Connect: Sunnyside Environmental

Does anyone have insight to share on Sunnyside Environmental?

Sunnyside Environmental
K-8
3421 SE Salmon
Portland, OR 97214

Phone: 503-916-6226
Fax: 503-916-2676
E-mail: shtaylor@pps.k12.or.us

School-created web pages: http://www.environmentalschool.org

Comments

[yvette]

My son didn't get in to our first choice of school for kindergarten (Buckman). Our neighborhood school is Sunnyside. I was not impressed at all when we toured this school. I am really not happy about sending him there. It seems very overcrowded and disorganized. I have heard several parents share negative experiences with Sunnyside.
Anyone have positive feedback to reassure me?

[Sunnyside mom]

We did the lottery to get our daughter into Sunnyside and have been really happy with it. I think you can always find parents that are dissatisfied and the first year of public school can be challenging. The school is working to bring class sizes down and not taking as many kids through lottery will help with that. I was a little concerned about things being rather "organic" when the year started but I decided it's a good balance with my kid's very "organized" home life! I hope that helps. Happy to talk to you offline also.

[m]

My daughter is in her first year at Sunnyside, and I've been pretty hot-and-cold about it. On one hand, I appreciate the gardening and environmental education that goes on - and in older grades, there is a real service-learning focus, with kids fundraising for schools in Afghanistan, etc. On the other hand, I feel very strongly that the class sizes are out of control, and kids are shuttled around too many times during the day. It is VERY crowded in the hallway, and you're right, it's very disorganized too. But there is a real loving heart at the center of the school that I'm hoping will become more important to me than academics or hallway sanity.

I think much of this is just the shock of public school, and elsewhere is not necessarily going to be better. I will say that I've heard that a kindergarten teacher at Buckman regularly shows movies during class time - you may be glad you didn't get in!

[yvette]

Thanks for the feedback.
I am going into Sunnyside with an open, positive mind. Perhaps the lottery drawing not going my way, will be a blessing, and our son will love Sunnyside.
Although, I do truly hope that they have limited the number of kindergarteners they are accepting this year.

[m]

Yes, I've been told that this year was a fluke - horribly over-crowded kindergartens! The first few weeks of this year gave me a number of gray hairs! I think for fall they've limited lottery, and we did a lot of neighborhood outreach to get neighborhood people to register early. Lowering class size seems to be the biggest priority for sure.