Sweethaven Christian Academy

Great school, everyone is very attentive and makes you feel like family. I agree with the other parent, if your child seems to have a problem here it's more than likely something they're bringing from the homefront. Private school isn't for everyone that's why it's called PRIVATE school.

One of the major negatives for me was the fact that the teachers were not there in the morning or in the evenings at pick up time. I understand that being in the building from 6:00 am until 6 pm is not practical but I would have liked for maybe 2 to 3 days of the week for the teacher to be present in the morning or the evenings. Face to face feedback is very important. This also allows you to see how your child interacts with his or her teacher (I will touch on this more). The most disturbing negative for me was his teacher Mrs. Jones. Now I did not become disturbed by her actions until 2 days before I decided to de-enroll my child from the program. My very first interaction with her was not ideal but it did not raise any red flags. On the second day of school she decided to inform me of my child's behavior. Most teachers do as I am doing with this review and start with positives and then lead to the negatives. Not Mrs. Jones, she proceeded to give me a long list play by play of everything my child did that day. I left feeling defeated and overwhelmed but I kept pushing and recognized that my child needed to learn how to function socially and in a structured setting. I continued to communicate with her via phone and email and true to her nature it was always the same thing NEGATIVE. I again continued to take the feedback and worked very hard at home to correct his behavior. I took advice and suggestions from her as well as Mrs. Borkert and continue to try to get my child adjusted socially and structurally. At this point I am starting to get depressed because his behavior is improving at home but at school it seems to be getting worst. I found myself crying after I put him in bed, Arguing with my husband, and my child was no longer happy at home. Finally, a meeting was scheduled to come up with a UNITED plan to help my child. I felt encouraged and thought that maybe things would work out. Mrs. Borkert led the meeting and come up with wonderful suggestions. However, I got my second red flag about Mrs. Jones in this meeting. Now Mrs. Borkert and I spend the least amount of time with him in a day but we seemed to be the only ones with suggestions. She responded when spoken to but never vocalized the things she would like to see happen. I found this odd as she is always very vocal when he did wrong and she spends the majority of the time with him. I took the feedback and continued to push on thinking that this was a united front. The day before I decided to remove my child from the school was the most disturbing. After a morning conversation with Mrs. Borkert, I decided that I would take my son to the playground to go over the rules and help him to stop running (running is dangerous for the child and the teaching staff). As we walked towards the exit Mrs. Jones had her back to us and could not see us approaching. Upon our approach she turned around and noticed my son first and then me. The look she gave my child was her initial reaction to him. The look was one of disgust, hatred and displeasure. She then looked to me and corrected her face. I explained what I was doing and continued on my way. However, in that moment I realized that she was tired and did not want my child to win. She most likely wanted him gone. I was so disturbed that I broke down crying in the car in front of my 3 year old child and I realized that this situation would never work or get better because she did not want it to get better. People may say that she has over 20 years of experience teaching and interacting with children and your child clearly had issues. I will agree with all of those things but it does not take a master’s degree in child development for me to see my child was not wanted in her space. It made me question her intentions and I no longer felt comfortable leaving my child in her care.