Gardner Road Elementary School

Our daughter has been in the school for the past 4 years. It has been a mixed bag. She was fortunate to have several good teachers, who were interested to teach and not to just pass the tests. She also had a teacher who did not want to do anything beyond catering to the lowest common denominator and would not engage in any dialog with us, the parents. We found the PTO to be essentially a meeting between the principal and some parents. No teachers at the PTO, that is hard to accept. The principal has since been replaced. If not for the committed teachers, we would be disappointed, but they are there and work hard and love the children. We hope the new principal will make a difference.
--Submitted by a parent

I have 2 children who have attended this school. My son just started intermediate school, so he has gone through all grade levels of GR. We enjoy the wide variety of intermural sports, plentiful field trips and many activities provided by the PTO. I have volunteered in several areas, so I've seen classrooms in progress. My suggestion to parents is get involved. The staff is caring and concerned about providing a quailty education to all the students. I'm proud to be a GR parent!
--Submitted by a parent

My son started Kindergarten at this school this year, and loves it. He loves his teacher, loves the school, loves everything about it. His class has been on more than one field trip, and they have more coming. He has gotten involved with things like the fall festival, turn off tv week activities, the ice cream social, etc... There is a lot to do, and if anyone has complaints, they should just get more involved. Join the PTO. Parents who complain about what the PTO is or isn't doing should step up and put forth some effort to help make it what they visualize. Go to the meetings! (Free childcare is provided!) The PTO has done (and continues to do) a lot of great things for the school. I am very happy my son goes to this school! And so is he!
--Submitted by a parent

No parents neither service coordinator observations. The principal has closed any open door policy due to privacy.
--Submitted by a parent

My youngest son attended this school for a year and it was a year too long. ('05-'06) The staff overall could at best be called Cold. Both of the teachers that we had to deal with were uppity and overly controlling/stifling. The principal was open to listening to our concerns but in the end didn't really address the issues. The PTO is (was) practically non-existent, as were grade-level concerts and fun extras for the kids. I know the school had music, art, etc but we rarely saw any evidence of this (i.e. projects coming home, etc). Overall the energy in the school is cold, stagnate and spoiled. We can't figure out why so many people love this school.
--Submitted by a parent