Lionsgate Academy is a great school for special needs children. My son is at Lynx, which is their…read moreLevel 4 programming. My son had a hard time adjusting to his new school setting. They were patient and continue working with him. He has been here 4 months now and is excelling. Grateful for the excellent staff!!!

Granted, COVID has brought challenges to us all. However, for a school that is supposedly working…read morewith students with special needs of all kinds, greater creativity and flexibility is expected. Lionsgate has chosen a distance-learning model only, at a time when districts have been given a choice to offer more. This excludes children like our son, who needs in-person services. We have had to pull him out of Lionsgate for this reason. Top Administration at Lionsgate are not willing to be collaborative with parents nor accept our advocacy. They are defensive and evasive, lacking flexibility.

MPA was an amazing school to learn and grow up in. I was thoroughly prepared to be successful in…read morecollege and felt I had a huge advantage over other college students directly because of the experiences I was afforded at MPA. I am a Mexican American female and felt MPA was delighted to embrace my culture and encouraged me to embrace all of the things that made me an individual.

My two sons were in the Minneapolis Public School (MPS) system for all of elementary school and…read moremost of middle school. Then the pandemic, and MPS re-drew its attendance boundaries which would have forced them to go to different schools, and the bottom dropped out. We looked at MPA because we know families whose children have attended, and we also are friends with two of the faculty. MPA has been a beautiful gift to my two sons for their high school years: Outstanding teachers. Emphasis on a safe & supportive school culture. Excellent arts -- music, visual art, drama. Rigorous academics and high standards. Room for individuality and creativity. Our older son is in his first year of college now and is thriving. Thank you, MPA!

i wish i could give it 0 stars. i went here when i was…read moreyoung, i was treated so badly i had to switch schools. teachers treated me badly, when i was in kindergarten the teacher would yell at me for coloring outside of the lines!! the teachers would let the kids bully me and knew that i was bullied, even got punched in the face and nobody did anything about it, there were even witnesses! people told lies about me saying that i physically hurt them, i got in trouble but my mom told them to check the cameras, and of course they were lying, but when i came forward with being bullied even physically nobody did ANYTHING. i used to run out of class and hide because i was so scared of the teachers and students. the special education staff are AWFUL. i was having a breakdown, i am neurodivergent and my teacher at the time pulled out a damn ipad and started recording me. she threatened to send it to my mom if i didn't stop throwing a tantrum. they used to write lists of all the things i did. wrong in the day, including things like blurting, or talking too loud and would read it to me in-front of my parents at the end of the day. and the worst thing is it wasn't just me, every single neurodivergent person me and my family have met who also went to school there had similar experiences. i came home crying every day, i still experience PTSD from this school. please for the love of everything good do not send you're kids here if their disabled or neurodivergent!!!!!!!

Let me begin by saying that I have attempted College Algebra three times, and three times I have…read moredropped it out of sheer frustration, confusion, and hopelessness. If you are like me and feel like math is just something that you'll never "get", it is time to give Danielle a call. From the first time you meet with Danielle, it will be clear to you that you are not in for the usual math learning experience. She is cool, laid back and has a great sense of humor, which means everything to someone like me with major math anxiety. Furthermore, you will NEVER feel stupid working with Danielle; She is the poster child of patience, laughing it off, trying to explain it another way and helping you work through whatever mental roadblock you're hitting. If you had told me a few months ago that I would actually look FORWARD to learning math, I just couldn't have believed it, because I never even thought learning math was something I was capable of. But now? Working through problems all by myself while Danielle watches on and silently nods in approval. Getting 100% on EVERY homework assignment. No joke. Danielle has literally worked miracles for me. Oh, and did I mention how ridiculously affordable her services are? When I began searching for tutors, I was getting quotes in the $55-$65/hour range, and I actually contemplated it because, well, more money means they must be REALLY awesome, right? Don't be a sucker- Danielle is the best bang for your buck. I could go on forever singing her praises, because frankly, she deserves it and I just don't know where I would be without her. Actually, I do know- probably homeless under a bridge somewhere because I decided I would just never finish college because of the stupid math requirement. But seriously. If you, your kids, your brother or your dog* are looking for a math tutor, your search can just stop here. *She might not actually be able to tutor a dog. But really, how is your dog in school anyway?

So ... after all the years, I received my associates degree in Mathematics, Engineering and Natural…read moreScience. I credit Danielle with much of my success because she helped me develop study habits and thought processes that carried me through my undergraduate courses. I am transferring to UC Davis this fall and wish Danielle was closer. You are very lucky Kansas City.

