Socrates Academy

3909 Weddington Road

School District

Socrates Academy
Grade

K-10
Teacher/Student Ratio

1:13
Type

charter

School Map for Socrates Academy 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 February 12, 2025

This school has been a complete letdown for both parents and students. The administration is incredibly dismissive of parent concerns and seems completely uninterested in working together to create a positive learning environment. When issues arise, they immediately blame parents instead of addressing the root causes of problems. It’s clear that the school operates with a chaotic and disorganized approach, with no real plan for improving things.There is a strong sense of favoritism here, especially when it comes to extracurricular activities like sports. The athletic director is blatantly biased, giving certain students special treatment while disqualifying others with no clear or fair reason. This has created a toxic environment of unfairness and frustration among families.Furthermore, there is a real atmosphere of intimidation. If you dare to speak up about issues, be prepared for retaliation—both toward you and your child. The administration does not hesitate to target those who voice concerns, making it a miserable and stressful environment for families.Despite the administration’s promises about building a new school and gym, it’s clear they have no financial plan to make this happen. They continue to sell this idea to prospective parents, giving false hope about improvements that will never materialize.My advice is simple: don’t send your child here. This school is poorly managed, unresponsive to parents, and creates an overall miserable experience. There are better options out there—take your child elsewhere where they will be valued and supported.
Submitted by parent on December 16, 2024

Dont recommend it as my kid always complains abou this
Submitted by parent on March 16, 2024

Socrates Academy is an excellent community charter school. Our son had an excellent middle school experience here. The school has a small community feel where students can participate in a wide range of activities. Greek culture and language is central to the school’s identity but all cultures and ethnicities are welcomed.
Submitted by parent on January 10, 2023

Our kids have been going to Socrates since Kindergarten and are now in 8th grade. I can honestly say it was the best choice for them. The academics are top notch, especially in math. We have loved the warmth and personal attention, the small class sizes, the excellent and creative teachers and we love our current principal. She has made the school much more organized and put programs into place that have strengthened the overall character of the school. They teach children to have a growth mindset and that learning takes place everywhere. They have a full hour for lunch and recess, which I've heard is not the norm at many schools. They have a good music and band program, they learn poetry and dancing as part of their Greek classes and all in all, I think the school cares about students' emotional growth and mental heath as much as their academic growth.
Submitted by parent on September 05, 2022

Great school with great emphasis on learning. My kids have progressed so much in their academics since they have been here. They are actually learning science which is something that their last school lacked. My kids love this school and their test scores have been excellent since they have been at Socrates.
Submitted by parent on April 29, 2022

Our daughter was at a local, top-ranked, public elementary school in a district where I served (prior to her birth) as a school psychologist. Although her old school has an excellent reputation with a caring staff, it was not a good fit for her. She developed a school phobia and her psychologist recommended switching schools, feeling that her teachers were not meeting her specific needs. As a gifted student with anxiety, we needed a school that could address both her academic and emotional needs. We also didn't care for the heavy emphasis on teaching to the test in the public schools. We transferred our daughter to Socrates Academy. It was a difficult decision moving from a very reputable public school to a charter school but we are so happy we did. She is truly blossoming! Her attendance is excellent (she wakes up early because she wants to be the first one at school and she begs me to pick her up late so she can be one of the last students to leave). Her standardized test scores, which were always excellent, have showed "high growth", demonstrating that not only has she maintained her academic performance but that her new educational environment has allowed her to make additional strides. She has made friends, has become actively involved in her school (was voted into student council and is in band), and really loves school now.
Submitted by parent on April 28, 2022

Socrates' leadership is extremely leftist in the ideology they will impose on your children, you, and your teachers. They allow everything from gender confusion to CRT to anything. Their governors/board are either clueless or from academic institutions and bear values that are the antithesis of traditional Christian, family, Greek, American values. The school administration (principal etc) will ignore you and the board will ignore you. The teachers are largely helpless. Our child was removed from the school as a result. We observed how much this institution damaged our children and others. Many were in counseling, gender confused, and much more. At the school dance, kids were cross dressed or worse. Parents remarked how heart-breaking it was to see how dysfunctional this institution is. When you try to engage the leadership about issues, they deny, plead ignorance, or avoid the issue but when you offer facts and evidence, they dismiss it. What the governors are doing here is not by accident. We told the leadership that many families would be pulling out as a result. They called us liars even as we were pulling our own child out. The damage to our child was very, very great and may affect them for all of their life. Our child is no longer in this school. It took only one year, one year for them to hurt our child and our family. When you hear the words of any school representative telling you things you want to hear, do not believe them. The turnover at this school is extremely high. It is for a reason. People leave public school for something better. This is not it.
Submitted by parent on April 12, 2022

