Bell Creek Middle

I have my second child now in this school. We are in the third week and my child has already been assigned 2 time consuming projects (not including the Science project they have to do every year). It appears to me that some teachers seem to assign a lot of projects, so they do not have to teach. When they claim that they will have time in school to work on them, that is usually not the case. Most of these projects take up a lot of family time at home, and not to mention the money that parents have to constantly have to put out for them. Our children should not have to go to school all day and spend the rest of their evening, as well as the weekends working on school work. There are few teachers that can manage to teach within their classrooms and give a reasonable amount of homework, while others seem to want to send work home for the parents to help deal with. If you can not do your job, then find another career. We should not have to do your job for you! For the parents and students, plan on not having much of a life outside of school from September to June. I am so glad to have one child out of this school and I look forward to the day when my other child is out of there.

My daughter has just finished 3 years at SJMS. While she has encountered some GREAT teachers along the way she has also encountered a majority of the teaching staff that seemed a bit more interested in just how popular they are than teaching school. There are some older tenured teachers there collecting paychecks and that's about it! Communication is great with some teachers are very poor with others. The rules regarding the dress codes are not enforced for all fairly. The behavioral issues are the same - enforced for some and not others. The office staff is one of the rudest group of women that I have yet to encounter in a public school system. The TeacherEase and BlackBoard tools are not used regularly by all teachers. Whilst the Principal is a very nice lady I do not believe she has much structure in place nor does she have a staff that respects her. I am glad that these three years are over!

My child just completed three years at SJMS, after years in private school. The transition was at times challenging, but I feel the administration and staff were wonderful. The teachers were caring and seemed invested in helping him live up to his potential. Most went over and beyond the call of duty. The only negative experience I had was with the teacher who is in charge of the homework club, she seemed annoyed by the students. SJMS has the hardest working principal around. She was always responsive and helpful whenever I contacted her. She attended many after school activities. More than once, I have seen her carrying an umbrella walking students to the car line. I found her consistently competent, responsive, kind, and pragmatic. My experience with the other administrators, including Ms. Pike was very good. I was always impressed at how the staff knew most t students by name and even many of the parents. I could not have asked for better teachers; they were terrific. Tina Miller in the office is a great resource with a friendly, professional and calming style. Every staff person who was a constant in my child's life was excellent.

I have attended my sixth grade in SJMS last year. Some of the teachers were very strict and gave us work to do without directions or explanation, and some of the other teachers were amazing. It is very old and run down, and has some issues with crowding. Another issue is that the education opportunities are very scarce. The only advanced class they offered was in math, and it also offered a GT class, but the GT class would take up one of your electives. On the bright side, the gym teachers are great and offer many different sports. Also, SJ offers a great variety of electives from enviromental science, to art, and tokeyboarding. This school is very close knit and together. It;s like a family!(:

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