Sherwood Elementary School

I used to like Sherwood, However, very disappointed with the Leadership.

Although I knew about the mass exodus at the end of last year, I decided to keep my children at Sherwood. After all, the reason for our family to move to the area was the Excellent Schools that we were zoned to. This no longer in the case for Sherwood Elementary. Sherwood was an "A" school for over a decade and now sadly they are rated a "C". As the previous review states, the biggest change was the arrival of the new Principal; there has to be a correlation! We have been extremely fortunate this year, my kids love their teachers and staff members, but I fear that there will be another Mass Exodus of teachers with the completion of the 2016-2017 school year. We will be losing the exceptional teachers that are left! Winter Concert was this past week and unfortunately you could see that the moral has plummeted. Bullying has been a problem, but I fear that the students are not the only ones being bullied. If the School Board does not correct this problem soon, my children will not return next year.

Sherwood Elementary School used to be wonderful. My children and students in the community used to thrive at this school. Unfortunately, things have changed recently and this school is no longer great.The new Principal, Dr. Karen Ivery, will tell you that it's the fault of the teachers and staff. But teachers don't leave this school. Most teachers at Sherwood have worked there for over a decade. The only change that has happened in recent years is the arrival of the new Principal. Coincidence? I think not.Somewhere between 10-15 of those teachers that never leave Sherwood left this summer and are working elsewhere this school year. I can't begin to tell you what a red flag that appears to be! The teachers who love this school made the hard decision to leave it. The teachers who LOVE THESE STUDENTS chose to give up that love and work elsewhere.Since the arrival of the new administration, bullying has run rampant at Sherwood. Students who bully have absolutely no consequences. In fact, my children generally state that when a student gets sent to the office for anything, whether it is bullying, disrespect, hurting another student, etc, that the student is usually back in the classroom in under an hour and most of the time they bring back candy with them! I hardly call that effective discipline! The teachers seem to have their hands tied and lack support from administration to deal with these students. My children used to love to go to school. But now, their favorite teachers are gone, they get picked on by peers, and Sherwood traditions are being canceled. My children now hate to go to school. They dread going here everyday!In addition to the teachers who have left Sherwood, I have also noticed the number of students has gone down! I did some research and found out that over 100 students decided to NOT go back to Sherwood and elected to go Out-of-Area to another school. The office staff and teachers have been nothing but AMAZING since we started at Sherwood years ago. The front office clerks are so helpful whenever we need it and the teachers were always willing to go the extra mile for my children!!! Again...the only thing that has changed in recent years? The new Principal. So disappointed in all these changes. So sad to see the school my children love turning into this. We will not be back next year.

We are Air Force and move a lot, but my daughter has always excelled in school. She was in gifted classes for 1st and 2nd grade in Tampa. We came here and she immediately started having problems. Her 3rd and 4th grade classes were so full of troubled students with behavioral problems that she has not received a good education or been challenged academically in two years. Teachers are too busy dealing with bad kids to spend time with the good ones. We are transferring next year and until they do some redistricting, I wouldn't recommend this school to anyone.