Our family has been very happy with Blue Bird. Our oldest is always happy to arrive at school and…read moreat pick up. The teachers are truly passionate, and the kids' care has been beyond our expectations. Our daughter continues to expand her Spanish and gets to practice every day through the curriculum and teachers! Every day we receive a report card and little notes from the teachers, along with daily worksheets. We've been amazed at how her writing skills have come along and excited for her to start learning math. We highly recommend checking out Blue Bird for your kids! The teachers and admin team are wonderful, and the care and nurturing the children receive is top level.

I am amazed that this school is still in business. Last year the entire pre-school class quit…read morewithin a month of each other after repeatedly flighting with management about their continued violations of health, safety and child abuse violations. They refused to fix the only working toilet in one building for several months! They refused to call the gas company during a gas leak! They violated regulations on discipline putting kids in isolation and time out for 5 times longer than the legal limit! They planned a pre-K graduation ceremony for the kids, spent a month getting the kids excited, then banned the parents from attending, and told the kids that their parents were all too busy to be there. The owner then said - in writing - that she was doing this to punish the parents for daring to call the County for health and safety violations. This place is not safe. Avoid at all costs.

Saint Ann is a very nice school and they have church mass on Sundays. We attended their Christmas…read moretree contest and it was beautiful to see the different theme of tree decorations. The school kids were very creative in decorating the trees.

Having spent a career as a public school teacher, I was leery of Catholic schools (would they be…read morerigorous enough, are the teachers trained well, will they have a good science program, are they tech-savvy...) until my son was so unhappy in his highly-ranked, but larger, public elementary school that I was fearful for his well-being. This school heard my concerns as a parent, welcomed him with open arms, lent us uniforms when we needed them, and gave him access to the amazing science curriculum. The teachers are amazing, warm, intelligent, and thorough. The students there are just so kind. They use state of the art tech, post assignments online, communicate well and LOVE the kids. The smaller setting is amazing. He loves going to mass during school. He is at peace. The other parents went out of their way to invite us over, make sure we were in the loop about school events, emailed us...Like a welcome wagon. One child was out when my kid started school on a family vacation and brought him home a "welcome to school" souvenir. My child is learning a lot, but more importantly, he loves school again. This principal is a great leader. Don't hesitate. Wish I had enrolled my child sooner.

My son is the clas of 2023 for MAC and ALL I have to say is so far so good! The school is amazing…read more The staff is great, the school grounds are well kept and the kids that attend here are wonderful individuals. With my son being a freshman and not familiar with the private school life, a lot of things caught us off guard and overwhelmed us but from Mr. Clark (president and CEO) to Ms. Carter (Principal) to the administrative staff to the teachers, everyone has been patient, informative and understanding. My experience has been nothing but top-notch! Best private school in the area! Oh yeah, the football team is the BEST! Everyone here walks with an aire of proudness, of themselves and of their school!My son loves the family feel and the community of this school. Its like from jump, you know you're gaining a forever family! Mustang Spirit for LIFE!

All this school is interested in is money. I have been out over 40 years. It was about money then…read moreand by all the damn mailings for donations I see it's still the same. Almost 20k a student and you still beg for donations. WTH is wrong with this place. Stop using the USPS to solicit donations!!

