Edna Brewer Middle School

I would rate my experience as a 6th grade parent at Edna Brewer as a 10/10. I mean how many parents can say their son genuinely loves school? This school has been amazing for my son and I cannot wait for 7th and 8th grade.

I have a 6th grader who has an IEP and so far we have felt really supported. The teachers are awesome and I am looking forward to the next 2 years.

So far it's been a wonderful experience for my daughter. She gives it a 10.

My experience at this school was mixed. Socially, I was very happy with the school: My son made a number of good friends, and learned how to strike an effective balance between his natural mischievousness and his desire to avoid serious trouble. Although a minority -- ethnically and culturally -- at the school, he neither sought nor experienced social isolation. I truly appreciated Brewer's commitment to diversity, even though I sometimes felt like my own culture was neither well-understood nor particularly well-respected. Too many people grow up in ethnically and culturally isolated environments, and consequently view "outsiders" with distrust and fear. My son will never have this problem -- just as I, who grew up in an equally diverse environment, never had this problem. Being able to get along with people who don't look like you or share your cultural background is one of the most important social skills anyone can develop, especially in America. On the flip side, my son had a poor academic experience at this school. I have sympathy for the teachers, who are largely young and under-prepared and have no idea how to manage a classroom full of sassy kids. I do not have sympathy for their often poor attitudes towards parents, and parent involvement (again, on the cultural sensitivity front: just because someone does not share your priorities does not mean that he or she is a bad parent. I can't count the number of times that a teacher told me that my son was hanging out with "the wrong crowd" -- but I'd had all of these kids over to my house, and every single one of them was raised by someone who cared enough to teach him good manners). My overall sense was that teachers felt like they were doing everything they could, so if kids weren't succeeding it was the parents' fault. This attitude made it difficult for parents to work with teachers to help students learn, because teachers were largely unwilling to listen to parents' perspectives on problems. My son struggled with the poor classroom discipline, spotty organization, and overall lack of academic structure. We tried to address these problems in many ways, over the years, to no avail. When we put him in Independent Study, all of the problems went away. Your kid might have a different experience. I think this school is great for some kids. It just wasn't great for my kid.