Donelson Middle School

All of the the teachers my child has had are fantastic. However, there is no sense of community. The Ptsa, if it exists, does very little. Parents and visitors are not welcome in the building during the school day. My child tells me that students get away with horrible behavior and it makes it difficult for the teachers to teach. In the 4 years my child has been there I've wanted to remove them a few times. It's the teachers that have kept me there. The administration provides no structure, no discipline, has very little to do with the students, and is not encouraging. As a matter of fact, they are down right unpleasant. It seems every year more and more extracurricular sports and fun events have been cut. If the students don't have fun events in school, then they won't enjoy being there! When is metro going to wake up and get an amazing administration in this school? We need our COMMUNITY SCHOOL to represent the community. Some of us have younger children moving up into middle school. It sure would be nice to not feel like we have to look for another school for our children. I , for one, do not feel comfortable sending another child through that enviornment!
--Submitted by a parent

It amazes me that my child who is in the 6th grade this year 2010-11 at DMS never has any homework. They give them class time to do their homework, but the teachers should be teaching during their class time not giving them free time every day. I appreciate them giving them a little time at the end of the day to work on homework, but they should have some homework or book reports, something to reinforce what they have learned. The teachers overall are good, but the discipline at the school could be better. Bullying is a realy problem at DMS, but I guess that is at every middle school. The PTSO is not active, and if the parents are not involved then the students are not going to be either.
--Submitted by a parent

This is not your average hand a kid a book and they will learn kind of school. This school is better for kids that need to learn out loud. My child went to Two Rivers for two years then Donelson for two and despite test scores learned more at Donelson. It is not a good school for kids that need quiet. It is very disorderly and easy to lose site of goals. It's my job to keep my kids focused and their job to teach. They do teach.
--Submitted by a parent

Teachers are unfriendly, lack of empathy, unclean and students are disruptive. My child is changing schools asap.
--Submitted by a parent

We are very disappointed. Although the music program is outstanding (band and strings), there are deficiencies in the quality of the curiculum across most of the subjects, especially math and reading. We hope that the administration will also make strides to improve or enforce their discipline guidelines. The disruptions in the classroom from lack of control of the children is I think the largest reason the school's performance has not improved over the last few years.
--Submitted by a parent

I am shocked to see the parents in this school give 4 out of 5 stars to this school. This school has been under 'improvement 1' for the past 3 years. Parents,please, do your homework! Poor performance was attributed to 'low income' and 'minority' and yet if you look acroos to another part of town where some 70-90% are minorities, some of these schools have out performed Donelson MS.

Great teachers and very nice school
--Submitted by a parent

No discipline for students from the administration
--Submitted by a parent

I went to dms for two years it was a great experience. I had realy good teachers , but the best teachers were in the 8th grade and there names are ms.Johns, ms.Souder, ms.Mitchell, mr.Patterson,and mr.Heim. They made my last year there the best.
--Submitted by a student

This school is very good. I fell in love with the 8th grade teachers. They really make my child feel comfortable in school it means a lot to me Mr. Patterson, Ms Mitchell, Mrs Newcomb, Ms Johns, you guys are the best at what you do. Thank you
--Submitted by a parent