John Wesley Powell Middle School

If you want your child to experience cliques, girls wearing make-up at age 11, extreme competitiveness, sink-or-swim attitudes with teachers, and a phony principal--then this is the school for you! I highly recommend checking out other middle schools before subjecting your child to this place. Middle school is hard enough without the pressures and other garbage that are prevalent at Powell.
--Submitted by a parent

Powell is an excellent school. Both of my daughters are currently attending. The teachers are great and parents are empowered and included. Each year I opt my children out of the CSAP tests, now named TCAP. The administrators and teachers are supportive of parental rights when it comes to protecting the interests of our children. The administrator even commented, "Parents have the final authority in regards to their child's education."
--Submitted by a parent

My daughter has suffered for 2 years at Powell. She is not a complainer but has recently been informing me of the problems. In 6th grade under the old principal she loved it. 7th & 8th grade have not been good. To quote her " The bad kids can do whatever they want and nothing happens. The good kids slip up once and are in all kinds of trouble." A kid picked her up and threw her out of his way and nothing was done. She does not feel reporting it would do any good. Good luck to anyone enrolling.
--Submitted by a parent

Powell has been in transition the past 3 years with a long time principal leaving and a new one coming in. The new one Mr. Wolf is very inexperienced and does not have a sense of where he wants to go. Many teachers have or are retiring since he arrived and he seems to take all his direction from his bosses with no opinion of his own. I have seen the quality of the school greatly decline. Now there are long term substitutes for teachers that had been there forever and a mass exiting at the end of next year, our kids are confused about what subs will be there and where their teachers are. We will be open enrolling in Cherry Creek or Douglas County next year for sure and it is too bad under the last principal with our oldest child it was an amazing school.
--Submitted by a parent

This school has been amazing the past 3 years here I highly recommend it to everyone .....Im in 8th grade
--Submitted by a student

This is our first year at Powell and are greatly disappointed by the teachers and relationships with the students. Our first day all they talked about was 'detenion' if our students did not follow the rules. Needless to say we will not be attending next year.
--Submitted by a parent

The staff is not supportive at all. There is no support for the 'average' student. Once your child is labeled 'average,' average performance is good enough for the teachers. They don't encourage your child to exceed expectations.
--Submitted by a parent

This is a great school. This school offers a full range of music, art, shop, home economics, band, computers etc. The teachers are wonderful and parent involvement is encouraged.
--Submitted by Meg, a parent

I have been very disappionted with this school.My daughter is currently in 6th grade and she is having some problems adjusting to middle school.We have had several meetings and all the staff will do is complain and about her performance but they do not help her. The school offered a after school program leading us to believe that it would be a substitute for summer school,but after attending for several weeks we were told that was not the case.Overall this school and staff have really let us down and I would not reccomend it to anyone who asks.
--Submitted by sharon lewis, a parent