Piney Ridge Elementary School

Even with evaluations and doctor recommendations that our child receive and IEP, we had to fight tooth and nail with the current administration to obtain an IEP. Additionally, the school will not enhance her IEP goals to address the full range of her needs. The school refuses to address academic issues of our child by blaming everything on attention, even with reports and IEP recommendations from doctors. The school does a terrible job fostering community and parent engagement and the PTA is overly concerned with fundraising that is out of touch with teacher and school needs.

A tale of 2 schools. I have a child at Piney Ridge. Some background. While my wife and I were both born in the US, we speak to our child in another language. This is important to us so that our child grows up bilingual. My parents were immigrants and I didn't speak English until kindergarten. By 3rd grade I was in advanced placement English. Because I grew up bilingual I was able to also learn Spanish in HS quite easily. (I am now trilingual) Kindergarten at Piney Ridge was not an especially pleasant experience for us. The kindergarten teacher was constantly on us about my child not speaking English fluently. I told her that I was not worried about it as both my wife and I grew up the same way and we both have an excellent command of English. This teacher kept insisting to us that we should speak English in the house and also wanted to put my child into ESOL. She also insulted my wife (called her dizzy) one time. My wife has a Master's degree in Mathematics. 1st grade has been the Jeckyll to our Kindergarten Hyde. An absolutely wonderful experience. The 1st grade teachers had no clue that my child didn't speak English until last year. The 1st grade teachers we had were great!

While we are pleased with our child's teacher, classroom, etc, the principal of Piney Ridge is horrible. He does not greet parents or students and avoids eye contact. He does not introduce himself to parents when seeing them for the first time. There is no socialization or "small talk" with students (or parents). Honestly, it doesn't seem like he enjoys being surrounded by the wonderful students and involved parents of Piney Ridge Elementary School.

My children attended a few years ago. The teachers were excellent and worked very hard. I do wish that Carroll County, as a school system, had a more developed GT program that started in elementary school, as Howard County does. The once-a-week GT program included some fun and challenging lessons, but if Carroll County is going to be competitive we need GT math starting in fourth grade. I agree that the front office staff is unfriendly. Since they're the first ones to greet people, I think friendliness should be in the job description!