North Belmont Elementary School

Overall excellent. Staff really care about the children and it shows. For example, Mr. Beam is there more often than not to greet all children in the mornings and is present at all school functions. He makes himself very visible and accessible to parents, and holds the staff and children to a high standard.

We lived in the North Belmont district and were investigating the public schools in 2012. We attended the August start-of-year "open house" to learn more about the school. The building seemed a little dark and poorly maintained. Families crowded into the cafeteria for the principal's presentation. There were not enough seats. Many were left standing. The principal was ready to start his presentation, turned on the slide projector, displaying the first slide on the screen which read something like, "Changes to Title I Poverty Area School Program"... I thought, "Whoa... THIS is the start of the presentation?" I would like to have heard what the principal had to say, but his microphone didn't work. After a few minutes of fumbling around, with half of the audience shouting that they couldn't hear, the principal decided to postpone the presentation, and had everyone break up to visit the classrooms first. We had seen enough. A worn out building, a "poverty area" school with 3 out of 4 kids qualifying for some form of financial assistance, weak test scores, and a principal who can't put together a simple presentation... we decided we'd have to look into other options for our child.