J.N Fries Middle School 133 Stonecrest Circle Southwest, Concord, NC 28027

"6th and 7th grade was fun I've always struggled with math and science have always been a struggle for me but our teachers really helped us out by giving us before and after school tutoring. If we had stem projects that could not be finished during the school day you could come before or after school and work on the projects. The field trips during those two school years were okay, and homework was not that much depending on much of a procrastinator you are. This year i'm in 8th grade and honestly all the other reviews were made when IB was part of the school but after they left some of the stem teachers changed. Our Science and ELA teachers are really cool and this year instead of stem being a certain time it became a graded class. Math 1 honestly is hard but if you do the homework recommended and practice you'll be fine. Science and Stem projects are very different and hands on. We have one field trip this year and instead of going to Charleston like previous years were going to DC, so that will be fun. There are disadvantages and advantages but stem is for certain people and it can give you expertise on certain areas a regular school can not. Oh also sports are coming next year for all the soon to be 7th graders."

"I attended JN Fries all three years (2013-2016) in the STEM program and I, for the most part, had a great experience at this school. The teachers challenged me, but it was nothing that was impossible. I spent many days procrastinating, but I still maintained all A's. This school definitely challenges you and will push your limits. Due to certain things that I will discuss below, I will explain what i enjoyed and reasons as to why I LEFT the STEM program. Teachers: I have mixed feelings on the teachers. The teachers at this school, that I had, really pushed me. Some were a lot easier than others, but I had a few that really gave my peers and I a very tough time. Some were very strict and if you did something very simple that would normally just earn you a warning, they would give you silent lunch for a certain amount of time, depending on what you did. You are not allowed to walk in rows or talk in the hallways, therefore if you do not follow this rule some teachers will give you silent lunch. Once, I can recall turning around and shaking my head at my friend who said something stupid, and I got silent lunch. You are also not allowed to eat, etc in classes for some reason. Now, in high school, I will eat some snack in every class, along with many other students. Here, you are only able to chew gum, but that is bearable I guess. These teachers can be very tiring and hard to deal with at times. Homework: I do not recall having a large amount of homework in sixth and seventh grade besides the occasional sheet or Aleks for math. In eighth grade, I was always completely loaded with homework // projects to complete. There was barely a night when I was without some type of work to do. During the 2015-2016 year, Mrs. Clark (science) would always load you with confusing work to do. I was a horrible procrastinator, along with many of my friends, and we would always have to stay up very late. There were many late nights typing some type of assignment. Sleep Schedule / Stress: As stated above, be prepared to become sleep deprived. I did not get as many hours of sleep I would like to have had. This school will make you very stressed and overwhelmed. I recommend to try to reduce procrastination and to go to sleep earlier. Why I LEFT: I had left this school due to overall only a few reasons. I was perfectly fine in the program and was planning to attend Central until the second semester of eighth grade. I was more in STEM for the math, rather than the science, therefore science always gave me a harder time. Mrs. Clarks tests were always the hardest things to take and I would normally do at decent, but I ended up failing one of her tests (54%) towards the end of the year so I had decided that that was it for me. I am not one who likes to get bad grades, and this was my first ever F on a test or assignment, so it really set me off. I ended up thinking "Do I really want to stay in STEM for four more years?" and just realized that I would never be interested in anything science related or would want to put up with any more extra advanced science classes, so I figured it would be better to attend my school in my district. Pros: This school really taught me a lot. I came into my regular school and I feel very advanced and mature compared to everyone else. I will say a "simple" word that is in my vocabulary and no one will know what it means. It is crazy to think that. I say stuff that would usually be the casual language at JN, and everyone thinks that I am super smart. This school gets you prepared for hard work. I am now easily able to write and essay or make presentations in a short amount of time and earn an A on it. I do not regret coming here at all. Misc. Cons: Most of the students here were upper class, very snobby, and rude. They all thought that they were the coolest, smartest people ever, making them very cocky. They are also very nonreligious and liberal (if you have a problem with that). IB also gets better field trips than STEM. They went to Washington 8th grade, while STEM went to Charleston, when IB went there 7th."

"When I came to the school in sixth grade, I signed an honesty policy, so I'll be honest. As a rising ninth grader having spent three years at this school, I can say without hesitation that attending this school was the biggest mistake that I ever made. First off, the school is so extremely poor it's not even funny. On field day, the school charged students $5 for snow cones, and couldn't afford to buy streamers for the last dance. The school also greatly favors the STEM program, and as a former IB student, I would know. The STEM program gets all of the new technology and gets to go on more trips than the IB students. As far as the principal, she treats the students like they're incompetent 8 year olds. In my experience, most of the students were spoiled brats that liked to talk garbage about their friends behind their backs. The ten friends that I had out of approximately 500 students were great, but that's ten people out of the 100 in the eighth grade IB program. Some of the teachers (Brown, Farrell, Landon, Koenig, Chapman, Platt, Giles, Burrell) are amazing and do an excellent job of teaching, but some (Perna, Marburger) are terrible and don't teach us anything! It's hard to say that I enjoyed my learning experience at the school when I didn't have much of one (thanks, Mrs. Perna). You'll read tons of reviews about how amazing this school is, but honestly, it really isn't that great. The biggest regret in my life was choosing to enroll in JN Fries."

"First off, as a student scholar at JN Fries I am expected to be responsible, respectful, trustworthy, safe, and most importantly, HONEST. I am going to be plain out honest here- this school is awful. To get things started, the teachers expect way too much out of you. You are basically assigned a new PBL every 1-2 weeks.These PBLs are redundant, and can be very challenging. I understand this is sort of what I signed up for as a STEM student, but this is too much. If you make one mistake the teachers will go off at you. They are generally rude and assign lots of classwork and homework, resulting in frustration within students. The school is too much into technology. I understand the 'T' in STEM stands for technology. I like having chrome-books. But what I don't like? We use our chrome-books every single day. This gets extremely boring and we never get to do paper work. Teachers always expect you to bring out your chrome-book and complete the work in such a short amount of time. If you don't finish it becomes homework. If one night, you forget to charge your chrome-book, the teachers will get extremely pissed off at you and will strictly discipline you. Sometimes they take your chrome-book away and then the assignments will be electronically. What do you do now? You can't do it and it goes down as a 50 in the grade book. That's insanity! Teachers always expect you to figure out what to do in a dangerous situation or when we are confused on anything in general because we must be "Stemy". This is so dumb. I can't stand this school. Most teachers barely punish the trouble makers and are generally more rude to the nice, quiet kids. If you get in such an amount of trouble, there is a room called the Choices Room. What the hell are we, 5 years old? NO!! We're in middle school, we shouldn't have to go to some dumb 90 degree room that smells like skunk spray for 2 hours of our day to complete a choice board assignment explaining what we did wrong and how we will fix it. This is not for middle school students. Staff treat students with no respect as if the students are still in kindergarten. This is the type of stuff which pisses me off. I can assure you I am not coming back to this school next year. This school sucks, do not send your child here."

"As a STEM student here, I would definitely recommend coming here. I mean, the work is hard and it comes on every day, but it is fun, so the classes seem to fly by once you start working. And you make a lot of friends here as well. We do a lot of electronic assignments, so there isn't as much book work."