Trailridge Middle School

7500 Quivira Rd

School District

Shawnee Mission Pub School
Grade

7-8
Teacher/Student Ratio

1:15
Type

public

School Map for Shawnee Mission Pub School

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 student on April 04, 2024

TRAILRIDGE SUCKS i go here right now and the teachers do nothing about bullying or students wellbeing and bullying is incredibly common and they dont care!!! the administration is petty, passive aggressive, and only care about the power and not the kids. terrible for the children going there AND the adults having to deal with it, their website is a mess the front desk doesnt know how to be polite at all the parking lot is a disaster and the teachers are care about nothing but making sure it looks like theyre a good teacher whose students get good grades and not the kids who are struggling.
Submitted by parent on July 31, 2023

Pulled 7th grader out to homeschool for 8th grade, as the bullying was SO BAD, and the school was SO NOT TAKING CARE OF IT. Fights occur all the time, food fights during lunch, fist fights, kids bringing inappropriate items to school and getting the school on lockdown while they wrangle the kid that brought the knife, or whatever! It's terrible here. And the Vice Principal's way of handling school bullying is to sit the bullied kid down and explain how bullying occurs all through life and they need to learn to deal with it! JUST AWFUL! Every teacher and staff member, from the school secretary down to the psychologist and Principal are horrible at getting the fighting and bullying under control. Kids here are just plain MEAN. One kid told my daughter to kill herself. Another told her she should cut her wrists. Their acceptable solution was an apology letter written by the offender to my child, only to be told by the offender later in the same day, "I only wrote the letter of apology to keep from getting suspended!" Kids know how to work the system, and if they don't catch the bullying on camera, they DO NOTHING.
Submitted by parent on July 20, 2023

Trailridge staff are very supportive and constantly communicate home when students are struggling. I feel like I always know what's going on at Trailridge: activities, academics, safety, policies and procedures, etc. My kids have enjoyed their time at Trailridge...as much as someone can enjoy middle school.
Submitted by parent on October 14, 2022

Absolutely awful, this school is an abomination of a workplace. Though the teachers are nice, they have horrible a workplace environment.
Submitted by other on July 24, 2022

If I could give it a lower rating I would. Absolutely horrible principals and disciplinary actions usually make no sense. You can do almost nothing wrong and then get in trouble for it. Students always want to fight because they have nothing else to do. Teachers dont know how to handle unruly behavior displayed by students and usually just write them with no warning. I WOULD NOT SEND YOUR KID HERE!!!
Submitted by parent on March 05, 2021

Our experience, even in the middle of a pandemic, has been wonderful. The teachers have been kind-they go above and beyond for the students. There is a new principal and new assistant principal this year (2020-2021) and they have done an amazing job transitioning from the previous staff. The front office staff is also helpful and friendly. We had one of them bring supplies to our home because we could not make it to pick up. One teacher also brought a school t shirt to our house because she lived close to us. I would recommend Trailridge because they focus on each child individually and are willing to help in all aspects, not just curricular.
Submitted by parent on December 30, 2019

Overall, this school has been a positive experience for my children. The middle school age is tough and the school has provided the encouragement and support each child needed.
Submitted by parent on July 29, 2017

Having transferred into this school the middle of last year, we have nothing but positive experiences at this school. We found the teachers and faculty to be very responsive. I had 2 kids attend, 1 in 7th and 1 in 8th and as parents we were happy. In terms of the atmosphere we found the students to act the same as other public schools; some good, some poor, but the staff has been excellent. I would recommend this school to other parents
Submitted by other on July 01, 2016

This school was the worst experience of my entire life, over 800 kids are crammed into a giant building with little to no windows. It feels like a prison inside. The principals are terrible and focus on discipline instead of encouragement. Students also swear all the time and also harass people in the school. Other than talking to them and giving them a "punishment". The school does almost nothing about kids getting hurt or bullied by their peers and sometimes the bullies don't even face consequences. So many fights happen here, and the only thing they do about it is an out of school suspension. It happens so often to the same kids that they don't even care anymore, and I don't blame them. Sending a child away from the building doesn't change them. They are happy to be away from this miserable place. The student's give no respect to the teachers whatsoever and go as far as to talk about them behind their backs and take pictures of them without their permission. On the second to last day of school, people in one of the lunches weren't behaving. The principal threatened everyone in the lunch and said that if they continued this, they wouldn't be able to come to school and participate in the inflatables party the following day. (this did happen) That isn't a punishment. Kids would obviously rather go home and enjoy their day off rather than being forced into a gym with everyone else in their grade for 3 hours going down slides. Kids on the last day were throwing sandwiches at other people and an entire table that were throwing said sandwiches were removed from the lunch by the principal. There is literally no discipline in this school. There is also a bank nearby that every single year gets robbed and the school is forced to go on lock down and nothing has been done to fix this. This school district was given the privilege of MacBooks. A lot of the students didn't have any respect for them and completely ignored the school's rules. Student's would iMessage during school, and a lot of it would be gossip towards teachers and students. They are supposed to be a learning tool, but students do so much more. There is a "Bully Referral" app, which makes sense. It seems as the principals barely check them, and if they do, don't do much about it. This school ignores a lot of bullying and they say it's taken very seriously. I recommend that you don't go to this school.
Submitted by student on August 12, 2015

