St Marys School

730 South Cedar Avenue

Owatonna, MN 55060

3 Reviews

School District
Grade

PK-8
Type

private

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Reviews

Submitted by parent on March 10, 2023

St. Mary's is a great school with a caring supportive staff. They utilize new technology and ways of teaching to improve learning for kids and engage the community.
Submitted by parent on August 02, 2022

St. Mary's in Owatonna has a very unique environment and culture. Leadership lacks process, empathy, and support. Leadership inflicts judgement on families and their personal situations which is unfortunate for the student. This school strongly needs a different principal because she intentionally caters to the "elite" families of the community such as the original small town business families, police department families, and some other categorist families that truly believe that the better you look in the community the better you'll be in heaven. The teachers are wonderful (in general). They are limited as to helping students due to the principle's rules and governance. Special treatment is a real thing in this school but there are quality aspects of the school such as student opportunities, Christian education, so far the curriculum has appeared to be on point. There are several teachers that have left without notice- in the past few years there has been a lot of turnover in staff validating that the principal is affecting the future of the school. Communication is poor but it seems like the teachers are limited in what they are allowed to discuss with parents. They do not seem to be receptive to involving parents with what's going on in the classroom other than talking with you at conferences. Every school as pro's and con's- I would say that there are more cons with immature adults who boast astigmatism towards families that are not "in their circle". Unfortunately, most of the staff are in the principles circle and on the board so it continues to operate poorly managed. They encourage the "good old boys club" mentality and encourage St. Mary's families to get together at the bar to drink and socialize. The Knights auction is out of control with outlandish items such as alcohol and basically its a gambling show of bidding wars between the silly enough families who have to make a show of how much money they have...Then everyone's names are published on how much money they contribute so they can feel awesome about their rank in the school. The hope is that at some point the parents will stop teaching their children that it is not ok to behave or act this way because the behaviors of the parents show through the children. There is no perfect private school but it would be great to have better leadership to terminate the poor environment that is being created to turn it around to focus on student success.
Submitted by parent on September 15, 2020

Much to be desired in a family-funded environment