Roosevelt Elementary School

Reviews

• Submitted by parent on August 27, 2024
  Few days into the new school year at Roosevelt and we are looking at going private. This is heartbreaking because we moved to SM just for this school district. To level set, my daughter is in first grade and has done preschool and kindergarten in Boston. There is no comparison. Roosevelt has a good location and that is all it has going for it. I have found every staff member to be overworked, overwhelmed and very obvious about the fact that they are indifferent to performing their jobs. There is ZERO communication with parents and I mean absolutely ZERO. Literally one email from the teacher since we started one week ago and this was just a reminder to attend back to school night. We've been left to wander the halls alone trying to figure out where to go and what to be doing. There is zero supervision for the kids on campus - nobody on the playground etc - and the teachers don't seem to care at all about keeping track of the kids. I literally don't feel comfortable leaving my child as I don't feel she's being supervised at all. Nobody has ever so much as said "welcome to our school" - no tour was offered, no welcome letter, not a phone call or a welcome email. It is the most unwelcoming environment imaginable. Yet they did manage to send home no less than FOUR requests for donations on the first day, asking for a total of over $1500. If this is the best Los Angeles has to offer I'm absolutely appalled - this should not be the state of any school, even a public one, in Santa Monica.
• Submitted by parent on December 12, 2023
  My son has been at Roosevelt since Kindergarten and will be entering his final year next Fall. To say we are delighted with the school and teachers would be an understatement. Every year we have been so pleased with his teachers, all of whom have been kind, empathetic and with a gift for inspiring our son to participate, strive to reach his fullest potential, and treat his peers with respect. I truly appreciate the school's stance on social justice issues and not shying away from educating our children (in an age-appropriate way) about the world around them, particularly as they get older. I am beyond thankful particularly to his teachers, each of whom have clearly invested lots of time, energy and patience in helping us parents raise kind, thoughtful and responsible kids.
• Submitted by parent on June 17, 2023
  Overall a very good school. Academics are solid. They use writer/reader workshop which seems to be falling out of favor nationwide (google “phonics vs balanced literacy”). Teachers are mostly good with some dynamic standouts and a few bad apples (yelling, shaky classroom management skills). Culture of the school is affected by the presence of wealth, for good and for ill. The PTA puts on fantastic events (they shut down the pier for a school party!). But parent cliques can affect your kids' social lives. If you're all about success and "private school at public school prices," then Roosevelt (or better yet, Franklin up the street) will feel like home. If you want a more down-to-earth vibe, you can still make Roosevelt work as it's a big school (big enough for your kids to find their people). But there are other great elementary schools in the district that feel less like academic/social pressure cookers. Bullying can be issue. They try to stay on top of it and nip situations in the bud. If a situation becomes intractable, you're going to need advocate for your child (document, escalate to district). The teachers/staff/admin do deserve a shout-out for their handling of post-pandemic mental health/bullying issues. The kids were most definitely not alright, and somehow the staff have muddled through it while remaining calm and professional.Oh, and there is a bizarre obsession with handball at this school. If you're sending your kids here, teach them how to play so they always have something to do at recess.
• Submitted by parent on April 08, 2023
  What a great school. Ms. Franchi at TK is an exceptional teacher.
• Submitted by parent on December 03, 2022
  I moved into the district thinking a school in Santa Monica would be good. Boy was I wrong. Teachers are bad. They don’t care about the students and are so rude. Staff in general could care less about you or your child. They’re overpaid yet complacent. All I can do is warn you not to get fooled by the location. And if your kid gets bullied they’ll say he’s lying or scold him equally as the bully to bully him into not complaining again. Awful place. You are warned. My kid would cry not to go to school here but loves his new school where teachers care about the students.
• Submitted by parent on December 11, 2021
  We've been started at this school not so long ago, but we cannot imagine a better place for our eldest daughter. Considering she's just started to learn English, the staff and her teacher make her learning experience as comfortable as possible.
• Submitted by parent on September 14, 2021
  Sending my second child through the school, and can't say enough superlatives about how much we like it. Teachers are communicative, patient, caring and extremely good at what they do. I like the administrators and feel they are very good at what they do, and communicate well with families. I feel welcome and at home at this school, and have always felt my kids were safe. Part of that is they reinforce anti-bullying principles, and they are very tolerant of kids at all levels. The school strives for academic excellence, and my kids are always happy to go to school. It has kept us in the area. I feel like we are getting a private school education for free. The only negative which is minor is that I feel the kids get too much homework, and it doesn't always increase their joy of learning. However, that is relatively minor and the friends, community and teaching we have gotten from this school are irreplaceable.
• Submitted by parent on September 05, 2020
  We moved to Santa Monica for the schools and have since grown to really regret that decision. Kids are nice enough, but teachers are robots, administrators are tyrants, and parents are inconsequential (unless almost famous).
• Submitted by parent on November 12, 2019
  The competency levels of the school administration are very low. The great school rating as a key performance indicator reflects a decline in the quality of education from 10/10 to 8/10 now.
• Submitted by parent on September 05, 2019
