What's the deal with Pine View School in Osprey?
Posted 05-09-2015 at 09:28 AM by SoFLGal
Pine View is a very different school and it's hard for me to say if it might be a good fit for your kid. For us, it was a good fit for our oldest and not the best fit for our middle girl. Our oldest graduated from PV and our middle left in 7th grade and then did Florida Virtual School. She's moving to Chicago in a few months and doing her senior year up there. It's a very personal decision and I'd probably have to write a book here to give all the pros and cons of the school.
As far as how it compares to Riverview...Riverview has an excellent IB program, or so I'm told. Many of the kids that want to be involved in a sports program through a local school but don't want the pressure of PV, transfer to Riverview in high school. PV doesn't have a football team, cheerleading team, etc but you can join at other local schools. PV has Speech and Debate, Latin Club, Environmental Club and more academic type programs. Many of the Pine View kids do rowing with Sarasota Crew or Sarasota Scullers. My Willow was on the Crew Team and several of the teachers are rowing coaches.
Many of the incoming parents don't realize that you can actually request your teachers at PV. Most of the teachers have been there for years and years. They teach gifted kids and stay until they retire. I'm sure I could recommend a few teachers on the list based on your kids learning style. You can also go here: www.ratemyteachers.com This is kind of an interesting website because not only parents comment on the teachers but the kids do as well. I find the reviews from the kids, for the most part, to be dead on.
I'll throw a few names out here, which I'm sure you'll see on the teacher list:
David Yotsuda, Science--middle school, he's in charge of Sea Camp, where the kids got down to Key West for a week and study marine biology. My kids really liked him.
Alternately, Steve Dacey, is a "must have" teacher. He reminds me of the mad scientist and is always doing crazy chemistry experiments with the kids.
Dr Dean, for high school English. His tests are insanely hard but my Coral still talks about how much she learned in his class. Difficult teacher but well worth the class. Mr Blake Wiley for high school English is also excellent.
Kacie Vassiliev/McFarlane, for Social Studies, I heard she got married so I'm not sure how they have her on the teacher request sheet. She's very creative and does a lot of hands on stuff with the kids. Both of my girls had her. Patty Rice is another good option and has a similar teaching style to Kacie. Molly McBride, who may have gotten married and changed her name was one of Willow's favorite teachers and she still talks about what a great influence she had on her. Both girls had Roma Jagdish and loved her.
Tara Speilman was great in the math department. Neither of my kids were that fantastic in math and she had a lot of patience and explained things well to them. Mrs Myers is another good choice. Mr Kaminske, runs a tight ship and I think many of the kids are a bit intimidated by his size and how strict he is but Coral learned a lot in high school from him. Coral had Gieseke and did well with him as well. Chris Deveau, another good choice.
Victor Mongillo is the director of the music dept and my kids weren't into music but my daughters BF was. He had nothing but awesome things to say about him. I've heard he's amazing.
Shout out to Retsy Lauer, my Coral's art teacher. Coral went on to major in art and is graduating in two weeks from New College of Sarasota with an art degree. We owe a lot to Ms Laurer and her direction.
Judy Black is excellent as a French teacher. The Latin teacher retired recently or I would highly recommend him.
In high school, Bergman teaches a really interesting Psych class.
My daughters BF had Dr Delp and loved him. He went on to major in computer science, so I'm assuming Dr Delp had some kind of influence on him.
Pine View is a huge commitment for not only the kids but the parents as well. I just like to stress that point. They expect the parents to be very, very involved in their kids education, which is a good thing, but a commitment none the less. To give you an example, when they are looking for a volunteer parent for a field trip, nearly every parent in the class wants to attend. In the average school, in general, you'd be lucky to have a few volunteers step forward.
Here's another example, for lunch they can go out to the fields and play sports, go to the library and read a book, sit and eat lunch under the oak trees, etc. In every other public school the kids go in the cafeteria and eat lunch and go back to class when they are done. My point is that PV kids have much more freedom then in other schools and for the most part, they respect the freedom they are given.
Some of the kids are a bit eccentric. My oldest wore vintage hats and a green cape to school everyday in middle school and half of high school. It was completely accepted and not looked at as out of the norm.
