Elgin Elementary School

i would say 4 children leaving this school from one grade in one year staes there is a problem with how certain situations were handled
—Submitted by a parent

11/15/2011 Having visited this school over several years because our grandchildren attend, have allowed my wife and I to carefully evaluate the following programs: academics,,teaching staff, facilities, sports, fine arts, etc. Because of our professional training, we are qualified to evaluate. We have concluded that this school is doing an excellent job educating and equipping our grandchildren to be successful in their life pursuits. We rate the school as excellent in all areas.

From my limited knowledge of Elgin School (when visiting my grandchildren), I rate this school as excellent. I have visited classrooms and eaten with my grandchildren at school, attended 8th grade graduations, and thoroughly enjoyed the very successful Missoula Childrens Theater production of "Sleeping Beauty." The teachers offer individual attention when students have questions or problems, and the school has opportunities to partticipate in gifted classes as well as sports activities. Based on my experiences at Elgin School, I have no reason to rate it no less than excellent.

My son attended Elgin Elementary from 1st to 8th grade. I found it to be a very caring nurturing environment at every level. He excelled at this school and was always pushed to do his best, especially in the gifted and Math Counts programs.. He was well prepared for high school and with an A+ average in honors classes he is in the the top 5 students in his class. My daughter, currently an 8th grader at Elgin, has attended since kindergarten. She is excelling in all areas and currently working high school algebra. There seems to be one disgruntled parent writing all of the bad reviews. While she may have found another school to be better for her child, I find that Elgin has built strong character, study habits and values in my own children. The small class size and individual attention make it ideal. Children will be mean and tease others at every school, and I have found that when these types of issued came up, the school addressed them in a proactive manner and they were resolved to my satisfaction. This school honors our community veterans with a special celebration the day before veterans day. They also have many events that are attended by many in our community.
—Submitted by a parent

My son attended Elgin for four years. I am totally disappointed with the degrading of students by teachers. Instead of teaching children, they want to find problems with them. The principal is hands off. Not where I would suggest anyone to send their children if they care about their education. I sent my son to an A + rated school and my son has excelled in all areas and awarded high honor roll. Not bad for a student Elgin said had learning disabilities. I have no respect for Elgin Elementary.
—Submitted by a parent

Elgin School is a wonderful school. They offer a total education to my chidren. There is an art program in conjunction with the Patagonia Arts Center, a full music program with an awesome new teacher this year. PE is given for an hour and half a week for elementary grades and two hours a week for middle school students. All students in grades 5-8 are given laptops to use at school. Computers is taught in all grades including Kindergarten. All of the teachers are highly qualified and higly enthusiastic. The only negative I have is one of the teachers in the middle school (language arts and gifted) comes across as very nice but can be very overbearing and mean to the students. Several students have quit the gifted program because of this and some alumni have said they have not been prepared for high school. Otherwise Elgin School is GREAT!
—Submitted by a parent

My son has gone to Elgin for 4 years and has done very well. The small school provides for a tight knit class, where kids make good friends and spend time with them outside of school. The staff is very personable and open, and they've provided lots of support for my child. My child came in at 2nd grade and was accepted quickly by the other kids. We are very happy with the school and staff, and strongly recommend the school.
—Submitted by a parent

PLease I beg you do not send your child here. It is very small which makes it hard to make friends. The children are snobby. They are not exposed to the world enough. There is no arts for the middle school and they will not let them grow up. The teachers and principle are very nice that is why I gave it 1 star. Other than that this school diserves -0 stars in everything else.
—Submitted by a parent

Warm and wonderful school, small class size and many extras. My 4th grader love her teacher and is excelling in music, she comes homes talking about beat and how the brain works - sound reasons why music is an important thing for every kid to get. I'm very grateful that our small school offers music & done by a caring and intelligent person.
—Submitted by a parent

Elgin is very unique for a small size school. The class size is extraordinarily small which makes a wonderful setting for learning. It's a public school with a private school feel. Wonderful teachers. My only suggestion would be that they would better prepare our students in the middle school grades with better test taking skills as I don't feel they are as prepared for high school as they could be. Otherwise my son did very well at Elgin and went into high school taking two AP classes and I know it's due the quality of teaching at Elgin.
—Submitted by a parent

A very good school, very nice country setting, very safe. Just an example--when a piece of playground equipment had a little bit of vandalism on it, the principal was very upset and called a school meeting about it. Obviously, this would only happen in a very safe school like Elgin School, where the children are generally very well behaved. The special ed teacher has helped our child a lot with the special help she has needed in certain areas. The music department is terrible, sad to say, and there is really no art, besides what the parents volunteer to provide. There is tons of homework. They do some interesting programs, such as a wonderful Veteran's Day celebration with essays read, songs sung, veterans attending, a great breakfast, the Army Band and a flyby. They did a nice young authors' program this year, and they do nice social studies programs.
—Submitted by a parent

There are few things that I want to stress the importance of Elgin school. Reading, writing, and language subjects are of course very important for grade K-2. However, to me, they are rather excessive for students doing work in these subjects. There should be balance among subjects including social science, science/math combination, creative writing, expressive arts, and reading. I think it is great that the students are given a lot of writing, spelling, and reading excerises but they should try to explore science, social science, combination of math & science, and expressive arts (arts for students to express themselves by the means). I believe students should participate in P.E. at least three days a week to get maximum of excerise they need to promote the growth of body and mind. Once weekly seems insufficient to the kids. Music should be conducted twice a week.
—Submitted by a parent