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an elementary school is never "bad" - simply because the kids don't misbehave enough to cause real disruption.
An elementary school underperforms when: kids start K and that's their first schooling environment and they are behind on learning OR parents get the kids out the door of the house, and see them sometime after school, and never get involved to see how the child is doing.
Period.
as to "options for information", the official site is:
I live near there and we're technically zoned to parkwood but probably going to the new lyons farm school but anyway i would say you shouldnt feel opposed to giving parkwood a shot it's a nice little community transitioning on the up.
If you dive into demographic data it actually serves a huge number of hispanic students who have systemic obstacles in performance.
parkwood did indeed get a new principal in the last 3 years
what i'm trying to say is poor school performance is strongly coorelated with serving an economic lower community and this is exactly the parkwood area pre the past 5 years and you know it takes 5 years for a kid just to start elementary school.
DPS shifted in some creekside zoned houses a few years ago and parkwood is moving up in who can afford to live there along with new developments i expect they want to more balance equity in parkwood.
the takeway of it all is especially with a kid just starting i wouldnt be despairing they will not be in an environment where they can meet peers and be academically challenged.
I genuinely believe DPS wants to balance race and class between the schools
Nick, are you sure Pearsontown is lottery only? I know people who had kids there as an assigned school (thought it's been a few years) and they said Parkwood was the traditional school alternative.
If you are on facebook, I suggest the South Durham parenting group.
Yep. DPS semi-misleadingly (especially for those more used to WCPSS assignment system) assigns a "base traditional" and "base YR" school for all addresses. The catch is the "base" YR is Pearsontown for elementary and Rogers-Herr for middle....because those are the only two year round schools in the district; and both are lottery based. You don't just get to "pick" one or the other like you do in Wake (baring a school in Wake being capped of course). Ergo....your "traditional option"...is really your only "guaranteed" option.
I don't have kids, so am not helpful, but I can't imagine that school is really terrible. If you're on facebook, join a group called SoDu Parents Posse - I think you'll get tons of info.
Hello all,
Myself and my family are moving from Katy Texas to Durham area, unfortunately in the bit of trying to find a home that wouldn't cost too much and also be a short commute to work at RTP, I settled on renting a home at a brand new community in durham. I have a five year old who will be starting kindergarten in September, prior to my renting the home, I looked at the school listed on zillow which was decent however some of my colleagues living in the triangle area suggested I look on dps website which revealed the school listed on Zillow was wrong and the home is actually zoned to parkwood elementary which has a very terrible ranking.
My question is how bad is this elementary school?
We cannot afford a private school, do I have any other public school options or is my only option letting my child go to this school and try to find a way to move to an area with a better base school after my lease is done?
This is my first child so I have never had to deal with non daycare school and I am not really sure how all if this works.
Thanks in advance for your input.
The really good news is that if you call the school and explain your position of being a first time School Mom and not knowing what to expect, they will absolutely roll out the red carpet for you. Communication-communication-communication! Schools everywhere love it. It leads to involvement and parent participation, which leads to happy, productive students.
You will do well. Stay involved. Go to PTA meetings and school programs.
Location: Chapel Hill, NC, formerly NoVA and Phila
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I don't know anything about Parkwood. But the best site for hard data (note that some of this data is from state standardized tests which start in third grade) is NC Report Cards. Here is the link to all schools in Durham County and you can look at Parkwood and other schools.
Parkwood does appear to be a mostly low-income school, with 72% being economically disadvantaged. And less than 7% of kindergarteners exhibit school readiness at school entry. Their math and reading scores on state tests (EOG) are Ds and Fs, and performance has gone down since it peaked in 2015/2016. So, the school does have its problems.
On the positive front, the majority of teachers are rated as effective/highly effective and are overwhelmingly experienced. So will it be bad for one year and in kindergarten? I think this is where you need to find parents who have children who have attended that school. Kindergarten may be fine. Lower grades usually have fewer problems with safety, and as long as it is safe, your child may be okay. You might need to supplement a bit to get her ready for first grade, depending on how much catching up the teacher has to do with the other children. Good luck!
Thank you all for your input, I will go ahead and dig into these links to learn more. I suppose 1 year will not harm a kindergartener as long as there are no safety concerns. I should have learned enough about the school and the triangle school districts before his first grade to help me decide what will be best for him longer term.
Last edited by Mamabear001; 03-24-2021 at 06:57 AM..
I came across this and it freaked me out . I read it was a BB gun but still very scary.
That's an entirely arbitrary event and not at all indicative of violence in the school. Coming from Texas you should be fully appreciative of the fact that many homes have guns legally owned and young children will often bring inappropriate things to school without fully understanding that they're inappropriate.
As for your concerns about the school itself, I encourage you to go in with an open mind. I've volunteered extensively in schools located in lower income neighborhoods and can tell you first hand that performance is not at all indicative of the level of education being provided. The very best teachers I've encountered anywhere, including my own children (who started in a nationally ranked school district on Long Island), were in some of the worst performing schools in Durham County. Poor performance reflects mostly on lack of support at home, not in the schools themselves. Support your child, work with their teacher and you're going to very likely be happy with the experience.
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