Kingman AZ? Is it really that horrible? (Flagstaff, Sedona: offroading, trip)

[ArizonaBear]

I have to agree with both kdog and rambrush here as well.

Especially being that I have personal knowledge of much of Mohave County S of the Grand Canyon

[Pippi333]

i'll apologize ahead of time for the length of this post, but thought i would give as much info as i personally can concerning the schools in Kingman. i lived in Kingman twice, from '93-'95, and again from '03-'05. just wanted to state for the record, that we had pretty extensive dealings with the schools, and found them to be really quite bad.

my five year old was seriously assaulted not once, but twice, on his third day of Kindergarten (cerbat elementary). during the first instance, his head was repeatedly punched against a ceramic tile wall in the bathroom...no adults anywhere to be found, despite the fact that he said he was crying and screaming for help.

immediately after this incident, he walked out onto the playground, and was thrown/pushed off of the play structure, and then a group of boys took turns jumping on his stomach, telling him, "next time, we're going to kill you".

now, if anybody is really interested in the long story of how the school staff/principal/asst. superintendant would not do anything to remedy this situation (at one point, the teacher actually blamed it all on my son, saying, "well, he WAS bouncy in line earlier"...), feel free to PM me and i'll be happy to share the story. it's really long to post here. suffice it to say that we felt strongly that he would be no safer if he returned to school the next day (no adult supervision in restrooms for kindergarteners? playground "supervisors" paying so little attention that my son could have been seriously, seriously injured - when he came home he had red tread marks from the kids' shoes on his little tummy! and no willingness on the part of school administration to apprehend and/or deliver appropriate consequences to the students who attacked my son...), and the only response we got from the asst. superintendant was "well, kindergarten isn't required in AZ, so you don't have to send him back". Needless, to say, we pulled out to homeschool.

on the upside, arizona is a very homeschooler-friendly state, so it worked out.

we had other quite negative dealings with schools there as well, as my older daughter attended while we lived there, as well. (cerbat elementary and the junior high).

i have heard that hualapai and manzanita are both good...however, what are they being compared to? we tried to enroll in both of these schools after the trouble with cerbat, the next school year. manzanita practically threw us out before we were even all the way through the door (the woman working the office that day was incredibly rude). hualapai actually accepted my son's transfer, however in the end, we decided against it (my son was still extremely afraid to go to school because of the violent incidents the prior year and the threats that he would be killed...he was only 5, it was extremely difficult to try to convince him that although these things were said, it would not happen...he just wouldn't believe us.), and when i explained this, i was basically told that we had been "graced" to have had our transfer request accepted to the holy hualapai school, and in so many words, told that we would not be welcome to apply for a transfer at any time in the future.

in search of better schools, we moved to boise, idaho. i would say that we definitely did find better schools here. however, after the years of homeschooling in AZ, we found that homeschooling is actually a better fit for us. my son attended a very happy 2nd grade year in public school here, a decent 3rd grade year, and we went back to homeschooling this year.

we have actually decided to move back to kingman to be closer to my mother-in-law who has had major, life-threatening medical issues in the last couple of months, but we will be homeschooling.

i had spoken personally to the assistant superintendant before moving to kingman in '03, as well as emailed with at least one school principal....and was told how "wonderful" and "flexible" the schools there were. i bought it hook, line, and sinker. however, i found the opposite to be true.

i guess it depends on what you are looking for in a school. oh yeah, the kindergarten there was a 7 hour day, and after three days of asking my son, "what did you do today?", running down a list of things like "did you paint? did you sing? did you hear a story", etc., and hearing nothing back from him except, "we colored", i thought maybe he was just forgetting what they had done in class? when i would ask even more specific questions, he would say "the teacher leaves a lot, there's another lady there and she just tells us to sit down and color". out of curiosity, we requested all of my son's classwork for the days he had attended....lo and behold, what we got back was a folder with about 5 coloring sheets in it, and nothing else. when my husband looked at the teacher and asked, "is this everything he did during the 21 hours he spent in your class?", she just looked at him and wouldn't answer. that was answer enough.

so personally, for those planning on coming into the kingman school district with young school aged children, i would be VERY careful and do everything in your power to really, really know what you are getting into before you do. maybe things have improved in the 2 years since we left....but it's still the same superintendent, the same assistant superintendent, even the same principal at cerbat. so, my guess would be that, chances are, not much has changed.

[kdog]

Pippi,

Sorry to hear about your bad experience at Cerbat Elementary, but it doesn't surprise me. Kingman has five elementary schools and Cerbat is at the bottom. Arizona has the worst schools in the country, and you moved into the worst school district in a small town. What were you thinking?

