Portland Arthur Academy Charter School

I have two sons that have attended and could not be happier with their education! The transition into middle school, and even high school, was smoother than I anticipated! Thank you, Arthur Academy Staff!

I have been in this school and am horrified by it. This is a poor quality school that admittedly gets results, but gets them through questionable methods.

When you send your child to Arthur Academy, that child is guaranteed to be subjected to brutal verbal abuse by the principal, who holds a religious fanaticism towards "Direct Instruction," a teaching method which in theory sounds great, but in practice turns the school into a military academy. Creativity is completely stifled and kids are made to memorize lessons through intense repetition reading and mathematics alone. Their “skill” in these subjects is highly dependent on how fast and how accurately they can recite things. Little emphasis is placed on anything else, including art, sciences or history. What little “art” is given to the children is limited, restricted and at best a joke.

Kids may be taught reading skills but leaves little room for social skill development. Lunches must be eaten in complete and utter silence, and children are not allowed to run or scream in recess. In addition, kids have little interaction with each other during class times, little free time is given partner work is limited and the nature of their competitive lessons generates spite between each other. Lessons themselves are incredibly fast paced and leave little room for breaks.

The staff is no better, many of whom look highly inexperienced and unprofessional. Teachers are excessively strict and rude, and frequently berate children for small, minor infractions, as if they were trying to keep those who attempt to express themselves in line. I have seen a teacher brutally chastise a good natured and excitable kindergarten girl and label her as a "problem child" when in fact she had done nothing wrong, simply because she didn't fit the same copy-paste model student that the teacher expected to create. But this is perhaps not their fault, as teachers are made to sternly follow a highly specific script which details how to interact with children, what to teach them, and when to teach them, a process called “script-based teaching.” The problem here is that like the children, the teacher’s creativity is also stifled. They may not make their own lessons and are made to religiously follow the script under orders from the seemingly authoritarian principal. This may explain the very low staff retention rates at this school.

Children are treated more like robots than human beings, as in the staff think that they can simply plug students in, fill them with information and orders, unplug them and then send them on their way. This is a school that eats up children, stuffs knowledge into their heads and throws them back out onto the streets. There's no guarantee that they may even reintegrate well into public school life after their tenure at the charter school is over. They have no free will. They must always place their bodies in banal stances. They are constantly yelled at by superiors. They have no free time. This is not an elementary school. This is a military academy.

So to Arthur Academy: these are not your children. You don't know these children. You don't understand their needs, their wants and their desires. Children need to bloom, be free and be treated as little adults. So go ahead, when another student graduates from your barracks, be happy that you have created another statistic to use in your sorry “data.” What you have created instead is nothing more than a hollow, expressionless, abused shell of a person.

We love this school! I have been describing it as a catholic school without the catholic. That doesn't mean that they have scary teachers though, I mean that it's academic focused with real goals, rewards, and consequences. My daughter started this year ( first grade) and we were concerned that she would be behind, which was the case, but they have her in a specialized reading group and now she is doing great and feeling proud. The school is small and situated in part of the ascension church in north tabor. My daughter's class has close to 30 people with 3 teachers. Their special classes are PE, music, technology, and art. I highly recommend this place. Its not your typical portland charter school-- the child leading the the way with their interests ( which I think is great for some). The teachers at PAA are there to teach and the children are expected to pay attention, get smart and be proud.