Westshire Elementary School

My son had a terrific experience at Westshire. Here are my favorite things.
1. Personalized instruction. By third grade, every child in his class was reading at grade level. They got there in a way that felt fun and natural to the students but was clearly very strategic. The teachers knew just when to pull out individual students to give them an added boost. My son arrived in kindergarten already reading. His teacher met with him at lunch one day a week and gave him the skills to move on to reading chapter books. Meanwhile her expert mix of literacy center games, phonic support through the Fundations curriculum, and a full immersion in quality literature had every child reading by the end of kindergarten. The same was true for math skills. Kids who struggled were identified quickly and given extra support while those at the high end got enrichment.
2. Fabulous preschool. The play-based curriculum with lots of time outside gave my son and his classmates a perfect foundation for kindergarten. And it is FREE!
3. Smooth transitions. When my son went to the weekly playgroup as a toddler, the preschool teacher came by to introduce herself and invite him down the hall to visit her classroom. That made for a smooth transition to preschool. To years in a multiage preschool classroom helped him become comfortable with routines and set him up for an easy transition across the hall to kindergarten. At the end of 4th grade he moved on to Samuel Morey Elementary School where his class joined with the other class in the district for their final two years of elementary school. Joint field trips and other activities throughout his 7 years at Westshire meant that the two classes already knew each other. Fifth grade was a perfect time to merge the two groups socially and academically.
4. Great sense of community. The Responsive Classroom Curriculum helped the children learn to care for each other and become responsible citizens. Community meetings brought the whole school together each week. The classes took turns leading the meeting so each child got plenty of practice holding a microphone and addressing the whole school. When my son was in first grade he bravely stood up during “appreciations” and thanked his classmates for helping him when he was frightened by the soundtrack of a movie. It meant a lot to me that he felt that level of support. Volunteers are constantly coming in to participate in the Everybody Wins reading buddy program, help with Farm-to-School activities, chaperone field trips, giving tours of the town fire truck, etc.
5. The high quality after-school program. I loved that my son could choose which sessions he wanted to attend – favorites were making rockets, learning about wildlife, and any sport offered by the PE teacher. As a mom who often works long hours, the late bus was a huge help as well.
6. Dedicated staff, including highly skilled art, music, technology, and PE teachers. The teachers clearly love their jobs, really care about what is best for the children, and are always looking for ways to improve. Rivendell has a reputation for asking more from its teachers in terms of inservice and professional development. It clearly shows.
7. Lots of outdoor learning and activities. The all-school hike is an amazing tradition. Big kids buddy up with the little ones and they ALL hike a section of the Cross Rivendell Trail. They also do field studies each year related to their curriculum. Whenever I chaperoned a trip, I was always impressed by how well behaved the kids were. I think because Westshire kids spend so much time outside, it feels natural to them. Since teachers don’t have to put much effort into discipline they can really focus on the learning.
8. A beautiful building and appealing grounds. Westshire’s classrooms are spacious, sunny, and well-equipped. The grounds include a fenced area for preschool with enough of a hill for sledding and classroom gardens, as well as the usuals of play structures and playing fields, all surrounded by woods and the river. The hike on the Cross Rivendell Trail up to Southworth Park is short enough that even the preschoolers can do it.
9. Westshire has all the benefits of a small school, yet, as part of a larger PK-12 district, it offers opportunities that would normally only be found at a larger school.
10. Outstanding test scores WITHOUT “teaching to the test.” Westshire consistently ranks in the top 10 of Vermont’s 174 elementary schools. If you look at other schools in the top ten, you’ll notice that a lot of them are in much wealthier communities. I love that my son got a great education while attending school with kids from a broader socioeconomic mix.

This is a small school and has some very wonderful features, but the academics is lacking in every respect as well as diversity. Being small can be a good thing and a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. Good in that if you have great teachers there is student teacher ratio that is wonderfully small. Bad if the teachers don't know how to teach small groups and end up setting the bar too high for some and not high enough for others, then you get poor results. Unfortunately the latter is the case with Westshire.

My son went to this school for K through half of 1st grade. At that point I was rushing to get him out of there. His first year experience was absolutely terrible. It didn't help that his teachers didn't like boys very much, or maybe she just didn't like my son. I don't really know, but he has become emotionally scarred from that experience. He still says that he feels stupid because his teacher and his class mates told him so. I don't know how I'm going to deal with this in the long run. I guess all I can do is keep telling him he is very smart and continue working with him on my own. Further, I felt like I did more of the schooling and teaching, like reading and math, at home rather than what he learned in school, which frustrated me because what is he doing there half the day if he is learning next to nothing useful. Repeatedly I met with the school principle with my issues and got basically no where. Let me just state I'm not an overbearing mother nor am I controlling, I'm pretty relaxed actually, but I don't take kindly to people emotionally abusing my child. I even had his doctor ask me what was going on at school. And yes, it got so bad that I had him evaluated by a therapist, he wasn't sleeping through the night among many other red flags.

When he got out of preschool he was ready to read, when he got into kindergarten he went backwards and now in first grade he's just barely getting back to where he was in preschool. This tells me there is something very wrong with the education at this school. (He went to a private preschool in Arizona.) This school has put a very bad taste in my mouth about public schools in general and the experience has been traumatic not only for my son but also for me.

I wouldn't send another child to this school if you paid me.