Parkway Elementary

"This school is just awesome. The principal is so nice. The teachers are so cool. If you were a library worker for the whole year the librarian gave a box of candy to eat all by yourself of share. This school is just awesome."

"I will expand upon the other reviewer’s negative comments. This school shovels a heavy-handed dose of “common core” homework nightly. My child has always been an honor roll student who loves to learn until coming here. Their class is void of fun learning activities such as science projects or labs. All the teaching, course work appears to come from federally approved common core modules (workbooks), leaving little room for an educator to apply his/her teaching methods. The common core curriculum provides backwards methods to teaching math which is slow, confusing and inefficient to parents and tutors alike, let alone the students. Working out problems using alternative methods are strictly prohibited. Math problems MUST follow the common core methodology, or points will be deducted. (You Will Obey At Parkway) After spending 1-2 hours working through the common core modules every night, I eventually had to hire a tutor. This is coming from a former network engineer for a large bank. It seems much of school staff DO NOT care about our little ones. I will elaborate. My child frequently tells me how the entire class was held out of recess or some other fun activity because a handful of other students misbehaved, or upset the teacher. The 1st and 3rd graders down our street tell similar stories. The good students often get punished for the bad behavior of a few. What does this teach? Just today, my child explained how the money parents sent to school for the kids to be treated with ice cream was wasted because one of the other teachers, Ms. York, told them they will have to sit down and wait inside. By the time she finally allowed the class to go outside and eat it, most of their ice cream had already melted. Take note, any peanut butter or peanut based foods, snacks, etc are pretty much against the law. If you make the mistake of sending a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with your kid for lunch, they will have to eat it in solitary confinement. They will be escorted to a separate office and made to eat lunch by them self giving the appearance of some form of punishment. (You Will Obey At Parkway) The school will spam you via automated voicemail AND text messages for homework notifications, often insisting you to reply with acknowledgement. In some cases, I’ve been notified six times altogether in one evening, for a single child. (You Will Obey At Parkway) When you combine strict staff who frequently lose patience with children along with zombie-like teachings of “common core modules”, you have a system that is not designed to foster creativity, promote learning, or keep the kids attention. Instead of teaching students to learn to think for themselves, they will learn to follow, as they must obey.. and learn to ostracize those who don’t. This is not a good way to build a generation of leaders and scientists. We need to remind the school administrators at Parkway Elementary, these are children. Such a sad waste of millions in federal and local taxpayer funds. It seems the focus was on building a large, fanciful new school for the staff, without focus on quality of education or passionate educators. On a more constructive note, I would suggest: fix the curriculum, make learning fun again, and hire teachers who have a passion to teach. Not all educators are good with little ones. The families of our military deserve better. They've earned it. We should demand it!"

"Not the nicest staff , Pickering was much friendlier. Had to pick up my daughters for a very important appointment after 2:40pm , I was told it was against their policy and they could only do it once, I told them I was running late and asked if they could have them waiting when I got there so I could come in sign them out and they could not do that either !! once I arrived at the school I saw all three of my kids lined up directly in plain sight of the receptionist and myself, and she was still acting as if she didn't want to let them come with me!! Mind you the receptionist and I are familiar and she knows my daughters are my daughters and I literally was talking to her this morning when I dropped the girls off. I miss Ms Carmen and Ms Jolene!! Picketing is much more understanding and friendly."