Guilford Elementary School

Overall it's been great. I love the diverse community. The PTA seems to be active at fundraising. Parents appear to be involved. I love that there are kids attending from many other cultures.

We had our concerns going into GES because of the great school rating. However, this is now our 3rd year there and our experiences have been positive. The admin staff (principal and VP) have coffee and conversations throughout the year for parents to come and discuss issues. GES encourages parent involvement and i go in on my lunch hour a couple of Fridays a month to help out. We had an instance of some teasing (not sure that it amounted to bullying but my child's feelings were hurt). I emailed the teacher about it - she got back to me that day to acknowledge it and provided her approach for dealing with it. Not all teachers are the same but this impressed me. More recently, I have spoken with the principal about an issue with my younger child and it was clear that they had spoken about the issue internally and had avenues for us to pursue to help ourselves out. The teacher emailed us a game plan on how she plans to tackle the issue. My experience with the teachers at GES are that they will make the extra effort. I know that there have been comments about behavioral issues and it does seem that there are some severely disruptive students with special needs, however the school has extra, dedicated staff to help mitigate the disruption in the class room. Being involved is definitely a benefit and i am seeing an uptick in parent involvement on the PTA. These are all indicators of improvement.

This is our first year here at Guilford with a son in first grade. We are actively involved parents in field trips, classroom volunteering, PTA, etc. The teachers are dedicated and I will have to say that the Principal is very accessible, he comes to all the PTA meetings, has an open door policy and responds quickly to problems as they arise. No school is perfect but being involved with the school and the Teachers/Administration knowing us and our child has made this school perfect for us. If you have a problem with anything try to be involved a little bit at the school. If you ever get a day off just come up and have lunch with your kid or ask your kids teacher if you can volunteer for 30 minutes or an hour. It makes a world of difference when you are really in/around the school to understand the dedication of all that work there daily keeping all of our children educated and safe.

The teachers at this school are amazing. They take time to truly connect with their students and families to make sure each child is met at their level and is successful. Unfortunately, the principal does not measure up to the teaching staff at all. He does not make an effort to connect with, understand or genuinely get to know the children or their parents.