St Agatha School

Best school in town! Great families, great priest, excellent principal, top notch teachers and staff. All our welcome here.

Issue 1: If your child has any kind of learning or developmental disability, look elsewhere. Maybe some of the teachers are better about it, but the one my son got for PreK could not have been any less prepared, understanding, or knowledgeable about different kinds of kids. I know that nowadays, they make everyone take classes on that stuff in grad school, so with younger teachers, this isn’t a common problem. Much research has been done in the last 30 years on these various related topics.
The first day of class, the teacher (Ms. Cacamo), upon learning my son had autism, started telling me awkward, off topic stories about her alcoholic autistic aunt and her violent fits she would throw. OK? Her implication was that people with autism are somehow insane drunks? I still can’t figure this one out. This should have been a serious red flag to me. I should have pulled him out immediately, in retrospect.
Issue 2: The re-​enforcement of power games, typical peer power structures, etc. Ms. Cacamo did nothing to diffuse these situations. In fact, she didn’t even seem cognizant of them going on around her even when I brought it up.
We only lasted a few months here. My son was coming home from school sad nearly everyday. His confidence seemed shot. He wasn’t sleeping well. He would come home and say weird things to us about things the kids would say to him. We got concerned, so we would drop him off and watch for awhile before leaving. It became clear that more attention was paid to the girls in the class (weird), especially CERTAIN girls. It also became clear that typical power struggles were not only tolerated, they were supported. Everyone remember the «nerds,» «jocks» etc in school? Apparently this starts in preschool. You read studies about teachers treating African-​American boys the worst, and how this affects their performance for life because it trains them to not even expect much from themselves. I believe those studies, and I raise them a few notches. I’ve come to realize this happens to EVERY KID. Every kind of prejudice is bad, even the kids who get labeled the «smart ones» or the «popular ones.» Every kid is given a supreme disservice by unaware teachers like this.
Teachers, just like scientists, or engineers, OR DOCTORS, or software developers, should be required to be kept up to date on recent research and developments in their field. They have just as much affect on our children as doctors do, maybe more.
Update: In response to Michelle posting because she is bothered my my review:
I am glad you had and have a good experience. very very glad.
I made it clear however that I perfectly acknowledge the problem was centered around 1 teacher, HIS teacher.
The rest of the teachers could be stellar, for all I know.
That being said, we were also treated with disrespect by both Penny, and Mr. Delegato. The last contact I had with him, he wrote me an email saying he wanted to sit down and talk to us and that we ignored his «direct plea» to come talk to him, but this was a flat out lie. In all the time that this was going on, I never ONCE heard from him, not even indirectly (ie, through someone elses mouth). I didn’t receive an email from him until we were completely gone, and it was in the context of BILLING. (The state was partial paying for his time there, and maybe this is why we weren’t treated so well?)
After I sent in an email back in response basically telling him I never received this plea he spoke of, and that I would come in anytime to talk, he did not respond. This all happened July 11, 2012 and I have email records.
I also recognize that he has many many students, and that a few are bound to get lost in the shuffle. This is life. However, that doesn’t make it right.
Our experience at this school was very damaging, psychologically and emotionally, and because of that I had to leave a review.
We go to church there often and my husband sings in the choir.
I would at this point be comfortable talking to anyone about this, if they wanted.
We hold no grudges but also do not hold back from the truth. Facts are facts.