Current principal is hardly responsive to concerns from parents and guardians. Extremely hard to reach for one-on-one discussions. Also, she has quite poor communication skills overall.
Submitted by parent on April 07, 2022

Horrible experience. The administration acts as if they know what’s best for your child’s well-being, even if it is completely against parents wishes, morals, and values. Teachers attempt to indoctrinate students on social/political issues with no recourse. As soon as we pulled our child out of this school, his mental health improved drastically.
Submitted by parent on October 21, 2021

I previously reviewed this school on July 3, 2013. I’m here to share our perspective as of 2021. This is no longer the nurturing school with a focus on academic excellence we fell in love with. Under current leadership, there’s been an exodus of highly-qualified, passionate teachers and a swift decline into the agenda-driven focus available in many public schools.We chose Socrates for our children because we believe in the core value of respecting diversity—we believe this also includes diversity of thought. We thought a language immersion program would cultivate open minds, and teach children to see the beauty in our differences. We expected better from Socrates, and it is disappointing to realize we chose poorly. SA’s mission used to be to cultivate critical thinking skills and teach children HOW to think. Now they are happy to teach your child WHAT to think. My students have had to sit through classes which they are told what news outlets they should consider “trustworthy”. They have been given assignments on current events in which they are told there are two sides to every story…then they are presented with two homogenous sources of material that agree in every respect. When only one viewpoint is presented by an authority figure in a school setting, it indicates diversity of thought is unwelcome. Students whose opinions differ from the sole presented viewpoint feel isolated and judged, which is the opposite of SA’s alleged core values of kindness, empathy and respecting diversity. No student deserves to know their school is not a safe place where beliefs can be openly expressed, and that their teachers think there is only one correct way to view things. Sadly, this is exactly the sort of place SA has become. When we started at Socrates, we hoped there would be a high school for our children. Now there is a high school, but my students will not attend. We are done with the school we've called home for over 9 years.My advice to parents is to look elsewhere if you’re seeking a school that teaches analytical thinking and strives for academic excellence. Socrates today is all about the same agenda-driven “education” you’ll find anywhere. A sad decline from what this school once was.
Submitted by parent on October 07, 2020

We would rate our experience high above our expectation. I especially enjoy the close community that is created between parents, teachers and administration.
Submitted by parent on October 04, 2020

Terrible. Don’t fall for the image that has been carefully curated online. This school delivers very little of what they advertise.
Submitted by parent on June 04, 2020

We just completed kindergarten and very excited about the next school year!
Submitted by parent on May 03, 2020

An absolute nightmare. As if the above is not enough, the school administrators act as if they are doing you a favor by allowing your student to attend. It’s as if they think this is somehow not a taxpayer funded charter school. Be prepared to pay for everything. I tallied our costs for 2 students and we spent well over $2,000. Uniforms (I bought 2nd hand), school trips cost more because they have to hire buses, school supplies, school fees nearly $300, you have to print everything! On top of that they hound you all year long for more time, more donations, more money to their annual fund. We have no problem investing time and money but the return on investment was nil.
Submitted by parent on October 19, 2018

So happy we made the choice of Socrates Academy. It’s has been a great experience so far!
Submitted by parent on September 22, 2017

Great school!We are extremely happy with the teachers and staffs.
Submitted by parent on September 19, 2017

Teachers go above and beyond to understand the strengths and weaknesses for every student and develop a personalized plan to help them overcome any academic obstacle(s).
Submitted by parent on July 31, 2017

Great School! We have both of our Children enrolled and we are extremely happy with the overall support.
Submitted by parent on November 23, 2014

Great school.. great staff! Hope a highschool is in the plans for the future! We love Socrates!
Submitted by parent on October 12, 2014

We decided to pull out because of the lack of support on bullying situations. There are no rules, consequences of any sort and they seem to fosture inappropriate behaviors with a meer warning, or write up on the board. This has become a serious issue nationally, so we cannot sit back and promote this for our children. The school had started off as a positive experience and has quickly fallen off, with lack of trained individuals teaching. It's a shame, the kids are really losing out in this school as well as a few very talented and caring individuals there teaching, that really deserve more.