When we decided to move to Kingman we limited our housing search to the Hualapai district specifically for the school. We were not disappointed, it's excellent. The teachers and facilities are top-notch. Our kids love it, and we're very pleased with the curriculum.

I don't know what else to tell you, but you really blew it by moving into the Cerbat area. Had you done the slightest bit of research before moving to that area, you would have known what you were getting into.

[wyliecoyot]

It wasn't that many years ago that Palm Springs was a little blot on the desert and Palm Desert didn't exist. Look at it now. I had a place in Hesperia/Victorville 20 years ago. There were only about 8000 people. Now there are over 100,000. People will continue to move outward from the metro areas, for many different reasons. Lok at Phoenix, Las Vegas, and may other places. Growth is inevitable. Just like crime and drugs. I have friends in small town Iowa, and the same problems are there.

Go look for yourself, see how it feels. If you can, make several visits at different times of the year. Only you can decide what's best for you and your family.

[Pippi333]

well, "kdog"...i felt that personally speaking on the phone with the assistant superintendant AND a couple of principals qualified as research. how many times have you yourself gone that far to find out about potential schools for your family?

of course i also looked up test scores, school "report cards", etc., but the truth is, that those are not necessarily sufficient measurements of a school or district's performance. if you don't understand why, i'll give you an example:

several years ago, we lived in a pretty exclusive community in southern california. if one were to look at the "test scores" of that particular school, they would find that they are extremely high. now, this is not even close to an accurate assessment of this particular school. there are fewer than 100 students in the school, and i personally was hired to tutor two children, and i knew several others, who by even the 4th grade, could not read, did not know possess basic computational skills, and could not write a proper sentence. in addition, in 2001, the 3rd grade teacher at that school was found to have been giving the students the ANSWERS to their state standardized tests! it was proven, no if's, and's, or but's. yet the "test scores" that one can look up online for this particular school look fantastic to somebody who doesn't know the school. (by the way, the district didn't even fire that teacher, she continued to work there until her retirement).

knowing this kind of thing happens much more often than any of us would like to think, i felt i was going straight to the source by personally contacting the assistant superintendent and school principals, via phone and email. i had many specific questions to ask, being that my only child in school at the time had been testing into the gifted programs since early in her school career, had skipped a grade, etc., and i needed details as to what curriculum and resources were available an advanced student. now why on earth would i believe i could get the accurate answers to those questions from the assistant super and school prinicipals??!!!! wow, you're right...what WAS i thinking?!

if you are happy with where your children attend school, then good for you. as far as being happy with the curriculum, hualapai is supposed to be following the very same curriculums that cerbat follows. curriculums don't vary by school in a single district, the curriculums are approved BY the district, according to standards set by the state, based on standards set at the federal level. perhaps haulapai has more dedicated staff and teachers than cerbat, i'm not arguing that. i'm not sure how thoroughly you have dissected the curriculum your children are being taught, but if you are really interested, you may want to, and then compare that to other curriculums of districts around the country that are known to be top performers (that's what i always did, so that i could supplement at home if something seems to not get covered at school....of course, now we homeschool so that really isn't an issue). you may find that your children really are NOT being taught all they should be at their grade level, or you may find that they are...either way, looking into it couldn't hurt. i'm not sure how much time or effort you have put into researching elementary school curriculums, but i have spent the last 15 years teaching and tutoring children, i have read countless (and i do mean countless) curriculum and teaching books, articles of the same subjects, and the state department of education websites for nearly every state in the country. i have found the top performing schools and districts in the nation, gone to their school websites, and copied down their curriculums in order to help me create my own for my children. i'd say i'm relatively well educated in the area of elementary curriculum.

i wasn't trying to step on anybody's toes....we had a really bad experience with schools in kingman, and i'd read so many posts with people telling potential newcomers that the schools were "good" and even "great", that i felt it appropriate to give another side to that coin. i have lived in 4 different school districts since my children began attending school, a couple of bad ones, one excellent one, and one that is okay. so, i have something to compare kingman to. believe me, i feel that many, many public schools fail the children who attend them, not just kingman. but i also think it's wrong to give potential residents, who might really be looking for a very good school district for their children, to be led to believe that kingman has one.

and by the way, your tone is really unappreciated. and unecessary.

further, when your children leave hualapai, they will be attending one of the middle schools in kingman, yes? my daughter attended what used to be kingman junior high for part of 7th and all of 8th grades. a couple of her teachers were good, one was outstanding (still her favorite teacher of all time, who REALLY gets his students excited about the subject he teaches), but the rest ranged from mediocre to downright awful. for instance, once i sent a written correspondence to an english teacher she had at the junior high....the letter i got back was full of grammatical errors...not much comfort to a parent hoping their child is receiving a good education.