Disclaimer: These reviews are my personal experience with the above teachers. I tried to stick to teachers in only middle and high school but they do move up or down grade levels occasionally. There are many teachers who I would stay far away from as well but I wont post them on here. I'm sure there are others who didn't come to mind but would if I saw a teacher request sheet. I'm just mentioning the above from memory. This is a review of only PV teachers. I know many of the teachers at others schools as well but PV is the only school, that I'm aware of, where can actually request your teachers.
As far as how it compares to Riverview...Riverview has an excellent IB program, or so I'm told. Many of the kids that want to be involved in a sports program through a local school but don't want the pressure of PV, transfer to Riverview in high school. PV doesn't have a football team, cheerleading team, etc but you can join at other local schools. PV has Speech and Debate, Latin Club, Environmental Club and more academic type programs. Many of the Pine View kids do rowing with Sarasota Crew or Sarasota Scullers. My Willow was on the Crew Team and several of the teachers are rowing coaches.
Many of the incoming parents don't realize that you can actually request your teachers at PV. Most of the teachers have been there for years and years. They teach gifted kids and stay until they retire. I'm sure I could recommend a few teachers on the list based on your kids learning style. You can also go here: www.ratemyteachers.com This is kind of an interesting website because not only parents comment on the teachers but the kids do as well. I find the reviews from the kids, for the most part, to be dead on.
I'll throw a few names out here, which I'm sure you'll see on the teacher list:
David Yotsuda, Science--middle school, he's in charge of Sea Camp, where the kids got down to Key West for a week and study marine biology. My kids really liked him.
Alternately, Steve Dacey, is a "must have" teacher. He reminds me of the mad scientist and is always doing crazy chemistry experiments with the kids.
Dr Dean, for high school English. His tests are insanely hard but my Coral still talks about how much she learned in his class. Difficult teacher but well worth the class. Mr Blake Wiley for high school English is also excellent.
Kacie Vassiliev/McFarlane, for Social Studies, I heard she got married so I'm not sure how they have her on the teacher request sheet. She's very creative and does a lot of hands on stuff with the kids. Both of my girls had her. Patty Rice is another good option and has a similar teaching style to Kacie. Molly McBride, who may have gotten married and changed her name was one of Willow's favorite teachers and she still talks about what a great influence she had on her. Both girls had Roma Jagdish and loved her.
Tara Speilman was great in the math department. Neither of my kids were that fantastic in math and she had a lot of patience and explained things well to them. Mrs Myers is another good choice. Mr Kaminske, runs a tight ship and I think many of the kids are a bit intimidated by his size and how strict he is but Coral learned a lot in high school from him. Coral had Gieseke and did well with him as well. Chris Deveau, another good choice.
Victor Mongillo is the director of the music dept and my kids weren't into music but my daughters BF was. He had nothing but awesome things to say about him. I've heard he's amazing.
Shout out to Retsy Lauer, my Coral's art teacher. Coral went on to major in art and is graduating in two weeks from New College of Sarasota with an art degree. We owe a lot to Ms Laurer and her direction.
Judy Black is excellent as a French teacher. The Latin teacher retired recently or I would highly recommend him.
In high school, Bergman teaches a really interesting Psych class.
My daughters BF had Dr Delp and loved him. He went on to major in computer science, so I'm assuming Dr Delp had some kind of influence on him.
Pine View is a huge commitment for not only the kids but the parents as well. I just like to stress that point. They expect the parents to be very, very involved in their kids education, which is a good thing, but a commitment none the less. To give you an example, when they are looking for a volunteer parent for a field trip, nearly every parent in the class wants to attend. In the average school, in general, you'd be lucky to have a few volunteers step forward.
Here's another example, for lunch they can go out to the fields and play sports, go to the library and read a book, sit and eat lunch under the oak trees, etc. In every other public school the kids go in the cafeteria and eat lunch and go back to class when they are done. My point is that PV kids have much more freedom then in other schools and for the most part, they respect the freedom they are given.
Some of the kids are a bit eccentric. My oldest wore vintage hats and a green cape to school everyday in middle school and half of high school. It was completely accepted and not looked at as out of the norm.
Disclaimer: These reviews are my personal experience with the above teachers. I tried to stick to teachers in only middle and high school but they do move up or down grade levels occasionally. There are many teachers who I would stay far away from as well but I wont post them on here. I'm sure there are others who didn't come to mind but would if I saw a teacher request sheet. I'm just mentioning the above from memory. This is a review of only PV teachers. I know many of the teachers at others schools as well but PV is the only school, that I'm aware of, where can actually request your teachers.
Total Comments 0
