Riverdale Middle School

I hate giving an overall score, it belittles the teachers who really do care. Even so, truth is truth. It took me from the time my daughter entered public school until she had to repeat 6th grade, for ANYONE to listen when I said something is wrong with her comprehension. Cobb County would rather fail her in 2nd grade, than conference with me to prevent it. Enter Riverdale Middle School. Batteries of tests, 4 therapists, 1 psychiatrist, 1 neurologist and THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of dollars later, a teacher simply decides to remove my child from her 504 program without so much as a phone call. All of those years and sacrifice, gone in under 5 minutes. No wonder, Clayton County lost their accreditation. There is no mystery about it.

I'm astonished at how many people consider this facility even remotely 'good'.
Where to begin? Well, let's start with the fact that barely half of the teachers even care about the well-being of the students, with most of them across all grade levels acting to degrading and condescending, or lazy and unpassionate towards their students. Sure, the extracurricular teachers are somewhat more encouraging, but extracurricular classes only account for a sixth of the entire day. Speaking of which, the health program has a definite conservative bias, with abstinence-only pledges and contradictory statements about nutrition and mental health. I'm sure that's a given when you live in the 'Bible Belt', but it not at all efficient.
Second, there is prominent violence in the environment, especially during the last few months of the year. I've seen plenty of instances of fights breaking out throughout the year, and half of the time, it's because of the authorities' ignorance. They may appear spontaneous, but with proper resources and procedures, the altercations may not have happened at all. Let me tell you that the school only has one counselor, and many people react in shock whenever I tell them that, including my own parents.
Thirdly, the staff of the school make very questionable decisions about how to go about running the school. It appears that they enforce rules that either make no sense, or are just flat out inefficient. For example, when eight-grade students are dismissed, we are dismissed by 'team' order(the extracurricular classes were in a separate building). Keep in mind, both 'A' and 'B' teams were on the same hallway. So team 'A' were dismissed outside through the back door of classrooms on the edge of the building, and students on team 'B' were sent into the hallway through the front door, and taking considerably more time to get to class than team 'A'. Now, why it was organized this way in anyone's guess, and it may seem insignificant to others, but for me, a student on team 'B', we really should have just gone out the back door together to out own classes.
All in all, it's not the worst school ever, there is definitely room for improvement.

Awesome teachers!

Excellent school to go to because I went there in 2010 in 7th grade they teach alot they make sure you are safe at school because of them i wouldn't be where i am now i go to Charles drew high school i love Clayton county public schools