Silver Spur Elementary School

The experience has been amazing so far and I look forward to our 2 other children's years there.

This school is amazing, the staff is amazing and the grounds are beautiful. We were new to this area for the 15/16 school year and it was seamless. Our son has some very special needs and so we worked with 8-10 staff members to create a cohesive IEP and educational plan and we were absolutely thrilled. It isn't the school, but I understand why this district is so good, the community pours a ton of money into the education foundation (PEF) and the PEF takes the multi-millions dollars of donations and pours them into the schools. This allows for high caliber musical education, PE teachers, art supplies. The parents themselves pour their time and effort into the schools. The great schools help keep area home prices solidly in the 7 figure range. It's a win-win, kind of. I have not met one parent who wasn't spectacularly successful of married to someone who was. There is a strong air of entitlement and if this was high school, these parents would be the "mean-girls." But, that doesn't impact the level of education that the children are receiving.

Silver Spur is a great school but not perfect.Good: The curriculum is advanced if compared to other socal schools. The campus is open and beautiful and safe with a staff that the kids love. The kids are supported and overall the school functions well and meets most everyone's needs. The demographic is mostly highly educated families which benefits teachers and gives them a nice academic and work ethic base to work off of.The bad: They do some "teaching to the test" though they say they don't but I don't have a problem with that. There is a high ratio of "DK kids" that are a year older than the average. The district seems to encourage this. (extra year for these students ups total district enrollment and state $, plus it probably helps test scores) I am not a fan.Ugly: Parent involvement can get out of hand and I feel like the biggest challenge for the teachers is managing some of the parent and related politics instead of focusing on the children. This might be unavoidable in a neighborhood of financially successful people and over achievers that are used to getting what they want and managing other people. This environment demands a strong effective principal which is what they had up to 2012/13 when she retired. There is a new principal in 2015/16 and its too early to tell but so far so good. The 2013-2015 principal was too easily pushed around by parents and didn't seem to have the teachers' full support or confidence.

I don't see what all the fuss is about & frankly am very surprised by a lot of comments. All this school cares about is API score. There is no respect for the students, if your child does not keep up they are not helped but told to hurry up. There is no scope to teach the individual either those that excel to push further or those that require help. The school is akin to a military camp where everyone must march at the same pace. Every child, given the right environment yearns to learn, in my opinion that environment is lacking. Maybe we had a bad experience but there was no communication from the teacher to us informing then of the expectations of the teacher, we only found out at reports evening when told your child is behind! After discussing with the child they said they could have completed the easy tasks but didn't want to & wanted more challenging tasks which take longer. This one would have thought would be a positive BUT the teacher said do the easy ones to increase your score, hence the conclusion API scores are more important than teaching or learning. Another example of no respect, our child was told to "go away" by a teacher! Are API scores that important?