Spotswood Elementary School

The school has been amazing to work with. We've been through learning disabilities, speech therapy, dealing with bullying, and dealing with mental health issues, and through it all the school has been amazingly supportive and willing to work with us to find a lasting solution. The diversity is amazing, and test scores can't effectively measure the learning my children are doing in terms of what it means to be a citizen in a diverse world. I can't imagine sending my kids to any other elementary school, period.

Our personal experience with Spotswood Elementary has been wonderful. The teachers, staff, Principal, Vice Principal are supportive, welcoming and always eager and willing to help out. Their library is a great, colorful, open space for kids to read and study in. The cafeteria is a fun place to meet up with your child for lunch. My child loved when I would visit along with her baby brother. The building has been well designed. My child went to first and second grades at Spotswood and left with fond memories of her teachers and friends. She was among the first batch of first graders at the newly built school (2008-09).

This school is home to a culturally and linguistically diverse population of students requiring a community to come together in an effort to provide the foundation for a successful life. In addition, the school works within the community to balance and provide for the socioeconomic need of the the students and their families. The staff members at this school work diligently to provide an education to each student who walks into the building and embrace the unique educational challenges provided by the population. Encouraging social skill development, arts appreciation, academic development, healthy lifestyles, and an appreciation and respect for diversity, this school works hard to build a solid foundation for the future of its students.

This school has a big heart & a true desire to succeed, however they are not fully equipped to do this. There are, what I am told by administration, more than 20 languages spoken in our school and yet there are few who can speak even the most common second languages. The classrooms can be chaotic due to the simplest instructions not being understood because the "No Child Left Behind" initiative simply tosses the children into an English speaking world an says learn it. That is not fully possible. Learning English is hard enough, but when they are supposed to learn a curriculum and the language, neither is accomplished well as the SOLs show. The teachers do not have enough resources to bridge the language gaps as few speak second languages. I will reiterate that this school has a HUGE HEART, but needs more tools and teachers to accomplish education on either side of the English language well.