Dower Elementary School

UNHELPFULL! Not only was the lady extremely rude but was extremely unhelpful in answering my questions. I called about enrolling my daughter into all day kindergarden and she acted like it was sooo hard to give me information to basic questions. If thats the kind of atmosphere my daughter will be around i want nothing to do with it.
—Submitted by a parent

My son went to Kindergarten here 2 years ago, and loved it. We never had a problem and my son got lots of attention because of the small classes. Very understanding to military sitiuations such as helping my son deal with deployments and missing school when daddy was on leave or coming home. No complaints once so ever! Oh and I also loved how they got parents involved with the classrooms, I also took a free parenting class which included free dinner and child care.
—Submitted by a parent

I was new to the area and thought this was the only school in our district. I would not suggest this school to anyone. Within the first few days, my son would come home crying and upset saying that he "wasn't learning anything" . So my husband decided to sit in class with him for 2 days to see what was being taught. Upon entering the class, my husband was approached by 2 little boys asking was he "packing a gun". On the 2nd day, the teacher was not able to have story time because she couldn't control the class. At that moment, my son was disenrolled & put into a different district. In a matter of two weeks, he was reading, writing better, and spelling.
—Submitted by a parent

I have a pre-k student that goes to Dower. and i have never had a problem with them. Mrs. Madori has always had the utmost respect not only for me as the mother but for my son and my other child that is not in school yet.
—Submitted by a parent

I may be alittle bias about my opinion about the school I work for but I have worked for many other schools and the staff here has an extreme sence of belonging which trickles down to the students. I did not feel that at the other places I've worked in the past.
—Submitted by a teacher

I definetly agree with the parent that speaks to allowing the parents to be the authoritarian as necessary. It is true that the teachers at this school are ready to pounce at any given moment. I personally visit the school very frequently and reecognize that the teachers are VERY serious about their jobs. I say have fun and boost moral for both the teachers and students. The principal is great - she is genuine and energentic.
—Submitted by a parent

Both my 3rd grader and my 5th grader have had consistently excellent experience with teachers and activities at Dower Elementary. My third grader has had her motivation to learn boosted from her previous school where she was in 1st and 2nd grade, and she finds the learning experience fun with challenges she is motivated to handle ..which is a big change from her other Lakewood school. My 5th grader is very bright and he enjoys being around what appears to be a good population of other bright students in his class. The teacher has taken advantage of this bright class by having it take on lessons advanced for this grade. A number of other parents I have talked to are also gratified by their children's teachers at Dower Elementary. We are fortunate to have these teachers and excellent school.
—Submitted by a parent

I feel that the teachers at this school treat a portion of the students with respect, and the other portion with disrespect. As a former student, I had personal experiences with disrespect from teachers. What I noticed was that with the portion who got poorly treated, they were good students; good grades, never disrespected the teachers... the only difference I noticed between the poorly treated students and decently treated students was because of their choice of friends and clothing. I feel that people should not be treated different because of what they wear, but how their attitude is. I'm not saying that all of the teachers are, um, 'unfair', but most of them were.
—Submitted by a former student

My son has always made straight A's until we moved here and I put him in Dower. He hated going to school and his grades dropped. I hated seeing him so unhappy so I transferred him to another school. Immediately, I saw a big change in him. He was happy about going to school again and his grades went back up. I'm not saying the whole school is bad, but I wasn't impressed with the teachers he had.
—Submitted by a parent