Herrera Elementary School

"I can completely understand that some children do not speak English as their first language at home, but mine does, so why does she have to learn Spanish in order to go to the school? I initially believed that everything was labeled (inside of the school) in order to help other children learn English, but that's not the case. When my child began to fall behind with reading and writing the first thing they wanted to do was pllace her in a special education class. Why? All she needed was some tutoring and a little extra help at home, but the first thing they decided to do was give me the option of special ed. The fact is, as long as a child goes to special ed and doesn't repeat the grade they get to show thatvthere wae Improvement instead of a failure. These people are not here to help, these people are here for the numbers and to appear as though they are successful, which they do quite poorly. This is the problem with the education in this country, the first option should always be to inform the parent and offer some solutions, or the kid doesn't go forward, period. Not everyone gets a t-shirt."

"No support on speech therapy, tutorials or any kind if help improve a child development. Instead they rather put a kid in special ed so the record show that he didn't fail the school year as a normal kid. So it won't affect the school record to the district."

"My daughter has attended Herrera for 5 years and absolutely loves it. She has received a great education and made top scores on her state test last year. Herrera has a lot of opportunities for parents to be involved with the kids. She is very ready for the first day of school! Thanks to all the teachers and administrators for making a great school that my daughter loves to attend."

"Last year was great, my child loved her teacher and going to Herrera Elementary. This school year, my child has finally came forward with the amount of bullying she's experiencing. Small complaint like no soap in the restrooms, people saying mean things and calling names weren't so serious to me. As of late the bullying has become out of control where other kids spit on her and hit her. She may be easily influenced by other children but that is not an excuse to allow other, bigger, male students to bully my child. The teacher doesn't seem to have a clue about anything or monitor the children or their conversations, in fact, he wanted to send my child to the counselors office because he believed something was wrong at home when it was another one of his student's ideas for her to say a very disturbing comment. My request to transfer to another class was denied by the very rude assistant principal who attempted to shift the blame to my child. I do not recommend this school."

"I know this review will be unpopular with the parents of the children who currently attend Herrera Elementary and I apologize to those parents but its very important to protect all our children...In the Fall of 2012 we enrolled my son in Herrera Elementary 4th grade class and all seemed well, his grades were in the high 80's and 90's, his test scores were very good we were very pleased with his progress at Herrera Elementary...It wasn't until February of that year that I asked my son to read a very short story from a children's book...To my surprise I noticed he really didn't know how to read... so I tested his math skills and again he didn't know how to add or subtract properly....I was confused, how can he be making those high grades but yet not know how to read or properly or complete a math problem?...We attempted to have an open communication with the teacher with no success, we tried with the current administration, again no help there....We ultimately decided to move my son to a Catholic private school where now he is doing probabilities in the 5th grade.....Fall 2013 my wife and I decided to keep my 5 and 8 year Old's in Herrera because of the financial strain from the private school for my son.......again we made a mistake with that decision that we now regret .....We hope that others do not follow in our foot steps...in the winter of 2014 we found that my 8 year old was counting backwards when trying to solving problems (subtraction)....I sent an e-mail to the teacher and again no response, I followed with an e-mail to the asst. Principle where we later scheduled a meeting....We met as scheduled and a solution was agreed on, where the teacher was to spend more time with my daughter....Now its late March 2014 and again I sat with my daughter and nothing had changed...she was still counting backwards...I sent an e-mail to the principle and again set another meeting...My wife attended a meeting with 6 administrators from Herrera in where they told my wife its not important how my daughter came up with the answer as long as the answer was correct...the process to the problem is not as important as the answer....I also discovered that the classrooms at Herrera have slow, intermediate and advanced tables....if your child is categorized as part of slow table be prepared for that child to fall further behind and ignored because of lower test scores.....My attempt to solve the problem with the administration turned to indifference from the Principle and Asst. Principle and rudeness form the office staff...I can only imagine, because of the test score based curriculum, all HISD schools have slow tables, chairs or dark corners with children with learning difficulties..."