Small Middle School

4801 Monterey Oaks Boulevard

School District

Austin Independent
Grade

6-8
Teacher/Student Ratio

1:16
Type

public

School Map for Austin Independent School District

GreatSchools Rating

The school rating calculation is based on four ratings: the Student Progress Rating or Academic Progress Rating, College Readiness Rating, Equity Rating, and Test Score Rating each designed to show different facets of school success. Learn more about GreatSchools Ratings

Reviews

Submitted by parent on July 12, 2023

Amazing school with amazing teachers, support staff and leadership. The PTA is very active and encourages other parents to engage and participate in their childs education. CSMS is an out of the box middle school experience that encourages diversity and freedom of expression, if you are looking for a typical middle school with traditional values, this might not be the right fit. We loved every minute of our 3 years, including the covid years!
Submitted by parent on October 18, 2022

Very centered around the students and outside, a great learning and growing environment, the teachers and students are very nice and actually want to be there unlike most other middle schools, it is easy to make friends and the office staff is very nice, I talk to them every day because I am a part of the flag duty program. One thing I love about this school is that it makes people want to do better, I know someone who came into this school getting 70's and now he gets straight A's. Love this school!
Submitted by parent on August 11, 2022

It’s a good school if your kid is not Black. The counselor there actively discouraged my child (who has maintained nearly straight As all three years there, taught herself to code, and has aspirations in STEM) from applying to LASA and pushed us to send her to low-performing Akins or LBJ instead of STEM-heavy Austin High (which we were zoned for) because they claimed it would have been a better environment for her. She got into LASA by the way. She placed into one of the more prestigious levels in the band program there, which she worked hard for, only to be told by the band director that she was being demoted without an explanation or reason given—and in all three years she attended, there were never any Black kids who were in those prestigious levels in band (my child lost her love of music). The counselor refused to place my child in some of the more advanced classes despite her meeting the qualifications and despite her teachers advocating for her, claiming that the classes were already full and/or that she could not rearrange the schedule afterwards and ignoring the fact that she should have been in the advanced in the first place. From talking to the parents of many of her classmates over the years, I learned that there was a pattern of these kinds of things only happening to Black (and sometimes Latino) students. They shared that Black and Latino kids tend to face harsher punishments for things white and Asian students would receive little, if any, punishment for (my child was never punished so I have no firsthand experience, but I do know that the administration took racial slurs used against my child less seriously than the teachers did).The teachers themselves for the most part were supportive and cared about their students. My child was generally happy with her teachers, although some of the courses weren’t very challenging for her (for reasons explained above). If your kid is into the arts or STEM then CSMS has an excellent program for them. There are so many tech-driven classes that the harder part will be your kiddo trying to decide which one to take because they are all fun. My child loved the robotics and engineering classes, the art and 3D animation classes, and even mythology. I think the curriculum definitely prepared her for LASA. So if you are a Black (or even Latino) parent, like we are, you’ll just need to carefully weigh the pros and cons since each child is different. That’s why we sent our younger child to a different school.
Submitted by parent on May 30, 2021

My child loved Small from the first moment she walked in the door. Met great friends there and had great connections with so many teachers. Small is a great community with fantastic administration. Wish all schools were as welcoming as Small.
Submitted by parent on January 15, 2020

Poor. The one redeeming thing is that the fine arts program (we have experience with both band and orchestra) is excellent. Students grow as musicians, find challenges, and develop a love for music. If not for band and orchestra, we'd have left years ago. The tech academy has also provided classes that were interesting to our kids. There still wasn't much academic challenge in them, but at least they were interesting. We are zoned for CSMS but are sending our younger kids elsewhere due to the negative social environment, frustrations with the administration, and lacking academic rigor.
Submitted by parent on May 26, 2019

My daughter is entering 8th Grade next fall. Her two years at Small have been great! I am continually impressed with all of the cool programming and student-focused learning environment. We are looking forward to 8th grade!
Submitted by teacher on November 22, 2015

