM system to use in class. Her information processing during class rose to 98% from 48%!!! My stomach aches for all of the children missing out on assistance that Martin legally has an obligation to provide!

Compared to the other schools in the New Ken Arnold district this is a way better choice if you can afford to send your child to a private school. We, as a family, give up a lot to send our daughter here because we feel it is worth it. Our first day at Martin School, the public school of New Kensington, for pre school and before we got to the front door a mother was swearing up and down at her three little kids and the youngest wasn't even old enough to go to school. Her words were worse than what you would hear in a prison and I am sure that is where many of the kids will end up with mothers like that. Hence the reason to send our daughter to MQA.