Bay Area Charter Elementary

I have three kids enrolled at Bay Area Charter Elementary school and this is our third year at the school. We really like the small class size. Most of the teachers are wonderful! The staff is very friendly. The school lacks security, though. Students have wondered out of the school to the parking lot without any of the teachers or staff knowing. The side doors to the school on the gym side are unlocked during school hours, which makes it easy for anyone to walk in. The parking lot for drop off and pick up is small, which makes it very time consuming. It doesn't help that there is a CCISD elementary school across the street. Traffic can be quite bad. I wish they had a small cafeteria so they wouldn't have to use an outside catering company to provide hot lunches. The lunches are gross! There have been several times when things were still cold or even frozen and uneatable. I also don't like that they use Styrofoam trays. Since it's a smaller school I would think that it would be easier for them to be more environmentally friendly. The school feels more like a small community. Parents are encouraged to help at the school and be involved with their children, which isn't the case at most CCISD schools. When the secretary isn't at school they use parent volunteers to work the office, which I'm not too comfortable with because the secretary in the front office is also the school nurse. A parent volunteer is not experienced or qualified to be acting as school nurse. The school is well kept and clean, but a bit out dated. Overall our experience at the school has been positive. There are some cons, but the pros heavy out weigh them. It's still a much better environment than CCISD schools.