Arizona Conservatory for Arts and Academics - Secondary School

"I went to this school from K-7th grade, and I'd say the elementary is great, they gave me an awesome childhood. Although, the secondary has many issues to an extent where I wouldn't spend the rest of my middle and high school there. The kids are great, the learning curriculum is fine, there are some amazing teachers. Things were honestly fine before 7th grade, when we had a different principle. As a child I was often stressed, with not the best parents either. My mental health wasn't well at the time and I had been self harming, when the principle saw this, he told me "stress isn't a reason to be hurting yourself. You have NO reason to be doing this." Who tells a child this? Not to mention, after my step-sister and I got suspended, which I must point out it's not about getting suspended, I got suspended for a good reason, which is fine, but afterwards he started targeting me and my family. He tried suspending, or just getting us in trouble us multiple times, half of them for the dumbest reasons. Once for using the bathroom, holding my sisters can, like a can of tea, for wearing a skirt that was passed the dress code length. He tried dress coding us again for wearing makeup and his words, "if I let you get away with it, I have to let everyone else get away with it." May I point out not even a week later I watched a kid walk into school with face paint on, there were no events going on at the time either. He took away so much class time from us simply because he decided to? Anyways, I really wouldn't recommend the elementary school for kids with special needs. My little brother, has a lot of mental issues, most likely autistic. While the elementary side is great and all, they aren't qualified for kids with special needs. A lot of this probably came across as a rant, but they really need a new principle, he's racist, transphobic, and at an art school? Not to mention, he's just bad at his job. I don't think I'd recommend this school in general, they don't do what's advertised , although the talent I found there was beautiful."

"I went to this school from grade 3 to grade 9.I Personally had a pretty great experience. I see a lot of reviews talking about how mean and rude the teachers are. Yes they have had there teaching issues as it is such a small school but overall all the teachers were pretty amazing. They will care and help you if you care. Teachers here have no time to overly take care of students who do not care for their education. That was my biggest problem around 2017 and 2018 we had a wave of students who did not care. They came from not caring at a public school to thinking at an art/college preparatory school would be easy. This is were all the problems started and the school did not have the best time fixing it. Mainly because of leadership roles. This school is not meant for lazy people who just want to mess around and not care. This school runs best when it is full of creative and eager to learn students. I left this school because of this issue.95% of the problem was the students not the teachers."

"My 3 children have attended this school of music and arts for the past 3 years. I would like to start by saying that when they first attended this institution for higher learning in 2015, it was great. They had an excellent music program. The teachers and staff were very pleasant and professional. Going in to the second year the school had issues with teachers and staff leaving and had to start the year with a shortage of teachers which made it difficult to keep providing the students with a good education. The school assured us they would fix all the kinks after having 60 percent of the staff replaced at the beginning of 2016 school year. By the end of the year they had lost many students because of the lack of training the replacement teachers had. So unfortunately the 2017 and 2018 school year was no better, it was actually and we made the decision to withdraw our children from ACAA before the new year had come. This once great charter school of conservatory for arts and academics is no longer the school that took pride in the higher learning they provided which made them unique from any other public school."

"The arts program is incredible. If not for this school, I never would've had the bravery to try out for choir in high school. However, I only stayed for a year because the academic program was a mess. Tests were frequently lost and mixed up (sending the wrong students to different levels). Most of the teachers seemed to have given up on teaching or taught years below our appropriate grade level. I felt like I lost a year of schooling. But I did have incredible voice and drama teachers. There's potential, but I wasn't willing to risk losing another year of schooling to find out whether they improved."

"I have 5 children. Twins who attend the junior high and triplets who attend the elementary school. We drive 32 miles one way/64 miles round trip to attend this wonderful school. I have one daughter who needs much help as she has a processing delay. I hired a child developmental therapist to come in and observe her in the classroom and she could not say enough wonderful things about the education and personalized attention my daughter was receiving. Her teachers have worked tirelessly to help her improve. They don't dumb the curriculum down for her they try to lift her up to the other class members. The school days are only Mon-Thur allowing students to come in on Fridays for a few hours for extra tutoring. They even allow students to retake tests they struggled with. The arts program is amazing! The principal knows my children by name and meets with me personally if I have concerns about the education of my children. I can't say enough good things about this college prep, A+ school."