Valley View Middle School

8900 Portland Avenue

School District

Bloomington Public
Grade

6-8
Teacher/Student Ratio

1:17
Type

public

School Map for Bloomington Public 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 May 20, 2024

Don’t send your kids to this hood school the 360 I seen in my kids from this school I feel bad as a mom
Submitted by parent on April 26, 2023

I get bullied by teachers, it makes me scared to come to school. Teachers should be the las person bullying you.
Submitted by student on April 23, 2023

This school is not a place i would ever send my future children to. The food is disgusting and often have mold or bugs in it. Teachers are mostly respectful but can be a bit harsh at times. teachers do nothing about fights, most of them just sit there and yell while only some admin intervene. The first month of school there were well over 10 fights in the 7th grade alone and the teachers do nothing as well as the admin doing nothing other than either lunch detention (sitting in a room while eating lunch away from your friends), I.S.S, or a 2 day suspension. bullying is a very over looked topic at this school, and teachers do nothing about it. Teachers are very obnoxious in class rooms and hallways. We have bathroom Passes, Were only aloud to go to the bathroom 3 times a week which i think is unfair for everybody boys and girls. if we need to go to the bathroom were not aloud to and if we walk out we get sent to the deans but fortunately The dean doesn't do much about it. The school is also disgusting. Stated in the previous review we recently had an announcement about kids getting sick because there has been literal human feces left around not to mention mice droppings. the janitors definitely are under paid for the amount of work they do. Teachers educate us relatively well but don't listen the best and could definitely improve on that. Teachers often get overly stressed because of the amount of pressure they are under and i know by the end of the day the AVID teacher always has a headache and is overly stressed along with many other teachers. Recently there was an incident with snapchat and bullying and the dean told us all to delete snapchat and anytime they hear about it they say delete it which they legally cant do but still. to end this review i would like to say, dont not send your kids here. you will regret it.
Submitted by student on April 10, 2023

I am writing this review as a student at Valley View Middle. Please don't send your children here. To start, the students are loud, wild, and are not disciplined in the slightest. Of course, there is a time and place for loud and wild, but school is not one of them. There are often groups of kids who will scream in the hallways while the teachers just watch. In the first 3 weeks of school, there were 21 teacher-intervened physical fights in the 7th grade alone. The most common disciplinary action was a lunch detention, or in other words a private lunch room for the troubled student and their friends. Another thing is the teaching. I would say maybe 4/7 of my teachers care about how well students are learning and how best they learn, and 2/7 take student feedback on lessons. As a student in all accelerated classes, I greatly appreciate this. I am often bored and not learning much, so learning at your own pace is extremely helpful.Both of my parents have agreed that this school does not reach out to parents and guardians as much as it should. Other than the occasional bomb threat e-mail, or phone call that their child is failing their classes, parents get nothing. Compared to my last school, Valley View is neglectful. This school is VERY unclean. There was recently an announcement that human feces were being found around the school. the week before that there were mice droppings and actual mice. Before that there were ants and roof leaks that took too long to be fixed. I truly believe that the janitors of this school are underpaid for how many raisins and.. what I hope are raisins on the floor. Choices. As you may know, children all learn in different ways, and at different paces. Many of the teachers try their best, but lack some basic listening skills. Multiple students have politley e-mailed teachers and gave ways that they could improve lessons. Like, or example, in my science class (that is an accelerated class) students felt the pace of the class was too slow, and constantly doing paper worksheets and copying words onto a sheet of paper just wasn't working. We as a class agreed on 3 worksheets a week. It was amazing, and everyone was doing better, and there were less people falling asleep. This lasted or about 4 days before it was back to paper. We appreciated the effort, but wished it would've stayed. I end this saying one thing. Any school is better than valley View. 4 people from my lunch table transferred schools. I could rant about this forev
Submitted by parent on August 31, 2022

The students are extremely rambunctious. They stand on desks and hop to touch the ceiling, constantly disrupt the classes, get up and do either inappropiate dances, TikTok dances, run around and disrupt the class, or get up to talk to friends. Teachers are very kind and helpful, but are overworked and under lots of stress. They do not have the power to stop 30%-50% of the class from acting up, and when they try to invoke authority, they are simply laughed off and are left with 0 gain. It's unfortunate, as they try to get along with students and give them proper learning, but they are overworked. They have 2 counselors who are consistantly helpful and are there for students, whether to talk with them or to help unlock a locker. Students are bullied frequently, are judged, and have 0 consequences if they are the aggressor. Bullies often clump into groups, and use pressure and threats to spread rumours. School-provided Chomebooks are the core of learning, and ar eoften of low quality. Students use them to play video games during class or to edit and watch videos. The only noteworthy things about this school are faculty and the Nobel program for gifted students. The Nobel program kids are often the most snobby, crazy, and rambunctious. If you can, try to get into the Dimensions Academy (DA) at Olson or Oak Grove, two public schools who are far better than Valley View.
Submitted by parent on March 31, 2022

