Wakefield Middle or Durant Middle School? (Star: home, restaurant, safety)

[Soccerfamily]

Our middle school options are Wakefield Middle and Durant Middle. What is the principal, teachers, and environment like? If you had to compare both, which did you choose and why?

Thanks in advance.

[Herd33]

My daughter is a rising 8th grader at Wakefield. It's been a positive experience. I know plenty of people who attend Durant (keeping a year round schedule because they have younger siblings on year round) and they seem pleased. Probably the biggest question is are you more interested in year round or traditional?

[Soccerfamily]

We like year round but our main priority is picking the better school.

[Starglow]

Originally Posted by Soccerfamily

Our middle school options are Wakefield Middle and Durant Middle. What is the principal, teachers, and environment like? If you had to compare both, which did you choose and why?

Thanks in advance.

It's been 5+ years ago now, but my son went to Durant Middle and we were very pleased with the teachers and overall learning experience at that time. The only caution regarding Durant Middle is potential safety issues when kids try to cross congested Durant Road either while walking home or going to the Bojangles restaurant across the street. There's a traffic light in front of the school which helps, but unsupervised children crossing Durant Road is still risky.

[iota20]

Originally Posted by Starglow

It's been 5+ years ago now, but my son went to Durant Middle and we were very pleased with the teachers and overall learning experience at that time. The only caution regarding Durant Middle is potential safety issues when kids try to cross congested Durant Road either while walking home or going to the Bojangles restaurant across the street. There's a traffic light in front of the school which helps, but unsupervised children crossing Durant Road is still risky.

There was a tragic accident there about 5 years ago before they had the traffic light + crosswalk. I haven't heard of any issues since then. At middle school age I think kids should know how to press a crosswalk button and wait for the opportunity to cross, even unsupervised.

[MaxtheRoadWarrior]

Teacher perspective:

On what I know of the test scores of both schools and their general performance, Wakefield comes out a bit ahead of Durant. Wakefield's scores tend to be higher, level of poverty tends to be lower, and most of what i head is overwhelming positive. The difference is probably marginal in the long run but significant enough for North Carolina to grade Wakefield higher than Durant.

I would definitely recommend Wakefield. But neither is really a bad choice.