Westwood Elementary School

Well, I guess I'm a parent of one of those "slightly above average" students that the previous two reviewers had the misfortune of having in their little genius' classes. I feel awful that my child has skewed their learning opportunities. However, I have found the teachers overly caring, supportive, and constantly encouraging my child to be the best she can be. The parent involvement is great. True, the office personnel are horrible and rude. But if you can look past that, your will find an excellent, neighborhood gem that prepares children very well for the future.
—Submitted by a parent

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If your child is average, then send them here. They have a lot of enrichment that you won't find in other cash strapped schools. However, if your child is highly/profoundly gifted then you need to find a better match for them. They do not know how to help extremely bright kids. They misdiagnosed my son and gave him services that were not appropriate for his needs. Thank goodness I had the foresight to pull him out before more damage was done.
—Submitted by a parent

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We found the teaching methods were not consistently rigorous and yearned for a teacher who required regular spelling tests and the basics even in the lower grades. One teacher did not challenge my older child and required him to do "busy" math exercises instead of accelerating his learning. She was incapable of educating a gifted student. Despite its fierce nature to raise money from parents, the Charter school (and Charter administration) refused to pay for testing needs and we didn't feel that the the money raised should go into teachers' assistants. It's a good school, but we wished for more rigorous academic standards and received an opportunity to transfer my children to a magnet. When I asked my older child what the difference was between his current school and Westwood Charter, he felt that the lessons at Westwood flowed like molasses with too many students who didn't understand math concepts. As a working mother, I felt that it was very difficult to obtain information from the administration.
—Submitted by a parent

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In general Holy Angels prepared my daughter well for college. (This also applied to the older child, a few years ahead) She had a good background in most subject areas and was able to take on both the quantity and the individual responsibility aspects of college work. She acquired a love of Italian and (in the earlier grades) of French. The partnership with FDU enabled both girls to get a head start at college as they received Middle College Program(MCP) credits for some subjects - allowing them to bypass some core credit requirements and either move ahead faster or do more interesting electives at college. The one area of concern was math which was a struggle and where I found I had to pay extra for tutorial assistance.
—Submitted by a parent

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