Grahamwood Elementary School

We have been a Grahamwood family 2nd-5th grades (2020 - 2024) grade and couldn't have been happier. Great teachers, great staff/admin and a wonderfully diverse student body.

The school is pretty good as far as Memphis public schools go but there are much better private options available. There is a lot of tension between the traditional and optional students and there is bullying by the traditional students. If you can’t home school or pay for private just make sure you are there as often as possible to keep an eye on how things are done.

The optional and clue program are amazing. My son is challenged and working far above grade level. We moved from private school and are very happy with the school.

We sent our daughter to Grahamwood for the Optional program for first grade. It was a terrible experience. The school didn’t seem to care about our child or our concerns as parents. Some specific examples that illustrate my point:The teacher held our daughter in the classroom late one day and she missed the bus - they left her there sitting alone and scared.Our daughter frequently told us stories of kids in her class screaming at the teacher and throwing things at the teacher and other kids. Things continued to escalate until I finally went to the office to meet with the principal to discuss my fears and concerns. He was out for several days, and the staff told me that he would have to deal with OTHER MORE IMPORTANT things before he could get back with me. Seriously?! They basically told me that my child or my concerns were not important. When we did meet with the principal he did t seem to take our concerns seriously. We pulled our daughter out and changed schools with five weeks left in the school year. It was that bad.

So this review may change but just putting it out there for anyone who may want to know what's tea. My daughter will be attending Grahamwood in August as a Kindergartener. She was in pre-k at a private school and it was a nice experience but I'm not paying $20k for kindergarten. Ever. But her experience there made me want to check out other options for schools instead of just sending her to the school she's zoned for (which is a nice school too by the way W.H. Brewster principal is so awesome there).Well anyway I'm looking around I decided to visit Grahamwood because I love the Summer/Berclair neighborhood because it's just so diverse. And that's something I wanted for my daughter. And Grahamwood definitely has diversity and I don't think some people realize how important that is for life in general. It's just altogether expansive to know people from different races, cultures, countries, economic backgrounds. All of that. So that's one plus. Second from my tour I could tell that the staff and administration really cared about and knew the kids. And as a single parent I always want my daughter to be places where she's known and accepted and not just tolerated. I also liked that the person who gave me the tour said their child attends the school too. And that really says a lot because if you work for a public school system and your kids go to private school makes you wonder....I liked that they have a "Calm Down Room" so that's where they send the kids when they start having tantrums instead of sending them to the principals office because "they understand little kids have big feelings they can't process yet". And my daughter definitely has those emotions so I felt relieved to know she'd be worked with instead of punished.I also like that the PTO is very active. So yes I'm very excited about the upcoming school year so I'll update this when I can