West Parish

10 Concord Street

Gloucester, MA 01930

School District

Gloucester
Grade

K-5
Teacher/Student Ratio

1:11
Type

public

School Map for Gloucester School District

GreatSchools Rating

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Reviews

Submitted by parent on October 25, 2017

Staff seem very unfit to teach children. Often putting themselves first. The principle made headline world news for a sick fundraising campaign which involved children guessing the date of the death of the US president. I'm very glad I had my children leave this school two years ago.
Submitted by parent on September 25, 2011

This is a really big school. I believe that there are way too many students for the space and the number of staff. My child's kindergarten class had 23 students and only 1 full time teacher and 1 part time aide. The level of supervision was inadequate for this age group (for example children left behind in bathrooms, lunches left uneaten). Neither my child's teacher nor the principal was great at communicating with parents and neither did they welcome parental involvement. Extremely disappointing.
Submitted by other on August 28, 2011

This school has an adversarial climate.The staff appear to be under qualified to deal with "problem" children. They pay great lip service in IEP meetings to educational goals for under performers, and then drop the ball. It takes months to get going, and so problems don't really receive adequate attention until a good portion of the year/s has/have gone by. They "encourage" the parent to medicate for ADD when the staff's understanding of a child's disability falls short. Disabilities are handled rather tediously and in lean measure, in spite of caring specialists. Administration here is very punitive and inexperienced in dealing with difficult children. There is some disturbing dishonesty that crops up now and then, when failures on their part are exposed. It seems they would like to remove children with serious difficulty. I have seen some positive trends in attempts being made to try some new things to help struggling students. So far, it just isn't good enough. They need more staff and tutoring for those who are barely advancing. More staff education for those in administration is essential, to help them understand the behavior of difficult children.