Research Royal Palm Middle School public Schools in Phoenix, Arizona

“Excellent school, I was nervous moving my 13 yr old from Mesa to Phoenix. Not sure how she would adjust. Royal Palm has been an outstanding addition to her educational life. No slip in grades at all in fact steady A's. The principle and VP are extremely attentive to the students needs and very personable. The influence to my daughters life with a diverse student body has opened up opportunities. VAMOS program is incredible and the community support for this school and its students can not be topped. I am very impressed and would highly reccomend this school to any student regardless of ethnicity. Next year my daughter will be in 8th grade, I am looking forward to more growth and enrichment in her life as well as my whole families.”

“Very glad to see the AIMS test scores on AZcentral.com. Royal Palm increased their students scores in Math & Reading by 23 & 24%, Writting by a 57.8%. A big thank you to the teachers and staff at Royal Palm. What a great achievement and validation of your efforts. I am a parent of an incoming 8th grader and am proud to send my child to this school. Go Raiders!!!”

“As a teacher at Royal Palm, I have watched it morph from 1300 students and total chaos, to a well oiled learning machine of 700 students where everyone there, kids and staff, care about one another. This is not that same school from 9 years ago when I started. Our focus is on academic excellence and student achievement, not just classroom management and survival. Looking back at the posts from 2003 and 2004, we have come a LONG way!! The staff that remains loves kids and teaching. We have the BEST principal and asst. principal tha tyou could ask for. They kick butt and take names no matter where they are, if it has anything to do with our school. I don't wnatto work anywhere but at Royal Palm!!!”

“The leadership at this school is phenomenal. I am very aware that Royal Palm has been through it's ups and downs and has seen its share of problems, but is is on an upward climb with the best administration it has probably ever had. I attended this school over 20 years ago and would venture to say that it was not a great school. Today it it a great school! I was skeptical to send my 6th grader to Royal Palm. Don't they have a bunch of sex crazy kids that do drugs and make out in the halls and have no regard for their teachers and administrators? WRONG! that was 10, 15, 20 or even 25 year ago. Today, the school is a tight ship. I have personally witnessed how problems are dealt with and how education is #1. The kids there are important and their education is top priority.”

“its a new school for my children but they like the school.”

“I had concerns about Royal Palm last year when my sixth grade son started, but was pleasantly surprised. He had a great year and now this year as a seventh grader he is in the new magnet program and loves it. The teachers and prinicpals are wonderful.”

“The office staff & teachers are very friendly & cooperative concerning the needs of the students. I have had nothing but pleasant outcomes & my child loves his school. If my child is happy...I am happy.”

“Wow I actually cant believe that there are some parents that think that this is not a 'safe' environment for there children to be in! I personally think that they have never even been to my school, sat in on a class, or even met our principals. Me being a student at Royal Palm. I strongly disagree the ones who think that. And yes our school has changes in the past year because our new principals have totally changed our school and our lives! I dont know why anyone would have anything negative to anything about this school”

“Royal Palm did an outstanding job with my child. She started out as a c average student and left with a 4.0 grade average and a Student Excellence Award!”

“I really like working at Royal Palm Middle School. Each year, the staff and administration has gotten better. We are incorporating innovative programs with the support of our community. We have a diverse student population with varying levels of understanding. We address the needs of our students in a variety of ways through classes, instructional techniques, and after school programs.”

“I think that royal palm is a really good middle school. Theres alot of good students and not alot of fights. I think that royal palm is a good school for kids to go to. Parent involment is great to.”

“This school is really awesome and everything is great about it: the kids, the grades the teachers, just everything.”

“Royal Palm is a wonderful school! Very organized,loving and hard working teachers that really care about their students. I have a child with a learning disablility and was very worried about sending my child to Jr. High. I have been overwhelmed with the kindness and willingness to help my child succeed. Because of this my child is reading better and doing things we were told he probably would never do. I was also worried that the school would be unsafe because of rumours I had heard. This could not be further from the truth. The children are all very nice to my child and I feel that he is protected and that the campus is very safe. I also feel the principal is doing a fantastic job and was more than willing to talk with me when I was worried and made me feel confident in this school.”

“This is the best school my child has been to. Even thought it has high expectations the students get used to all the learning. If I could I would send my child to college there. It s that great of a school!”

“Having had three children go through this school, I have to give all the credit to the principal for keeping it running as smoothly as it does. 1200 kids from 7 schools seems impossible to me to control, but it's done. There are some great teachers at this school, but unfortunetly there are bad ones. Bad meaning the ones that don't care about the kids, they don't make learning fun and different everyday. The PTO has been strong and successful for the 7 years I've been here. It has done a great job for the kids. A really great job.”

“I think that there are too many students, for so little space, I woulden't recommend it for a middle school!”

“I think Royal Palm is the worst school I have ever had the misfortune to be involved with. It is severely overcrowded and lacking in leadership. No care is given to individual students - the entire focus of the school is on keeping control. I would encourage parents to avoid this school if they want their child to succeed in life.”

“The other 'parent' said this was a safe environment. (I suspect that the 'review' was falsified by an employee) Wrong! It is in a very bad neighborhood. Crime spills out of at least one high density development right next door to the school. I do give Faculty some credit, they do watch them leave school, but it does little to stop cliques from ganging up on one another. Yes, there is relatively little gang activity, but it is there under the surface. Teachers here spend most of their time babysitting rather than teaching. Instead of going over skills that will be used in the upcoming nights homework and reviewing skills from the previous night, homework is just considered busy work to keep the kids controlled. And there is precious little homework. Why assign too much homework, you'll just have to grade it. When they do teach, it is teaching for the tests, not to enrich the students or to encourage them to new heights. There is no student progress follow through as there is at other schools. There is no feedback to the parents. If you request progress reports, they give you a hard time. We have to beg to get to speak to a teacher or to administration. The district office should seriously think about shuffling the faculty at this location with other schools in the district. Tenure is meant to be a protection from outrageous acts by parents and administration. It is normally a good thing. But here tenure is an excuse for laziness and apathy. A quick look at their test scores should show you only 17% of students met or exceeded standards in math and only 54% in reading. That means that 83% (about seven out of every eight kids) did not meet standards in math and 46% (one of every two kids) did not meet standards for reading. Dismal! In talking with other parents, they thought the school was good because despite very low tests scores, their kid got good grades. Low standards, Low expectations. 'Who cares if my kid didn't learn anything this year, at least they got good grades.' this is not a way to set a kid up to succeed. Having low standards and low expectations is a good way to set a kid up to fail in life.”

“Great School. Staff works hard and cares about the students. A safe environment and well run.”