  Top notch public school - very progressive and effective approach to learning. I have 2 daughters there (now 3rd and 4th grades). Neither were big readers in Kinder or First. Since we moved to reading nightly for homework, their reading level, comprehension and love have sky-rocketed. The schools approach to learning math and science are not the standard we learned in school. My now fourth grader scored literally a perfect score in Verbal and missed one or two on Math in the California State wide testing last year. Their teachers are loving and supportive. I LOVE this school.
• Submitted by parent on August 20, 2019
  Generally good, but the leadership of this school have made several tactical errors, reducing parent involvement and providing inadequate support for disadvantaged students as indicated by the overall reduction in scoring.
• Submitted by parent on June 19, 2019
  Overall it seemed like all their cared about was fundraising. Non-stop asking you for money week in and week out year after year. Our child went here kindergarten through 5th and it never got better. There is a huge clique-y nature to the moms who are predominantly "Montana moms" if you know what that is. Very little socio-economic diversity at all. Had to repress a gag reflex most of the time I was around other parents. And the PTA is a huge social climbing nightmare. Education was ho-hum; our kid is bright and would have excelled in a paper bag, so nothing added and certainly didn't support their intellectual capacity.
• Submitted by parent on December 08, 2017
  We had the same experience that "rough play" from the bigger kids is ignored but minor incidents are escalated. The school has an anti-bullying campaign but it seems they identify most issues as a communication problem, not a bullying problem. However, name calling as a reaction to bullying is immediately written up and very serious. Obviously we didn't condone name calling, but in the context of bullying it seems it should be a lower infraction, or at least bullying should have been treated equally as serious. The administration office is very unresponsive. And our experience is once you donate you seem to be ignored just as much as before. Finally, the school district in general has a no recommendation policy to other school. So even with or without a donation, your child will be disadvantaged just the same to other students whose school did provide a recommendation, if you choose to change schools to another public or private school.
• Submitted by parent on November 12, 2017
  This school may have been great in the past, but it certainly is not now. The assistant principal and principal are awful. The principal acts as a strange type of cheerleader, yet is completely unresponsive and dismissive of any requests. In fact, they will ignore any issues that you request to be address, yet the school will send out endless emails and phone calls regarding fundraising. They seem to care more about raising money than the children. The Kindergarten teachers that my child and my friend's child had (two different ones), were not very engaging with the children. They go through the motions but the children often seem bored. Both my child and others often go home with bandaids over dirty wounds and bruises from playing, without anyone ever helping them wash and clean the wounds. Supervision seems to be lacking and the K teachers just don't seem to pay attention to what is going on. If they don't actually see an altercation or conflict as it happens, they won't believe either child and claim that they didn't see it, even if the overwhelming evidence points to one child hurting another. Yet on the other hand, they overreact and are harsh when they see a minor incident. The environment for the Kindergarten age is not nurturing. I would not recommend this school for Elementary.
• Submitted by parent on February 10, 2017
  Roosevelt is a wonderful school. The teachers are very dedicated and the parents are involved. A great community to be part of.
• Submitted by parent on December 03, 2014
  Roosevelt is a fantastic school with dedicated teachers who walk down the halls talking about their training from Columbia's Teachers College and UCLA's CGI (cognitive guided instruction). They talk about the new common core and the full arts program, K-5, that exists at Roosevelt. They talk about how they will come to the back to school picnic or Roosevelt Pier night. For all the trials of state budget cuts they have dug in, persevered and shown their love for teaching and all the kids at Roosevelt. Thank you to them!
• Submitted by parent on December 02, 2014
  Roosevelt is so so public school. Teachers most of it are University of California graduate, that means do not expect a lot from them. Most of the teachers are gossiping girls. they run the gossips for the whole city. If they want to get someone out of city they spread rumors full of lies. The school program is based on repeating rater then logical thinking. .
• Submitted by parent on April 25, 2014
  Roosevelt is an amazing school with incredible, dedicated and responsive teachers who teach to the child, not the test, and an administration and staff whose dedication to the school is similarly amazing. The sense of community is remarkable and it's been a magical elementary experience. We feel very fortunate to have the opportunity for our kids to attend Roosevelt!
• Submitted by parent on October 24, 2013
  Teaches children creativity, teamwork, and problem solving in a diverse, real world setting. Children here get the foundation for success in today's world. Teachers work very hard and treat every child as an individual. The administration is responsive to all.
• Submitted by parent on September 15, 2013
  Having read the two negative comments about Roosevelt this month, I can only assume the parents (if they really are parents at the school) had a beef with someone or something. I cannot imagine how a school in a lovely part of Santa Monica, which just got the highest API score in the district (and one of the highest in California) and whose PTA raises hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, can possibly be honestly described as in a bad neigborhood, with poor leadership and teachers, and little parent invovlment. I guess you can't please all of the people all of the time. Roosevelt is always oversubscribed so perhaps it's not a bad thing that the grumpy parents have left, as this will free up space for those who will appreciate what Roosevelt has to offer.

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