K O Knudson Middle School, Las Vegas | Fees, Rankings, Address, Admission, Vacancies, Reviews & More

The school that disillusioned me and poisoned the rest of my public school experience!

A thorough and complete letdown. I attended for one year from 2005-6 after attending Gilbert Elementary (a fellow magnet school and an absolutely incredible place. Gilbert was [and likely remains] the gold standard for public schools in Vegas.) The entire staff was convinced the school would be gang-run by 2008 – kids from juvenile hall were apparently bused into the school regularly. My English teacher advised me to get out while I still could, like I had a chance to escape a cult or something.
The disciplinary staff were comically inept: I had my wallet stolen three times with no action even attempted on my behalf, but was suspended for one week for purposely annoying a kid by burping into his ear during an assembly. While I awaited my appointment in the counselors’ office, a pregnant girl was viciously bullied by an older student directly in front of the receptionist – absolutely nothing happened. Not even a verbal warning. Nothing at all. The girl cried.
I was bullied constantly during my time at the school and the only time anyone took any disciplinary action was when I finally decided to fight back. I was heavily reprimanded for ineffectually flailing a shopping bag with my gym clothes in it at a kid who’d been mocking me for months. The staff were very distanced from the students.
There was always a surprisingly large amount of free food in the front office explicitly for the faculty – students were forbidden to even look at it too hard – and it mostly went uneaten. Keep in mind, the school is in a rough part of town. There were undoubtedly many kids who would gladly have eaten that food because they didn’t get enough at home. There was absolutely no excuse for the beyond subpar educational experience I had at this school.

Judging by the more recent reviews, it seems the school has turned their act around quite a bit. I deeply hope this is true, it would be absolutely wonderful to hear. But I will never forgive this school for being the major contributor to my being totally disillusioned with public education as a whole until I graduated high school. I was an honor roll, straight-A student before I went here and after, I was lucky if I managed to scrape past with a B average. Absolutely inexcusable. I hope for the sake of everyone who comes through this school in the future that the administration and policies were completely gutted and replaced with something that actually works.

After spending three whole years here, I believe that people do not give K.O the credit it deserves.
The staff are absolutely amazing at this school, while the education program actually works for a lot of the students…
Between the parties and the performances, everything about this school is phenomenal, and it makes me sad that I have to leave after this…

Teachers are reasonable and kind, the area surrounding your students is completely safe… And trust me, no one will want to leave after spending their time here.

The arts program, from TV Production, whom posts the daily news on our website, to Technical Theatre, whom works backstage and in the booth during every show… Every performance that goes on at K.O… Every single one of them are run by students!
The theatre program is my personal favorite, because recently we just did Mary Poppins Jr.

All three theatre programs gained a superior rating on that! Basically all of our programs are getting superior ratings for our performances!
Our students have amazing chances to go to amazing places! Like, for festival, choir and Orchestra students got to go to the Ham Hall in UNLV! Also, a bunch of students in encore programs actually got to go to New York before, and they’re going again next year!

I definitely recommend this school for any newcomers, because being at K.O is an amazing experience! I swear, I cried so much during the past week, I don’t want to leave!

Today I went to the open house and I thought all of the programs were amazing. I was in awestruck from the ballet folktaire (I think that’s what it’s called) and I went into the choir room and the songs I heard from the students were awesome! I’m in 5th grade and I would love to get into K.O because it gives me an opportunity to do what I love, dancing and theatre, possibly musical theatre. What I love about having performing arts and fine arts and that type of stuff in a school is really fabulous because studies show if you have a thing to do with music, the left side of your brain will connect the music part of the world to your education. At school I believe I know a little or a lot more about music and that type of stuff because I’m interested in that stuff. I’ve always performed/singed in front of my family and I have performed as Babette in Beauty and the Beast play at my school (last year). It was awesome! I know I’m getting a little off track of why I think this school is awesome but just so you know, IT IS AMAZING????