I enrolled my son in St. John based on wonderful reviews from parents I knew through my sons karate…read moreclasses. I was looking for a private school education that was religion based. When we toured the school everything looked to be in order the principal Mrs. Scott was very pleasant and had really updated the school over the last few years. The school was organized which my sons other school lacked. The beginning of school was great, orientation new parents learned all the rules of the school and the kids got a chance to meet their teacher and classmates. The week before school started at a meeting with the parents and teachers we found out that the kindergarten class had 28 kids in the class, mouths dropped and you heard a big gasp in the classroom. After the announcement parents started to look around and talk in smaller groups about how we are paying for a private school why are the classes so large. We were told that the classroom can hold up to 30 kids and if 2 more enrolled they would accept them at any time during the school year. This should have been my first red flag clue and I should have run for the hills with my refund check in my back pocket. The class size was so large they had to convert the library into the kindergarten room in order to accommodate everyone. The kindergarten class had 2 teachers in the room so should I say 1 main teacher and 1 aid. The first couple weeks of school went pretty smoothly my son was happy and during well, after those 2 weeks passed that was it his mood had changed. I begin getting phone calls on a daily basis from him teacher saying that he wasn't paying attention and making strange noises in class. This wasn't my kid they were talking about, he had been to school prior and they only thing he would get a note home for is talking to much (he's a chatty boy). The phone calls went on like this for days finally I met with the teacher and the lady really got under my skin saying that maybe there are problems at home that are causing him to behave this way and maybe you should have him speak with a professional. As a parent who has raised your child for 5 1/2 years with no prior problems like this you start to get a little red in the face and want to go on attack mode. I calmly told her thank you for suggestions I'll talk with my son. After a long conversation he told me he was disrupting the class because that was the only way to get the teachers attention. He never got called on to answer questions or write on the smart board for 56 days (the class did calendar every morning so they knew how many days they had been in school). It broke my heart to know that everyday a question was called on and his had would be up he was being picked over. This is a private school with 28 5-6 year olds, after looking at the other classes and talking with the parents it seemed that the class sizes were growing in every classroom and parents were frustrated. Besides the class size the curriculum was sub-par, my son was bringing home work he had done when he was 3 in pre-school. Oh the principal Mrs. Scott was a reputation of dodging parents and avoiding any questions. It's amazing what you find out after you get in the school, just because the wrapping on the outside is pretty doesn't mean the pieces inside aren't broken. I pulled my son from St. John the end of November and moved him into a wonderful Christian school where he has 13 kids in the class and his behavior changed over night. St. John was not a good fit for my family so good luck to you if you sign your child up. Also please ignore your child's teacher when they say he or she may be ADHD, I've been told multiple times those initials get thrown around a lot when a child "acts out" in class.

We moved to DC in OCT. We are living on Andrews AFB and had to put our 4th grader into Francis T…read more Evans Elementary. First appearances were good, but after a month things went bad. Our daughter went from an A student to a C student. My wife sat in the class for 10 minutes and could not believe how disrespectful the students were to the teacher. The teacher had no control and the learning environment was bad. The Principal did nothing. We pulled our daughter out and enrolled her in to St John's. The staff is great and we are very happy with the school. Down side is the 500.00 monthly payment. You get what you pay for.

The faculty and staff truly care and want to help every student in need. There are not as many…read morefights as people seem to think. The counselors try their best to handle every situation. Definitely a good school for children in the area.

I recently had the pleasure of visiting this beautiful park area in Bowie, located directly in…read morefront of the school. While walking my dog, I noticed how well-maintained and family-friendly the grounds were. I could hear the school intercom during what sounded like a summer program activity, possibly a rock-paper-scissors tournament, which created a fun and positive atmosphere. The park itself offers plenty of options for children and families, including playground equipment, swings, slides, basketball and tennis courts, and educational nature signs featuring local wildlife information. The grounds were clean and well-kept overall. The only area that appeared to need some attention was portions of the foam safety surface beneath the playground equipment. My dog and I thoroughly enjoyed our visit and look forward to returning. Bowie continues to impress as a community that is welcoming to both families and pets. Adult swings and plenty of places to set for lunch our gold drink.

I can't say enough great things about Chapel Forge. My child has been attending the program for a…read moreyear now and it's been a positive experience . When I drop my child off, I'm greeted by every staff member and they know my child by name including the principal. The staff engages me in his educational goals regularly and keeps me up to date on all changes to help meet these goals . Lastly, I love that even if my child shows up with a scratch at school, they call me. It might sound like a lot for some parents, but this reassures me that he's an environment that prioritizes safety and attentiveness to each individual child.

