Lea Henry C School

This school has great teachers and staff, and a decent amount of support from Univ. Penn in the form of volunteers. The school has also had excellent community support. My son has had a great experience making friends. The parent community is slowly getting organized with a critical mass of interest now.The one issue I have has to do with the few kids who have behavioral problems, which can occasionally interfere with classroom instruction. This does not seem to happen very often however.

This is my daughters first year in public school. I was very concerned about the quality of education she would be receiving. To my surprise we have had a pretty good experience at Lea. My daughter's teacher is wonderful and really works hard at challenging the children. I really like that the school is diverse. The teachers and students would benefit from more parent and administrative supports. Parents must get involved!!! The school also lacks supplies !!!! Lea has done a good job with maintaining enrichment programs like music ,art, and gym however I do not see the S.T.E.M. program or technology. The after -school programs they offer are helpful to working parents. The school has some issues but appears to be going in the right direction. Get involved help Lea school to become greater!!!

Despite many talented and capable teachers at Lea, the school consistently struggles to meet AYP. Lea's own website attributes its low test scores to a large ESL population and its special ed program. The school is also supported by Penn and an active coalition of neighborhood groups, but in the three years our son attended (2011-2013) not a single parent enrolled in the school's own Home and School Association? There are many enrichment opportunities for the kids, but some programs are inconsistent. One week your child has library and music, the next week he doesn't. As other parents here have stated, class sizes do diminish drastically after the 5th grade with many families opting to continue their kids' education elsewhere; the lack of student focus (noted in comments below) is also no exaggeration. We removed our son from Lea after it became increasingly more difficult to motivate him to complete assignments. He frequently expressed his growing resentment at the fact that the greater majority of his classmates neither completed homework with any regularity nor turned in projects.

My school has really changed over the summer. There is a lot of energy in the building. It was newly painted with many things fixed. There are new teachers who seem really good, to add to the great teachers who were there last year, and the New Principal is FANTASTIC. I saw people doing a survey to fix issues with traffic and see that there are a lot of plants near Spruce Street in the garden part of the school yard. My child said they had a designated person doing activities with them at recess. I think called Play Works or something like that. Lots of new parents who seem really nice. I am really excited about this year.