Northwestern Middle School

Excellent, have great history with student’s, parents, teacher, involvement. It will be a shame to loses the school for the neighborhood. It is the only middle school in a 15 miles area. The only other middle school for blacks in the area is Ribault Middle. For years blacks has suffer so much because of closing of our schools in the northwest area. It look as if we don’t matter in Jacksonville. We have no mall in our area and we now have only one Middle school in our area. You seen a negative to our children that says that they don’t matter and that they area isn’t important as all the other areas in Jacksonville, Florida northwest side.

I think others should know that Northwestern is a great school in spite of the current reputation and all the negative comments/information about the community in which it is located. The children did not locate the school there; the children are only using what the state and city governments (and parents) provide for them. Mostly, teachers seem to be highly motivated to help and direct students. Students show respect for teachers and seems engaged in productive activities. That's what I see and I like it. I would like to see increase in student learning. I would like to see more parents and caregivers involved with teachers in the students learning process; I would like to see aggressive recruitment of parents for participating in meetings to help the school with accomplishing organizational goals. The love and concern is there~we need to band together to make it happen for the children. We are not perfect, there is room for improvement but when we together reach for a higher level we will make it.

Substitute Teacher. I worked at Northwestern knowing about all the stats and reviews. I saw a well maintained building. Any adult I interacted with was beyond reproach. I "shadowed" a co-teacher, he took control and I watched as one of the lowest ranked schools showed me how it is done in the top ranked schools. Not a raised voice by any staff entire day. Why, because the students listened. I watched them work and noticed they had strong skills. It was nearly perfect. My only negative comment would be that this school needs to be reviewed based upon location. It is near some high crime areas. Then again I was safe and so were the students. It was not that fake safe feeling. I watched the security in effect and it was top notch. They need more funding to support the transition into DCPS schools with serious problems. It is the fear of many that all the hard work will be undone after assimilation into local high schools. Possibly PTA could set up mentoring programs to teach moral firmness in the students to help change the mentality of others they must interact with in the future. I am not permanently affiliated with this school so there is no bias. I will call it how it actually is.

My wife works here for a couple of years now. Things are really hard for her. She comes to the house all stressed out complaining about the bad administration that is not supporting them against the students with bad attitude she teach daily. There are other issues bigger than just a common student fight or food fight at lunch that are not been resolve and possibly cover to make things look good for the school. I will give a lower score than 3 to this school thanks to the poor administration and how low and soft are the students managed in this school. My wife is looking to get out any time soon.