My nephew attends this school, we would not recommend this school to anyone, especially to families…read morewith special needs. My nephew was evaluated last summer and was told he is on the spectrum. Finding this out my sister has asked since the beginning of the school year for him to be evaluated for an IEP/504 plan. She has been put off all year long until the deadline had passed to be evaluated and they wouldn't do one anymore. The staff is extremely unaccompanied to his special needs. So if you need help with any child with special needs we strongly suggest finding a different school.

Well i was a student here. it was good but it could've been better. The lunch? horrible. The…read moreteachers? depends. the principal? an asshole. but i do like the attention 5th graders get and was sad to leave.

This company has a great mission and what they do for individuals with special needs. I think they…read morehave a really great thing going, but they lack many things that this field has already advanced in. As well as being part of their management team, I experienced what was a very tight knit community amongst the management team. This can be helpful but in most cases this was not. I could not rely on the staffing coordinator/ HR, and experienced multiple levels of verbal, emotional and mental abuse over prolonged periods of time. The work environment for a staff member is just not well and I would not recommend working for such a company. This is a wonderful field to work in but if this is the first time you are working in this field, it can skew your perspective of it. I wish this company the best though and anyone else wishing to work in this field.

horrible management. No room to advance much. Jim and Brad are brothers in upper management and…read morethey are the worst. There's NO COMMUNICATION IN MANAGEMENT. Total disarray and they both are horrible with their employees. I worked here a year and the only positive was being with my clients.

This is an employee perspective:…read more I have worked for District 916 for about 2 years. I am getting ready to step my foot out the door and I just wanted to warn people that working for THIS school district is not worth it. District 916 is good for one thing and one thing only-- the experience of dealing with a diverse population of students who are from all walks of life and who posses all sorts of special needs. I think it should be known that District 916 is a very disorganized company. They treat most of their employees like disposable cups. There is a HUGE turn-over rate at this company and believe me, its NOT because of the students! How convenient is that for them to hide this turn-over rate behind the demands of these students! Its the management team and all the yucky gossip and divide between certified and non-certified staff ( [at least this was my experience, I'm sure different types of people contribute differently to each site- considering that there were quite a few sites. All sites had serious issues! Staff was never guaranteed to to come back the following year. I heard negative news about my site before I even started! ] certified= teachers, related services, admin, un-certified= Educational assistants and assistants of other specialties). The Admin team at my site, which was in their second year of running was terrible and stretched between three sites. We had administration about 2-3 times a month. Due to this lack of supervision, the certified staff thought it was in their right to take over and turn the program into their little personal project. A lot of the certified staff were new this year, so it doesn't make sense that a new, first-year employee would lead a program in it's second year of running. Anyway, this happened and the program was significantly different from the methods and trainings that were implemented throughout all 916 programs. I will also mention that a lot of he related services did not have their full degrees or training. There were a lot of newbies being plucked into the field early that were given personal opportunities (emphasis on personal and personal relationships! How unprofessional! You really can't make this stuff up!) to be certified staff until they got their certification. This district lacks structure, management and consistency throughout their scattered sites. Please, don't get yourself stuck here! The pay is terrible and definitely not worth your trips to the hospital for mental health!! This district is doing a huge disservice to the world of special needs and honestly, I hope someone shuts their organization down. They are spending $50,000/year per student to provide all these related services (mental health/psychologist, counselor, specialists, occupational Therapy.). Our related service staff sit in an office all day doing paperwork, chatting about their weekends and spreading gossip amongst each other. They will probably pull out students to actually work with them once or less a week. I am ashamed to say that I worked here for this long and attempted to give so much of my loyalty to them. I was not an employee who was constantly in trouble with administration or started crap with other employees. I worked hard every day preparing things for the kids, I worked with my staff and I tried to avoid all the poison that gets spit between the two battling sides. I kept my mouth shut and listened when people needed it but kept my nose out of the slew of junk that perpetuated. It was not until after I realized that I did not want to work in a school environment because I wanted to work in a hospital (and I started looking for better opportunities and came to put in my two weeks notice) that I started to hear the wrath of all the craziness in our small program, knocking at my door. I carry myself in a very professional way to work, every day and I know what belongs at work and what doesn't. I hold my jobs for years, if I can-- I'm a long-term junkie. I know what good management is because I have seen it with my own eyes and I have experienced it with my own being. Like everyone else, I like my reputation to be based on my hard work and the work that I do every single day I come to work. District 916 is not the place for you if you want that sort of peace of mind. Our t-shirt saying for this year is ALP (Alternative learning program) is the place to be! Next year, it should probably say WARNING: Enter at your own risk. Schools are usually a great place to work-- so please please please! Teachers and paras who are great and know their jobs: PLEASE! Don't be discouraged! Find a different district and spread your wealth there.