Verne A Duncan Elementary School

My son, after 4 years of being a perfect child at daycare, he was deemed a problem child after one day of Kindergarten at Verne Duncan Elementary. Right away I knew something was off. After 4 years of being perfect, he’s a problem child after 1 day at Verne Duncan? What’s the variable here? What changed?

In an attempt to figure out what was going on with my son, we tried to setup some communication channels with his teacher. I've tried showing up before school to talk with the teacher, but I was told to leave the room because the bell hadn’t rang. I, a parent, was told to wait for the bell. After the bell rang, I again tried to speak with the teacher and was completely ignored. Later I received an angry email suggesting that I was bothering her while she was getting the kids seated. We've tried setting up meetings only to have them avoided. Instead, she makes suggestions over email about what we can do to address the issue. My perception of the teacher is that she despises her job and has no interest in teaching kids or working with parents.

They’re now trying to convince us that he has learning disability. They’re saying he can’t identify the letters in the alphabet, but he’s been able to identify every letter of the alphabet since he was 3. They’re trying to convince us that he can’t do his school work, but at home he does it with no help other than reading him the instructions.

Recently they sent my son home for hitting another kid. I was extremely upset. I was upset at my son for hitting another kid, and I was upset that the school would effectively suspend a 5 year old kid. When picking him up, the principle suggested that 20 other kids had already gotten in trouble and they weren’t going to put up with any more. This was at 9:30 in the morning. I’m now under the opinion that this isn’t a school it’s a zoo. The teachers are upset because they’re overwhelmed. They’re doing their best to maintain their own sanity, but the kids are fending for themselves. It’s lord of the files from 8:00am to 3:00pm.

My daughter was at Verne Duncan for Kindergarten. The staff is nice however the amount of student per teacher ratio is very high. The teachers were very nice but the overall knowledge that the students could have the potential to retain was taken away by lack of focus on the kids. This was because the teachers weren't always able to give the students the attention they needed. After having to move to a different school for career reasoning, it made a huge difference in my daughter learning curve. Her new school is Sunset Elementary in Spokane, Wa and she is the head of the class now that she was able to get the attention and focus on her struggled areas. The only other thing I would say is that the school kids are raised in a wealthy environment which does show them to have a different attitude to those less fortunate. Name brand this and that was always the look out.