McAuliffe Elementary School

McAuliffe is a great school. There are some stellar teachers, and there are some inferior ones. The new principal has made great strides toward more differentiated instruction instead of the "one size fits all" approach where the gifted kids are bored & the remedial kids struggle to keep up. My main complaint is about reading & writing. The school emphasizes it to death, but I don't care for the approach. In reading, the kids read individually at least 20 mins a day starting in first grade. However, by second grade, kids would get a lot out of reading groups where students of the same ability read the same novel and have take-home packets & discussion groups on the chapters they were most recently assigned. This never happens, as far as I can tell, b/c the kids are all reading different books. Also, there's a disproportionate emphasis on paragraph writing starting as early as second grade. I wish they deferred that until fourth grade & focused more on penmanship (barely mentioned & never practiced), punctuation, grammar, and spelling in the younger grades. Fortunately, math instruction has improved tremendously since the adoption of the new math curriculum in Fall 2010.
--Submitted by a parent

My daughter attended this school during grades K-5. She was very happy here, felt secure and did very well. Unfortunately, we had to relocate to the midwest. I always felt McAuliffe was special, I now know how fortunate we were to have been able to attend this wonderful school. It has a warm and nurturing environment, while at the same time skillfully challenges the students. (For example my daughter's current 7th grade class recently read a book that at McAuliffe was read in 5th grade! Her current teachers are amazed by how much she knows before they teach it here.) Most of staff at McAuliffe truly are concerned about their students success. My only negative thought is that the school seems too focused on doing well for the WASL.
--Submitted by a parent

My son hated kindergarten at McAuliffe. The teachers made no effort to give him more challenging work even after I asked them to. He felt horrible and bored all year long. Fortunately, he loves his first grade teacher. She is accommodating to his academic needs (and to the other advanced kids in the class). Many teachers dress in tight, revealing clothing. On my son s first day of school (kindergarten), no one was there to help him get to class when he stepped out of the bus. I am sure glad I was hiding and checking on him that day. The kids line up outside the building, and the lower grades are in the back, so if you just want to drop off your kid, he or she needs to walk all the way around the building (it rains a lot here in WA) to get to class.
--Submitted by a parent

The academic programs are stellar and really challenge our children in very beneficial ways.
--Submitted by a parent

My two children attend McAuliffe and it is a good school. I think you will find outstanding teachers, and not-so-outstanding teachers at any school anywhere, and this school is no different. It is very pricey, for public school. The fees for this and that seem endless, and students provide pretty much all supplies, including copy paper and kleenex.
--Submitted by a parent

McAuliffe is an excellent elementary school. For the five years my child attended, I found a caring, involved principal, good staff, and a modern facility. The tradeoff for us was having my child in a very politically-correct school with strict rules for what the children can and cannot do, and those rules often seemed unnecessary and over-the-top. Having moved to a small town with a smaller school where teachers are much more personable with the parents and students, and children are allowed to be children, my child has blossomed and enjoys school much more. I also felt that McAuliffe's desire to have students excel at WASL and ITBS testing became too much a focus for the kids, including such things as high-sugar snacks before tests to give the kids a 'boost'. And while the school is in a high-income area, Field trip fees and expected contributins were too high.
--Submitted by a parent

I am a parent of a past student(s). I can say that the success that my childre have had is directly related to the education they received at Christa McAuliffe. Our youngest daughter just graduated from High School with a High School diploma as well as an IB diploma. She ranked 7th in her class. We owe her success to the foundation received at Christa McAuliffe. We appreciate the wonderful staff and teachers who guided her and taught her the years she attended there. The schools in the Lake Washington School Dist. are an excellent model for a great education.
--Submitted by Gayle Pugmire, a parent

McAuliffe Elementary is a wonderful. The principal is outstanding and the teachers are wonderful. There are a tremendous amount of parents that volunteer their time and the school is very welcoming. My daughters love their teachers and going to school.
--Submitted by a parent