Travis Middle School

The staff, across the board, is very responsive and attentive. Teachers and staff go the extra mile. My child is very happy and has excelled in all areas at Travis. The student body is very diverse. I'm very happy our experience.

If your child has special needs.. even minor needs.. this is not the school for you. While I feel many of the teachers and staff have great intentions.. the environment gets in the way. The majority of the kids are unruly. The staff struggles to maintain safety. There are weekly physical fights. Witness tend to give accounts based on friendship so if you child is not in good with the tough kids... you child will be blamed. The principals are not supportive of finding a solution or separating kids when they are known to have issues with each other. This is keeps the battles going and interferes with learning. They are told to report incidents immediately but are not supported when they do. The staff.. in particular the councilors and principles have a lot of excuses but no resolution or follow through. This has been a very stressful year for my child and we are going to be pulling her out of school to a new school. We are in fact, moving to a different district to protect her safety at school. My stomach is in knots everyday that she has to attend. She has been called names, beat on, antagonized, made fun of, and down right humiliated. She has very few friends and none of whom are willing to stand up to the mean kids. I can't blame them. At this point there is no hope for change unless the administration is changed. The principal is unwilling to engage in productive conversation and makes you feel judged as a parent only trying to get to the bottom of the situation, even if that means your child is in the wrong. As parents we can't fix what is broken and we have been very vocal about wanting to know if our child is behaving poorly. I have had the principal roll her eyes, heavy sighs, sits with arms crossed and if I come back later with questions she is "put-out" that I am still talking about it. I would not recommend sending your child to this school.

Everything the previous rater just said is true...as a veteran teacher who left the school after less than a year, I can vouch for every word. Such a heartbreaking environment. Committed teachers, ruthless administration. I've taught in some tough schools, but have never seen unchecked behavior at this level anywhere.

There is no discipline at the administrative level. My child has wonderful teachers but the "bad" seeds are allowed to run wild and it seems that the teachers aren't getting any support from the administration to help control them. In one of children's classes, a student threw a desk. The teacher did her job and had him removed from the classroom, but the principal tried to send him back to class. The students who want to learn are being forced to sit in classrooms with these kids who are suffering no consequences for their actions and their education is being stolen from them by the administrators who turn a blind eye to the students that are causing so much disruption in classes that my children, and others like them, have difficulty learning. One of my older children came home last week and told me that the kids who are always causing the problems and failed their STAAR test the first time were given pizza for lunch by the administration the other day for "all of their hard work" getting ready to retake the test. The kids who worked hard all year and actually passed the first time were "rewarded" by watching those kids eat pizza for lunch while they ate the regular school lunch and didn't even get recognized. Thank God for the teachers here. My kids love them and have even been encouraged by them. It is the administrators that my children don't trust. It is because they aren't the students throwing desks, walking out of classrooms and cussing out teachers. Those kids are rewarded by administration with no consequences and pizza parties.