I thoroughly enjoy the staff, students and parents that I work with and who contribute to our Small school. I am currently in my 5th year as an educator at Small, and I continue to return because I truly enjoy the population I work with, as well as the unique programs our school has to offer.
Submitted by other on May 30, 2015

Incredible school that kids want to attend. Emphasis is on meaningful instruction with real world applications rather than STAAR test scores. Kids are engaged in hands-on learning. Most work is completed in class, rather than assigning kids a bunch of homework and do-at-home projects. The block schedule allows students the opportunity for in-depth learning and there is a very large list of dynamic electives from which to choose. We transferred our son mid-year to this school and he really likes it and has rediscovered the joy of learning.
Submitted by other on June 25, 2014

CSMS is a really awesome school! I'm going to go into my 2nd year (7th grade) in Middle School and 6th grade was really fun! We did have a lot of projects and a lot of fights happened this year, but Clint Small is really great school and wish I could come back next year. I made a lot of new friends and Clint Small made this really memorable.
Submitted by parent on January 19, 2014

We moved into the district about a month before school started, and my daughter has now completed over half of her 6th grade year at Small. She's very happy. She's in the Gifted and Talented program and feels like she's being challenged enough to stay interested, but not so much that it takes over her life. The 6th grade counselor has been wonderful, the principal responded to an email question very quickly and thoroughly, and the teachers have all come across quite reasonably when we've interacted. Oh, and the GT coordinator has taken plenty of time to explain the program and allay our fears (we came from an academic magnet school in Seattle). The proof for us is that our daughter is happy on her way to school and happy when she arrives home. I asked her about bullying, and she says she hasn't noticed anything. So that may be an issue in certain circles, but hasn't affected us. Hopefully it never will.
Submitted by parent on October 14, 2013

Just feel the need to respond to the previous review. Academics mean nothing if there is so much bullying and drama that your kid cannot concentrate on their work. Discipline, rules, etc have to come first. The improvement I've seen in my child's grades since leaving small is remarkable.
Submitted by parent on October 09, 2013

Because of my husbands work, we unfortunately moved around a lot. My son attended 4 different junior highs and is now in his senior year (he's doing Connexus online public school - which has been a God send - highly recommend it). We were talking about the best and worst schools he went to the other day and he said Patton Elementary (attended for 3 years) and Small JH (he attended for 1 year) were the best. He said he was actually challenged academically there. He also spoke highly of Pillow Elementary in North Austin. My point is, Small may have it's issues, but compared to other schools it's at the top of the list.
Submitted by other on August 25, 2013

This is my third year at small. It's amazing how half the teachers are extremely helpfull and the other half have no intrist in most of the kids. My peers are very two-faced. At least via my experience. They need to change the staff. No one can do anything about the students attitudes'. I loved Mrs. V, Mrs. Brown, and Mrs. Smith out of my core classes. I hated advanced theatre with Mrs. Hall. She was very negative to my group and it was stressful. Cheer wasn't that fun because everyone grouped off, but the beginning of this year has been great with this group. I think it will be a great year though. Honestly, I'm just scared of this years teacher, even though I've heard half of them are great.
Submitted by parent on August 30, 2012

I'm now entering my 4th year (2nd child) at Small. I've been pleased with the academic environment and the teaching staff as a whole with my older son. The only negative interaction experienced with an academic teacher did have to be escalated to AP and then Principal attention, with the involvement of the counselor as well, but was ultimately resolved to everyone's satisfaction. There is a lack of coddling at Small - and it would seem that many people factor that in negatively. I do not have a special needs child, so I can't speak to the lack of support others cite, but I will say I have never had any issues in communicating with Mrs. Taylor; she answers my emails promptly and any questions I have for her I can express and discuss at her monthly coffees, which are open to all parents and widely advertised. My older son thrived socially and academically at Small. His core group of friends from Mills did not attend Small, requiring him to make new friends and establish a new base - which he did quickly and kept for 3 years. He is now at LASA, along with many other Small kids, and Small more than prepared him for this academically rigorous high school.