I love this school because the kids here are really friendly and polite coming from the schools Mill Creek, Benninghoven, Shawanoe, Ray Marsh, Broken Arrow, Rising Star, and Christa McAuliffe which are all really great schools, me personally coming from Broken arrow know a lot of the kids and they have positive attitudes and are actually really friendly. I don't see why people have such derogatory things to say about it! the Teachers are nice and only want what's best for the kids! I absolutely love this school
Submitted by parent on March 12, 2015

I dont like this school, i have been told by many of my friends and neighbors not to send my daughter to this school, i wish i listened, my daughter comes home complaining about the fights in school, how the police dog keep searching their lockers, the swearing, the kids making out, i never wanted my daughter to be exposed to these things, but its too late, trust me from a parent, take your kid some where else, my youngest daughter will never be enrolled in this school. my daughters attitude have totally changed and got very bad coming home learning nothing but swearing, even my daughter tells me how much she hates this school.
Submitted by parent on February 11, 2015

I had two kids go through Trialridge and bridge the school consolidation, where Trailridge doubled in size, and the principal change. The principal change was definitely a positive, because the former principal was phoning it in whereas the new leadership seems enthusiastic and engaged. The huge increase in students wasn't as traumatic as we feared, but it did take a couple of years to get it all worked out. It's nice to see the facilities improvements (new gym, theater stage, lockers, classrooms). The classroom experience seems to be highly teacher and class specific. If at all possible, take the honors-level classes, they aren't as hard as elementary teachers say. The music programs are great, especially jazz band. Intramurals have been re-introduced, so kids can participate in after-school sports year-round (until budget cuts eliminate this perk, again). The biggest Trailridge negative is that there is almost no opportunity for parental involvement. There's a PTA, but they just handle the fundraiser and a few school-wide parties for the kids.
Submitted by other on November 18, 2014

I'm not a teacher, I'm not a parent, but I do know what goes on in this school and some of the teachers are absolutely fantastic. Others are just collecting a paycheck. I think this can probably said for almost all schools. This is a difficult school to teach in with the large range of diversity including many different languages being spoken. Teachers are asked a lot in some cases. How is a teacher supposed to communicate with a student who speaks little to no English? Parents are another story. Again, this is probably a standard in education but parents accept little to no responsibility anymore for their child's education. They blame everything on the teachers. When a child hasn't turned in an assignment it is the teachers fault. When they fail a test because they didn't study it is the teachers fault. Parents need to take some responsibility for what their children do at home when it comes to school work. Teachers aren't there to babysit their child. They are their to educate them for 7-8 hours a day. The rest of the time they are the responsibility of the parent. This would solve a lot of the problems some of these kids have when they come to school.
Submitted by parent on February 05, 2014

Trailridge has teachers that are well educated and ready to teach. The school has struggles with students that have alot going on in their home life spiling into the classroom and often school time is taken to deal with crisis. My child has a different learning style that requires an IEP. The school is not very understanding of the diagnosis and I have had to routinely talk to teachers to ensure his accommodations are in place. The Principal leadership is new so I can not comment much on them.
Submitted by parent on February 19, 2013

I can't wait for my child to be done with middle school. His reports of students swearing loudly in hallways and classrooms, the lack of discipline by some teachers, to the point where students can't even hear the announcements, the surly secretary, and lack of communication with parents are just the tip of the iceberg. I've been exposed to better middle schools and it makes me sad to know my son has to endure another year of mediocrity before he can leave this place behind. In all fairness, I will say we have been pleased with a few of his teachers and their efforts to get to know our son as a person, versus treating him as one more cow in the herd.
Submitted by other on May 17, 2012

I would not recommend sending a child to this school if you care for them just a little bit. The school is rundown and has poor use of funding. You could get a better education in the Favela. There would also be less use of contraband there as well. In most restrooms only one of the three stalls have working locks. They either don't work because of poor installation or [ most likely] because students have broken the locks. There are only windows in FOUR of the 250-some rooms. Also, the principal focuses mainly on punishment and not on encouragement. Going to 'Jailridge" has been the worst experience of my life. If you can send your children to Hocker Grove. The staff are much more caring and there are openable windows in every room.