Powell High School

"I transferred to this school my junior year and the incidents that I have seen are outrageous for a high school. The main problem with this school is their administration. There is a visible gap between underprivileged kids and the preppy kids. If you do not fit the look of a southern preppy doll, principles, guidance counselors, desk workers will treat you from the start as guilty. It makes kids feel unwelcome and on their own if they ever need help with something, which is what those people are supposed to be there for. The only administrator that is helpful is Mrs. Taylor. The amount of bullying that goes down, it’s not just teasing, I mean kids are harassed daily and of course the administration does not do a thing. The principals and guidance counselors do not care about their students because on many occasions I’ve seen people go to them for help and they leave disappointed. Another thing is the amount of drug use and underage drinking. Yes of course high schoolers will experiment but not to the extent of this school. I won’t get into it all just cause it could get into legal stuff but just know if you are thinking sending your kid here they will very likely be peer pressured into drugs. There is no awareness for sex Ed or consent, it is a hushed subject unlike other high schools where they promote hotlines for help in that area. There are so many reasons that this school is definitely Knoxville’s worst and on an academic standpoint I’ve never seen kids with less common sense, culturing, and even just basic core class skills. Classrooms are barely a place to learn, if anything I see more of kids driving teachers crazy and a place to hangout. The curriculum moves at such a slow pace because of this and no one actually learns anything. I have felt a stunt in my learning since coming to this school. Another thing that is important in high schools is clubs, kids need clubs to join to feel like they belong in a place and also in looks good on college applications, but at this high school the only clubs offered are HOSA, SGA, FBLA, DECA, and even with those they are basically inactive when comparing them to the same exact clubs in other schools. The only thing this school is focused on is their football team, which isn’t even good and a their band, which actually is a great band. I could say so much more about this school and how is it absolute trash but I think my main point got across, which is do not send your kid here."

"Worst school ever. Girl threw a chair at my child in PE and received two days in school suspension. End of year and she pushes my child into a corner and they both get 10 days out of school for fighting. They do NOTHING about bullying. My child has several friends that have moved to Central and Halls due to excessive bullying from teachers and students."

"I went to when I was a teenager and I love this school."

"School isn't accommodating for students that have special needs."

"Powell has a great marching band and I have loved all their shows, but I heard from my friends's niece's friend and a lot of my other friends who knew people that there are a whole ton of bullies at PHS and a lot of underage drug use at the school. So if you want to choose a good school with barely any bullying and a lot less chaos going on, go to Halls because I go there and I am telling the truth that there are barely any bullies and we do have chaos here sometimes like how schools are normally, but PHS's problems sounds 10x worse on what I heard about compared to Halls."