I really think the school is really nice everyone’s so kind I’m going to cry it makes me happy everyone so nice relationships are good teachers are nice and students really like this school!
Submitted by other on December 08, 2015

Never have I met a staff so dedicated to the success of students. Teachers and Administration work hard to meet student needs and provide endless opportunities for learning. The students work hard and create a community of learners.
Submitted by parent on August 31, 2015

I am the mother of a smart boy who wants nothing more than to learn and get a good education that will prepare him for high school and college. He has struggled with depression for many years and instead of working with him and attending to his needs, they have held him back by forcing him to be in a special Ed program and sweeping him under the rug, rather than work with him and for him to reach his full potential. If you have a run of the mill "typical" student who can get by without support and understanding, then maybe this school is an ok choice. I do not recommend sending a kid with any sort of special needs here if you want them to learn anything or be treated as any other kid. They segregate, don't accommodate, and look down upon kids who are already struggling in ways, rather than be supportive and let your kid live up to their full potential and be something more to them than extra money for the school. It's taken until my son being in 8th grade at VVM to finally have them agree to what the professionals who work with my son out of school have been recommending all along. The thing I hate most, by far, is the segregation of the airstream kids and the special Ed kids. How can you move on and be successful when you're pretty much told from the get go that you're dumb and aren't even given the chance to prove yourself?! The biggest mistake I made was enrolling my kid in this school upon moving to Bloomington. I can guarantee that now he has finally (after years of "fighting" with administration on my part) been put on a lower level of special education services, he will not be attending high school in the #271 BLOOMINGTON district. I just hope the education he has received here will be good enough for him to be successful somewhere else.
Submitted by other on July 16, 2014

The teachers are nice, but in all the school is very sexest, and just plain bad. There a class I had in seventh grade the guys in it would yell provocative jokes across the class and the teacher did nothing, but when a female student would whisper asking what the homework was she would get in trouble. Then there was a incident when a male student brought peper spray to school, and was threatening another student with it. All the schoop did was give him I.S.S for a day. They gave it back to him at the end of the day too! Another thing is when we were talking about the Holocaust we watched a video about it. During the video a female student was mocking the people shown in the video. I've personally had multiple bad experience at this school.
Submitted by other on February 07, 2014

I think this school is THE BEST! I am in NOBEL! Valley View Middle is the only school where you can be in NOBEL. I was even on the news for it. Can ANY other school say that? No. We also had the twins here. Did ANY other school have the TWINS at there school? No. This is why I think it is great. And I'm doing 8th grade math in the 6th grade. Do I sound like they didn't teach me well? I don't think so.
Submitted by other on January 29, 2014

I am a student at Valley View and it is my first year here, and this is one of the best schools i have ever been to. This school really is a creativity-sprouting place where you can feel safe and secure and just be yourself! The teachers are very nice, funny people and the students are all kind, loving people with good hearts and smart brains. Even though we might have had a rough past, we have really changed and grown into a fun, learning environment. I always leave with a big smile on my face. I highly recommend this school to parents who want to see their child learn and laugh. :)
Submitted by other on January 29, 2014

I am a student at valley view middle school and I have some things to say about all these low ratings and distasteful comments. I am fed up with these stereotypes about this middle school such as drugs bullying and fights, for one they have amazing creative outlets. This school has really changed and the parents are leaving the decision to the students so please...... talk to the principal look at the school for what it is, not a typical middle school but a new learning experience altogether. Teachers, AMAZING. Programs, EVEN BETTER. So please give this school a second chance and a good rating
Submitted by other on August 13, 2013

I just finished all three years at vvms and it was the worst expierence ever. Bullying while I was there wasnt an issue, but there was so many drugs, fights, and racial "jokes" every single day. That school has a lot of tollerance because most of the kids come from getting kicked out of Minneapolis schools. Bloomington has a lot of poverty and diversity as well which causes a lot of the problems at the school. Teachers aren't bad. The 7th grade odyssey teacher are amazing but the rest were all pretty careless about the students. I wouldnt send your child here if you want them to have a lot of potential for the future.
Submitted by other on June 26, 2012

I went to this school, and I have to say, it wasn't a good experience. I got bullied frequently, and no teacher I told cared. The teachers weren't very nice, and I wasn't a terrible child. Granted, I had a habit of drawing constantly, and I still do, but it was nothing to get too upset over. Over all, not horrible, but still, not good.
Submitted by other on April 11, 2011

When i attended this school there were many problems. I was in the 8th grade at the time of 9/11. just before the school let everyone know of 9/11. i had left the room. teacher had not cared. no one looked for me or found me tell well after lunch. no one knew i was gone. many times things like this happened with students well i was in the school. to this day they have not set up a secured system. many problems in the school. Few good teachers.
Submitted by other on March 31, 2011

Like the previous review, people assume that VVMS is the dangerous school, and it's a good thing that they do! They claim to be a safe learning environment but I went there in grades 6 and 7 and the bullies would not go away. I tried telling numerous teachers and even the Dean, but nobody did much to stop it. You should not send your kids to this school, it is horrible.