David T Howard Middle School

We have two daughters at David T. Howard and both have had excellent experiences. It probably helps that they're in the GATE program, but even the teachers for their on-level courses have been great. Some parents who moved their children to private schools during COVID are brining their children back because Howard is a better experience.

The school itself is great but the students are ehhh. Teachers are great

trash

I attended Inman from 2008-2011,and I had a horrible experience. There were student fights at least once a week, and I twice witnessed a student vs teacher fight. My first-hand experience echos another review—bullying was blamed on the victim. That, or the teacher was the bully. I had a few truly amazing teachers at Inman, but I also had (at least) two whom quite frequently appear as the antagonists in my nightmares—both of which still teach at Inman.

As for the test scores, what do you expect when the teachers are incentivized to teach precisely to the standardized test. I'm not sure how recently any parents have looked at what is actually covered on a standardized test, but it is, at least in our state, quite literally the bare minimum of what should be taught. Schools fall behind in test scores when students are aimlessly pushed from grade to grade despite having little to no mastery of basic content. Often student who can't excel in school struggle because the time isn't being given to them or because they have too much (logistically or emotionally, etc) going on outside of school. So if Inman is doing well in standardized tests, I'd hypothesize it more likely could be contributed to: (1) the majority of students come from privileged backgrounds where they have the time and money to supplement their education at home and out of school, (2) the students attended quality elementary schools and therefore are already on track and able to follow along, or (3) some combination of the above. That said, many of the teachers at Inman ARE good teachers. However, if they were given the freedom to teach the same content without the strict curriculum and constant focus on the end result, I'd imagine students would end up performing even better on the standardized tests, AND they might actually enjoy the process of learning (thus developing some intrinsic motivation to learn), AND they might actually learn HOW to learn, rather than just learn how to do well on a test—which is very much not the same thing. Take, for example, Renfroe middle school, in a neighboring district. At Renfroe, the learning process is emphasized, rather than the test, which isn't brought up until a couple weeks beforehand. And those students test scores? Exceeded those of Inman students.

I attended Decatur High school, and my experience in the Decatur City Schools was exponentially better than my experience at Mary Lin. There was likely an equal number of quality teachers at all three schools, but the administration in Decatur emphasized curiosity and exploration in learning as well as caring and support in the community.

If you're deciding where to send your child to middle school, I sincerely hope you don't choose Inman.

I am a parent to 6th and 8th grade boys in the 2013-2014 Inman school year.

On CRCT tests, Inman scores much better than indicated by this site. Based on total scores for all 5 subjects tested, Inman's students were in the top 4% in the State (#21 out of 539) in 2011-2012 and top 7% (#36 out of 539) in 2012-2013. How that turns into the 108th ranked middle school is puzzling (plus - there are more 6-8th grades at more schools than School Digger indicates). The raw CRCT test score information can be downloaded directly from Georgia Dept of Education website: http://www.gadoe.org and sorted easily.

Some of the schools above Inman are math/science magnets, and few, if any, are as diverse. Not everything is perfect at the school, but in light of the redistricting that added more students to Inman, their students should get credit for performing as high as they do.

When you consider the significant extracurricular activities available to students, parental involvement and new teaching talent added in the last couple years, the school deserve very good marks overall.

Inman has the same problems all APS schools have with pretending everything is fine as opposed to doing something about their problems.
Some teachers are good, most are fair, and a few my son had more than once are poor, by which I mean that they never handed back a graded paper and gave students extra credit for cleaning their desk, filled, not incidentally with ungraded papers.

The administration has undergone some changes since mishandling my students bullying, but I understand their "blame the victim" strategies remain in place.

This school is probably the best. The test scores are very high,, I think it is how the teachers teach. I was at another school, and exceeded one subject on the CRCT. But once I got to Inman, I exceeded all the subjects! CRCT test scores are very high, and the students, are all very friendly. There is Virginia highlands close by, so students can do study groups at a yogurt shop, or just be social with his or her friend. This school is a place where kids would definitely have a good time.