my experience has been that safety is an absolute issue, as well. aside from all the problems my son had at cerbat...on other occasions my daughter and her classmates were made to run the mile in 100+ temps, more than one child was vomiting during this run, my daughter was totally sick when she got home, and the personnel i dealt with at the school (i wanted to make sure she was not forced to this again), acted as though they couldn't see a thing wrong with what had happened. another time, my daughter, who was in cross country at the time, was riding home on the "activities" bus. with absolutely NO warning or notice, the district had decided that the bus stops would be changed, and instead of dropping her at her morning bus stop (which had been the routine for weeks), she and several other children were dropped off about a mile from their regular stop...some of them didn't even know how to get home from where they were being let off, and my daughter said others were crying and refusing to get off of the bus because they didn't know where to go. my daughter got off of the bus, and i met her halfway because i happened to call the school and then the bus garage when her bus did not arrive on time. i was furious...i go to great lengths to not put my children in situations where they could be in real danger (in kingman, that could be one of the many registered sex offenders, the dogs that run freely, or the violent kids like the ones who assaulted my son), and felt it very inappropriate that the school district had felt they had the authority to just drop my 11 year old off wherever they wanted without telling me first.

i really could go on and on with these negative experiences we had with the schools during the short time we used them, but this post is more than long enough already. all i really wanted to do was give potential residents some specifics from somebody who had not found the schools to be useable. when remarks are made like "we are happy with the curriculum", that tells your opinion, but it doesn't really give any details to a potential newcomer, and doesn't necessarily give them a fair assessment of the situation.

anyway, i hope the information i've given is useful to somebody. there are some things about kingman i really do like, it's just that the schools really did not suit our needs. even at that, when we move back next year, i'm going to let my oldest attend her senior year at the high school. she's thrilled to be going back to her friends, and since she has already skipped a grade, was given the opportunity to skip yet another grade, and plans to attend a university here in idaho that isn't really all that difficult to get into, i feel okay about letting her really enjoy her senior year even if it means the academics aren't what i would like them to be. if she wasn't so far ahead i would feel very differently.

best of luck to everyone!

[kdog]

Pippi333, with all your rhetoric, it boils down to this. YOUR research indicated that Cerbat was the school for your kid. Your kid hated it, got beat up and got a bad education. OUR research indicated that Hualapai was the school for us. Our kids love it, they've made tons of friends, and we are very pleased with the level of education that they are receiving. We are very involved in our kid's education and you have insulted me by insinuating that we don't know the difference.

You have experience with exactly ONE of the FIVE elementary schools in Kingman that you say is bad. We have experience with a different school that we say is good. I will accept your claim at face value that Cerbat is a bad school if you will extend the same courtesy to me when I tell you that Hualapai is a good school.

Moderator Edit: personal/off topic

[kdog]

Originally Posted by Pippi333

i go to great lengths to not put my children in situations where they could be in real danger (in kingman, that could be one of the many registered sex offenders [...]

You live in Boise, ID. Correct? Here are the ratios of residents to sex offenders for Kingman and Boise.

Boise: 439 to 1
Kingman: 772 to 1

Boise has almost twice the per-capita rate of sex offenders than does Kingman. So you actually put your kids into a more dangerous environment by moving from Kingman to Boise.

[Pippi333]

kdog, the information i took the time to post was really intended for those who have no idea of what to expect in kingman, in the hopes that perhaps they would get a bit more realistic view and detailed account than that given by posts that just say that "kingman schools are great" (or something similar).

again, if you are happy, more power to you. if what i say does not apply to you, then why put so much effort into rebutting what i post? you appear to just be confrontational, and i really don't have time to waste on that kind of mentality.

you win...you're perfect, kingman is perfect, hualapai is perfect....happy?

if you wish not to be insulted, perhaps you should refrain from insulting first. just a little food for thought.

you must be seriously insecure if you are taking the time to pick apart my grammatical and writing skills, lol. just fyi...i am a freelance writer who has had over 100 articles published. apparently, my writing skills are more than sufficient for the company i write for.

i never compared the amount of registered sex offenders between kingman and boise...what i did was state that i felt it inappropriate that the school felt it was acceptable to just dump my kid off a mile from her normal bus stop without notifying me first, and that i felt this put her in a potentially dangerous situation...one of those dangers being the sex offenders in the area. sigh.

the schools in kingman really aren't an issue for me anymore, since i will continue to homeschool when i get back. so, i mean, i don't really care...i just thought it might help somebody else who wants examples of people's real experiences there. when people read these posts, they'll get both of our input, and hopefully it will help them with their decisions. that's all i wanted. insufferable know-it-all's don't really help anyone.

please don't direct your posts to me from here on out. i wish you had refrained from addressing me to begin with. i have no desire for any more of this ridiculous banter with you.

again, best of luck to everyone here, yourself included.

