Williamsburg MS (APS)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a 6th grader there. It’s been a “ meh” experience. I don’t find any of the teachers inspiring or great. They do not seem to go above and beyond. Principal is terrible.

Agree on the "meh" experience. Most teachers do not seem to care and its evident to the kids. One teacher even complained to the class how she "had to work on a weekend to answer emails". According to my daughter, she seemed extremely annoyed and took it out on the class. We found (especially during remote learning) many teachers doing the bare minimum, assigning videos for the kids to watch instead of actual instruction, literally teaching for 15 mins out of 50, etc etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a 6th grader there. It’s been a “ meh” experience. I don’t find any of the teachers inspiring or great. They do not seem to go above and beyond. Principal is terrible.

Agree on the "meh" experience. Most teachers do not seem to care and its evident to the kids. One teacher even complained to the class how she "had to work on a weekend to answer emails". According to my daughter, she seemed extremely annoyed and took it out on the class. We found (especially during remote learning) many teachers doing the bare minimum, assigning videos for the kids to watch instead of actual instruction, literally teaching for 15 mins out of 50, etc etc.

Our experience was the exact opposite. My child - now at YHS - had a great experience at WMS. We found the teachers and staff very warm and engaged. We had several teachers reach out on multiple occasions to offer assistance to my child with organization and study habits. There were a few teachers which were just average but the majority of the teachers were really great. DC never had a teacher who didn't seem to care or complained to the students.

We didn't have any personal interactions with Mr. Boykin so I can't speak to that but he seemed okay to me. DC has an IEP and we had no issues with the special ed team or the teachers. Everyone seemed to really want to help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a 6th grader there. It’s been a “ meh” experience. I don’t find any of the teachers inspiring or great. They do not seem to go above and beyond. Principal is terrible.

Agree on the "meh" experience. Most teachers do not seem to care and its evident to the kids. One teacher even complained to the class how she "had to work on a weekend to answer emails". According to my daughter, she seemed extremely annoyed and took it out on the class. We found (especially during remote learning) many teachers doing the bare minimum, assigning videos for the kids to watch instead of actual instruction, literally teaching for 15 mins out of 50, etc etc.

This has not been our experience. Our kids teachers are going above and beyond to make sure they are caught up, particularly in Math. They host lunch groups, give extension work to reinforce concepts and after the first quarter really made a good attempt to course correct on what the kids didn't learn the year before. At the same time, our kids have really matured with regard to organization and owning their progress. This is not something we as parents did, its with the school's help.

You'll find in the WMS district, many parents expect a level of attention that you'd get at a private school. Some of the expectations are very unreasonable.

[Anonymous]

It’s just average. Principal is just uninspiring. You just can’t tell what he stands for or what his vision is. The teachers are just ok and very poor communication. Bright kids will cruise with straight A’s without being challenged. After sending one child there, l sent my younger one to private. It’s been a night and day difference. WMS has the potential to be better but it’s stuck in the status quo.

[Anonymous]

Teachers do bare minimum. Still use videos to teach and give busy work to fill up the block. It’s disappointing.

[Anonymous]

agree principal is uninspiring. We opted to leave APS after meeting w/ him, a few teachers and speaking to other parents.

[Anonymous]

Seems like parents who like it have examples of positive things teachers are doing, those who don’t say principal’s uninspiring.

[Anonymous]

Varied year to year. 6th grade and 8th were meh. 7th was better. Varies team to team. Virtual was hard. Not sure my kid learned much.

[Anonymous]

Everyone says it was “meh” when they leave this school. The question is why isn’t the principal doing anything to change that impression?

[Anonymous]

Listen. Middle school is a “meh” time of your kid’s life. It’s a time of huge change for kids as they grow up and become more independent. And during this time they are also generally less excited about school. It’s a tough time for kids in many ways and it is a time when it is very uncool to love school even for the smartest kids.

I’ve had 2 kids (both high achievers/academically minded kids who did advanced math and 2 years of a world language there). Both kids had mostly great teachers who I found worked hard to engage students both in person and virtually and truly loved this age group. Each one had a small number of duds but remember that over the 3 years of middle school they will have over 20 teachers. Not every teacher will jive with every kid and that’s a good experience to have, because in life you also will have to deal with people you don’t particularly like too.

Both my older kids are now in high school (2 different APS high schools) and they were definitely academically prepared for the intensified and AP classes they have taken. I have one more kid 2 years away from WMS and have no worries about them attending.

[Anonymous]

12:00 PP again. One reason I think parents think it’s meh is that coming from elementary where there is so much school communication, it is very different. In middle school they want your kid to be the one to contact teachers if they are going to be late turning something in, or need to make up work, etc. their job is no longer to coddle parents and the parent engagement drops off. You need to be prepared for this. Their job is focused on the students and not the parents and it’s a big change from the elementary parent community. Kids have phones and parents aren’t setting up play dates or having class wide parties. Parents feel less involved and engaged because they are and it’s necessary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:12:00 PP again. One reason I think parents think it’s meh is that coming from elementary where there is so much school communication, it is very different. In middle school they want your kid to be the one to contact teachers if they are going to be late turning something in, or need to make up work, etc. their job is no longer to coddle parents and the parent engagement drops off. You need to be prepared for this. Their job is focused on the students and not the parents and it’s a big change from the elementary parent community. Kids have phones and parents aren’t setting up play dates or having class wide parties. Parents feel less involved and engaged because they are and it’s necessary.

This is SO true!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:12:00 PP again. One reason I think parents think it’s meh is that coming from elementary where there is so much school communication, it is very different. In middle school they want your kid to be the one to contact teachers if they are going to be late turning something in, or need to make up work, etc. their job is no longer to coddle parents and the parent engagement drops off. You need to be prepared for this. Their job is focused on the students and not the parents and it’s a big change from the elementary parent community. Kids have phones and parents aren’t setting up play dates or having class wide parties. Parents feel less involved and engaged because they are and it’s necessary.

It's not just communication and independence - it's the impression many teachers leave the kids with. During covid/hybrid learning - my child was literally begging to do her work manual/pencil and paper because she was struggling doing everything on the device.. the teacher actually refused to allow her to do her work on paper. When they were remote/hybrid, many teachers hardly showed up even for virtual teaching. Many just left the kids to watch videos in lieu of teaching, they complained about the tech difficulties, etc etc. It left a horrible impression. Luckily we got her out of WMS and she is seeing a huge difference and also learning much more and feels like her teachers actually care.

[Anonymous]

I hope you stepped in when the teacher was refusing to help your daughter after her advocating didn’t get an appropriate response.
My child had a good experience at WMS with teachers both in person and virtually. Like any school, every persons experience will differ. Glad you found somewhere that works for your student.

[Anonymous]

My daughter had a math teacher at WMS that got vaccinated and still refused to come in March because she wanted to keep staying home with her baby. Not sure why she didn’t quit if she wasn’t willing to be a present and dedicated teacher. My 6th grader was sitting in a room learning math which this teacher stayed at home. The principal did nothing to get these lazy teachers in. Another didn’t come to teach in person but had no problem announcing to the class she was planning and attending her daughter’s in person wedding. The students knew right away the teachers at WMS didnt care.