Dare Elementary School

Mount Vernon is an outstanding elementary school in the Tabb area of York County. The brand new principal who started during the 2024/2025 academic year is an excellent communicator and is highly visible in school. She is approachable, smart, and an asset to the school. The principal and vice principal together gifted brand new copies of the book “Wild Robot” to each Mount Vernon family, and the entire school began the academic year reading the book together over the course of a month, culminating in seeing the movie together. The PTA is outstanding- the leadership plans many events to involve parents in different aspects of the school- Helping Hands, Multiplication Madness, Trunk or Treat, Soup Luncheon for teachers and staff, Art in a Suitcase, winter holiday luncheon for parents and students, Wild Bingo, etc. The PTA initiative called “Multiplication Madness” was to get 3rd and 4th graders up to speed on all their multiplication facts. This was a fantastic idea by the PTA president. There was also a fun after school event called “Glow Bowl” coordinated by the PE Teacher. The teacher we had for the 2024/2025 school year was excellent and consistently showed up to teach. It’s amazing how much material the teacher and students cover in one academic year. The teachers are encouraging, kind, and priceless. Parents are involved at Mount Vernon. The morning pick up and afternoon drop off run very smoothly. The front office is efficient. Nice club offerings- yoga, chorus, drama, gardening, lego, First lego league, morning broadcasting, etc. The Odyssey of the Mind team seems to be very successful.Room for improvement:Less junk food in classrooms and cafeteriaMore outdoor recessDoesn’t seem to offer foreign languageNot a fan of 1:1 Chromebooks that 4th graders are required to bring home each night and take back to school each morning. Not a fan of so much screen time for elementary students during school hours, but that seems to be a YCSD policySo many quizzes & tests for 4th graders- it is a bit shocking- that might be a YCSD policy- not sureMaybe not the best school if your child loves the visual arts- you might want outside enrichment for thatIf you have a chance to live in this school zone, then you’ll be glad.

I would never recommend this school to family or friends only because of the attitude of the owner who has no business leading a children’s program. If you are looking merely for a preppy “bougy” program and don’t care about the perspective of the mgt. towards children then this is the place for you. But, if you care about more than that I’d recommend many other programs. Our child was asked to leave after 2 years at the daycare so this was, in our thoughts, a way to push out a child to make room for someone the owner needed a spot for in their program.