[kdog]

Pippi, what is your problem? You came here and stated that ALL Kingman schools are bad. I'm merely pointing out that they're not all bad. I never said they were all good. There are good schools and there are bad. YOU chose a bad one and have the gall to proclaim that they're all bad. It is my right to correct misleading information about the town where I live, and you will not silence me with your insults.

You can stop reading here. The rest of this post if for people who want to understand better the school situation in Kingman.

My position is that if you pick the right schools, your kids can get a good education here. The Hualapai Elementary is one such school. It was recommended to us by the superintendent's office, and we verified that by talking to realtors in town and residents who we trusted. We visited the school and introduced our kids to the principal before we enrolled them. The principal recommended specific teachers according to our kids individual needs. We're now on our second year at Hualapai, and we went through the same teacher selection process for our second year. We have been extremely impressed with the competency and compassion of the teachers that our kids have had so far.

As mentioned previously, we are very involved with our children's education. My wife and I both have professional occupations, come from families where higher education is the norm, and are raising our kids with the same expectations. This is our second year in Kingman, and are fortunate enough to have the financial capacity to live anywhere. If we felt our children could not get a good education in Kingman, we can and would leave in a heartbeat.

That being said, our direct experience is limited to Hualapai Elementary School only. It is our understanding that the Manzanita Elementary school is also good. Then there is the Kingman Academy, a Charter School, which some claim to be the best in town. BTW, I misspoke previously when I said there were five elementary schools. There are actually seven of them including the Kingman Academy. Unsurprisingly, the best public schools are located in the best areas of town as well, and that is a standard pattern that you will see anywhere in the country. The Hualapai area where our kids go to school is a newer and more lucrative part of town.

Cerbat Elementary school which is the single elementary school that Pippi has experience with is located in a relatively poor part of town. It's an older area that is basically a sea of double-wide trailer homes. The problem with the school is that the vast majority of children come from broken homes. These kids are being raised by single parents or in extended families. As a result, they almost all have emotional problems and carry a lot of anger, and that is reflected in learning difficulties and bad behavior. A good academic environment in a neighborhood like this is almost impossible to achieve. It's a sad state of affairs, but it's a fact of life. You would never send your kid to school in an environment like this if you had a choice.

Now the middle school and high schools situation in this town is more complicated. The problem is that there aren't as many of them. There are two middle schools and only a single high school. So there is a large amount off cross-pollination of students, and that causes problems. We've gotten mixed-feedback spanning the range of "it's a disaster", to "it can be worked if you monitor the situation closely". However, there are options and light at the end of the tunnel. The Kingman Academy is one option and an excellent school. It's a difficult school to get into; the student enrollment is very tightly controlled. Your kid has to be exceptionally intelligent, take a number in a lottery, or you basically have to know somebody to get in. Even then, your kid will be bounced out of the school if they don't fit in. Harsh, but it works. A relatively higher number of their graduates go on to college than from the public schools.

The light at the end of the tunnel for the public middle and high schools is the $50M school bond that was approved last year by the voters. A portion of that money is being spent on upgrades for existing schools. However, the bulk of it is slated for a new high school that is currently in the planning stages and will most likely be located in a better area of town. That will go a long way to fixing the high school problem. The KUSD recognizes the middle school problems as well and are addressing them. Kingman is growing and trying to attract more of the middle and higher income families. And the town fully realizes that good schools are a necessity for good growth. We're keeping our fingers crossed that by the time our kids are out of elementary school that the public middle and high schools will be in better shape. If not, we may send them to the Academy, or home school them using the excellent Arizona On-line School. So there are options if we decide to stay, which isn't cast in concrete either.

Life is rarely black and white. Reasonable people know that any substantial town is going to have both good areas and bad areas, good people and bad people, good schools and bad schools, etc, etc. What's really frustrating to me is seeing people who move into the bad part of town, hating life, then denigrating the entire town in a public forum while speaking like some kind of authority. Well, I have a message for these people. There is a word used to describe the proclivity of people to extract trends from single data points, and that word is bigotry.

[kdog]

Whoops, I gave the wrong link for the Arizona On-line School System. Here's the correct link.

iQ Academy Arizona (broken link)