St. Stephen's and St. Agnes School has been a great experience for my kids, who are in 4th and 6th…read moregrade this year. My 4th grader has thrived, especially in art where she has discovered a love of clay, and in science where learning is hands on and the teacher has brought in some truly fantastic guest speakers with interesting science related careers. The lower school campus is magical, with multiple playgrounds and big grassy fields to play in. Middle School on the other hand has been a big step up in academics and overall expectations, but my 6th grader is enjoying the independence and appreciates his advisory group as a supportive space. He recently participated in the district orchestra program hosted by SSSAS, tackling challenging music that left him feeling proud and accomplished. I think it speaks volumes that even my middle schooler loves his school. Both of my kids love SSSAS and couldn't imagine being anywhere else.

My child spent 13 years at the school, they missed his reading and ADHD problems! They do not look…read moreat the individual child. Because he did well the teachers just pushed him along. Because the ADA requires schools to provide help, they are incentivized to ignore problems. I have another child who went to SSSAS. The college counselor discourage her to reach for the best colleges. Fortunately she was strong willed and determined and got into a top 10 university. The college counselors were more interested in statistics such as "% of colleges acceptance ". If you are considering SSSAS be very carefully you will be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I like the school and the principal is chill and most of the teachers are nice and funny, the…read moremiddle school is fun and there isn't too much homework. There are many kids there and I had fun in all my 5 years.

Commonwealth Academy promotes itself as a school that has expertise in ADHD and executive…read morefunctioning. Our experience there this last year with our son (12) was the opposite, and the staff was extremely unwilling to work with us on his needs. It gets worse. In the end, a false report of child abuse and neglect was filed against us, we believe and have strong evidence to back it up by senior school staff in retaliation for disputes we had with them. In my opinion, the place is not safe for your kids or you. We enrolled mid-year, when our local school was having issues meeting his needs. He has a learning profile that includes ADHD, language processing difficulties, and executive function difficulties. When we interviewed the school, which is billed as particularly suited for a child of his profile, we were very excited about the approach and attention to executive function, and the admissions head similarly felt it would be a great fit for our son. For a school that supposedly focuses on executive function skills, they offered him almost nothing in the way of support there, and made it very difficult for him (and us) to figure out what his assignments even were. There was no consistent place where or how assignments were listed; some were online, some were via emails, and some were given in class. This is a nightmare for someone with executive function difficulties, and only set him up for failure. The school was also slow to implement an assisted listening device, provided by us, that has greatly helped our son in his previous school. We had discussed using the device with CA prior to enrollment and they had agreed in principle. It took them over three months to actually begin using it. One of us is a licensed counselor and former teacher with years of professional expertise and success in helping children with learning profiles similar to our son's. With this expertise, we tried very hard to work with the school on how best to serve our son, and offered specific interventions to help him access the curriculum and get through the day. The school presented considerable resistance and foot-dragging and at one point, the head of the middle school told us that we were no longer welcome to email them. They were not only not interested in the resources we offered, they at times seemed offended by it. Another dispute centered around repeated and inappropriate suggestions from certain staff that we should get medical diagnoses and/or therapy for our son. For our son's privacy, I am not going to discuss the nature of these requests, but we have in fact involved his health care providers in addressing his in-school challenges, and we provided evidence of this in the form of doctor's notes to the staff on multiple occasions. After about the third time these requests were made, we complained to the head of school, who responded very supportively and agreed the staff had been inappropriate. It was two days after this that the false report to DC CFSA was made. The report included the allegation that we "refused" to take our son to the doctor, and other disturbing allegations that were simply made up out of whole cloth. After 35 days the report was ruled Unfounded by DC CFSA, which means a report they consider untrue. Based on the timing and the content of the allegations in the report as communicated to us by the social workers, we believe it's almost a certainly that it was made by one of three people there, two of whom are still there and are fairly senior in the school's administration. We removed him from the school the day the report was filed and home schooled him for the remainder of the year. The school was uncooperative in providing assignments and materials during this time, and was uncooperative in our investigation of who filed the false report. They have also not provided materials needed for applications to other schools, obstructing our efforts to find a new placement for him. Parents considering Commonwealth Academy should be aware that (1) it is not what it claims to be in terms of support for ADHD and executive function, and (2) it apparently employs people who are willing to weaponize Child and Family Services against parents by filing false and malicious reports accusing them of child abuse and neglect.