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[quote=Anonymous]I used to teach at Friendship Woodridge. It was absolutely awful. Way too much work piled on the backs of teachers who either worked way too hard (me) or else slacked off in ridiculous ways (1 teacher watched an hour of soaps every afternoon while making the kids sit with their heads down -- these were kids well beyond napping age). Lots of yelling and rigid discipline (which didn't work).

I barely made it through the year, a few of my colleagues didn't, and well more than half of the teachers left after that year as well. The ones who stayed were relatives of the principal. The principal came into my classroom and yelled at me in front of the students for having the gall to comment on how hard it had been  coming back from Winter Break to a room that had been completely torn apart to make room for sharing it, without being alerted to that so I could arrive early and fix it.

Woodridge has about half the # of kids now even though they expanded up and down by 2-3 grades and expanded the building. The class sizes were as big as 31 kids in 5th grade and never under 22 and that was for a "small" group. Around 75% of the students needed massive mental health/social worker intervention with parents in jail, on drugs, missing, etc. etc. It was heart-wrenching and very difficult to deal with even as a grown adult.

Chamberlain's school hours are 7:45-4. They also have a longer school year. There is a massive focus on academics, especially to prepare for tests. This is quite different from a whole child approach such as at Maury and Ludlow-Taylor. On their website it repeatedly states that their goal is high academic achievement. Not developing the whole child, but high academic achievement. This kind of focus is not necessarily a bad thing, but not what most middle class families are looking for for their children.

I wouldn't be as declarative as some posters in terms of not going there for PK, but I respect that they may well know things that I don't know. I would definitely state that only PK would be OK for me. It does state on the website that the PK program is more exploratory and less academic in nature. [/quote]

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