I enrolled my son in St. John based on wonderful reviews from parents I knew through my sons karate classes. 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. read more

We moved to DC in OCT. We are living on Andrews AFB and had to put our 4th grader into Francis T. 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. read more