This school is terrible. Please, for the love of god, do not send your child here. Honestly, going in debt paying for private school is better than the psychological damage this school leaves on your whole family.
On the first day of sixth grade I was a happy child, always ready to learn. By the end of eighth grade I was a silent, "grey" kid, fading into the background, already ready to die. Everyone around me there was unhappy.
CLASS SIZES
There are class sizes ranging from about 29 to 42 students in a class. It isn't possible to every really meet your teacher at this school.
FOOD
They call the kitchen a "healthy" kitchen, but all they serve is greasy fast food. Adding a salad bar does not change the fact that the food is disgusting, especially when all the salad bar is is moldy bagels from breakfast the day before, limp green beans, and humus.
DISCIPLINE
There are no rules regarding discipline. There are official rules, but the faculty bases it off their own ideas. Sometimes you will be sent to detention without being given a reason simply because the teacher is in a bad mood today and you were rude enough to try to drink water without asking first. There were two security guards when I went there. The security guards have on many occasions simply stood there while prepubescent girls try to claw each other's eyes out and actually rip out each other's hair until one of them runs home crying. However, boys are treated much differently. The boys are sometimes grabbed, but usually the very strong and capable guards will call the police and wait for up to half an hour for the police without doing anything to stop the fight.
SEXUAL HARASSMENT
If someone is being sexually harassed by another student, often the offending student will be sent to detention and the teacher will write a minor disruption onto their detention slip like, "was disrupting class" and the victim will never be spoken to. The one person you can talk to about this (and let me tell you, this happened to every single female in my grade) is Mr. Santangelo, the counselor. He is the reason I am alive today. He's very helpful and easy to talk to once you've talked to him and are comfortable around him, but sometimes I worry about shyer students. The worst part is that their fear of coming forward is completely valid. When Mr. Gold (one of the vice principals) gets involved in something like this, he addresses the attacker directly so that it is obvious that the victim came forward, thus putting the victim into even more danger, doing nothing to keep attacker away from victim.
MR. GOLD
I want to talk briefly about Mr. Gold. He is incredibly creepy. He looks at young girls in a way that makes them very uncomfortable. Ask any girl at that school. Being alone in his office is terrifying, the way he looks at you.
SPECIAL EDUCATION
The "Special Education" there seems wonderful, given the budget. The counselors in the learning center are phenomenal. Mr. Resnik was one one them while I was there. Unfortunately, I was not made aware of the learning center (although I have a diagnosed mental disorder that the school knew of) during my three years there, so I wasn't able to take full advantage of it.
DETENTION
Detention is one of the worst parts of the school. It's a very small building painted pea green with the windows boarded over and way too many desks crammed in. Sometimes you're sent there simply for being late, but no matter what your offense was, you're treated like a criminal. Everyone sits in uncomfortably small desks with a few people in corners. Honestly, if you're stuck in there, I would advise getting into a corner as soon as possible, because when the woman in there starts yelling, you don't want her to see your face. If you make eye contact with her she starts screaming at you. Everyone in the room has to write pointless essays on bullying that if they were turned in to anyone might actually do something to change the system, but no.
TEACHERS
It's hard to talk about the teachers because they're so different, but let me just say that there were more who scared students and ignored them than the select few whom I actually want to remember.
LEARNING & LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
It's a terrible learning environment. If you aren't doing well, you're criticized and made to feel helpless by the faculty. There are maybe three teachers in the entire school who will actually help you if you are falling way behind. It's also terrible if you're doing well, though. "Baer B." mentioned that there is no advanced program, which is not true. There are advanced math classes and the option to skip a math grade and take Algebra in seventh grade and Geometry in eighth, which quite a few students do. The problem is you'll often have to take the class again in high school, making the class pointless.
Oh and the restrooms are disgusting. The PTA does nothing. The visual art teacher is terrible. Plays are great. Everyone smokes pot, but I don't know if you care... read more