J.V. Washam Elementary

Great families, students and staff who love the students. Our kids have loved being at Washam. We will be sad when they move onto Middle School.

We had multiple children attend JV Washam from 2015 to 2017, prior to relocating again (military family). Overall we felt largely positive about the school, although our kids definitely had varied experiences. Our younger kids just naturally love school and so far have done well every school they've attended. I think that is largely a reflection on them rather than the school. Compliant, obedient, reasonably smart children are going to generally fare well in school, despite the occasional ogre teacher whose retirement is overdue. Our older child, however, has a very kind, gentle personality but also has a very difficult time feeling motivated and connected at school. This one lacks confidence and struggles to focus. He feels like his effort does not matter. He is never a disruptive child, but he is easily discouraged and will withdraw. He needs LOTS of encouragement and positive reinforcement. He needs to feel connected and safe. Frequent moves can impact some children in positive ways while others suffer and disconnect. Our child had a very difficult year made even worse by the dynamic created by the inflexibility of two of his teachers and the tendency schools often have of pushing extrinsic motivation over valuing and nurturing intrinsic motivation. Kid is struggling? Punish, embarrass, restrict...threaten the already weak connection and ramp up the pressure. Blame the parent. Offer to increase communication with parent but don't follow through and act as if it impedes your job. In summary, we worked with both classroom teachers and the school counselor in order to engage our child, but their approach was all about maintaining and increasing pressure on the child. In response, our child developed psychosomatic illnesses over the year, headaches, vomiting, all due to anxiety over school. We watched our child become miserable over school and sink further into feeling helpless to change it. We heard, "My teacher HATES me--she makes fun of me in front of the class. If I ask her for help she gets mad and tells me to go back to my seat." The guidance counselor has a cute wardrobe but offers absolutely NOTHING beyond that. She seems inexperienced and awkward at best, and I'll just leave it at that.
Oh, and, WTH is up with a school lunch schedule that begins at 9:45 a.m.? The school is over-capacity and starts lunches before 10 a.m. in order to accommodate the volume of students in the cafeteria.
There is a definite lack of diversity in the school as well. It is mostly white upper middle class families. Nothing wrong with that demographic, but I would love to see the schools achieve more balance. Interestingly, schools in the area with essentially the opposite demographics tout their diversity, but IMO, 80+ of any one race or ethnicity and economic level is not diversity either.
Highlights for us were a few individual teachers who were simply nice, engaging people.

Excellent school, great staff, great PTO and parental involvement, clean and safe school. Couldn't recommend it more highly.

My daughter has attended since it opened. Great teachers, wonderful staff, excellent safety and learning enviornment. Very active PTO, and great community involvement.

JV Washam has excellent teachers and administration, who care about the whole child, not simply a test-score child. Though the children still score well on exams, they learn about character, responsibility, and community in practice (not only theory). Similar to a private school environment, administration and teachers know children in all grades and show encouragement and dedication to all children.

Great School and great community!