The Franciscan School - reputation for bullying?? (Raleigh: catholic schools, budget)

[Agarrit]

Hello. We are relocating to the Raleigh area in May of 2016 and are just starting to research the Catholic schooling options for our four children. I was surprised to read many negative reviews of TFS in Raleigh. Several noted that the bullying problem there is quite an issue and that there are a few elite families who 'run the school' and whose kids get away with everything. I realize no school is perfect, but certainly not the comments I expected to read. We are coming from a strong Catholic parish in the Chicago area where this is absolutely not the case.

Does anyone have experience with this school? I'd hate to shell out that kind of cash to put my children into a possibly toxic environment but just can't believe this can be the case based on my own experience and that of my kids' with Catholic schools. Thanks!

[rfb]

My son has been at The Franciscan School since Kindergarten (he will be a rising 4th grader this year). We have yet to experience any bullying at the school and have nothing but good things to say about it He has many friends who attend the school with whom we are friends and I've never heard any concerns such as the ones you are raising. I have no idea who the "elite" families are, but we haven't bumped into them nor have we experienced anything that would suggest they exist.

[BoBromhal]

I'm guessing that you went to greatschools.org

and with 2 reviews that could have been written by the same person that talk about bullying, among about 400 families at any one time over a period of years, that those 2 "reviews" stood out.

unhappy people complain, happy people don't often bother extolling the virtues of something in public. it's the old maxim - please 10 and 1 will tout you; make 1 really mad and they'll tell 10 people.

I'm neither Catholic nor have any relationship at TFS beyond a few people I know that are or have been happy there. And given their overall background, I don't know that they'd be the "power families" some unhappy person complained about.

[shellsd]

Several good friends of mine have kids there and love it.

[shanti1]

My son went there for a transitional preschool class before starting kindergarten. We all loved it and already miss his teachers. If we were Catholic and had the money for a "private" school, we would have kept him at TFS. It does seem like a close knit group of people that attend the church and school. I would imagine all schools these days have bullies, sadly.

[Agarrit]

Thanks everyone! I thought the same thing about perhaps a couple of people writing more than one negative review. It was just jarring to see how many times this issue was raised. It really seems, on paper anyway, like a good option for us so I'm glad to hear of positive experiences. We will be visiting in November.

[Emitchell]

Just make sure you budget enough time to get in and out of all the school/commuter traffic in the morning. Just kidding. Sort of. Not really.

[rfb]

Originally Posted by Emitchell

Just make sure you budget enough time to get in and out of all the school/commuter traffic in the morning. Just kidding. Sort of. Not really.

Hopefully the Leesville Rd. widening will help - the current traffic is pretty bad during morning rush hour.

[Tomitillo26]

I too saw those reviews of the school but was not deterred. You have to take online reviews with a grain of salt these days. We have a family member who has her son enrolled there and is very happy with the place. We toured the school twice and attended mass there on several occaisions and we like it very much. We enrolled our son there and he will be starting next month. Bullying can happen anywhere. You just hope the school deals with it correctly when it does happen.

[MB1972]

I know a few families whose children attend there. It seems like a great school and the families I know are very happy with it.