Mountain Ridge Middle School, Colorado Springs | Fees, Rankings, Address, Admission, Vacancies, Reviews & More

Absolutely abysmal.

Here is a list of all my bad experiences with the administrative staff/counselors, as a student who was once at Mountain Ridge Middle School:

1. Staff do not take students mental illnesses seriosuly, and play it off as stress. (Coming from a kid who was diagnosed with deppresion and anxiety during 7th grade) They also do not attempt to keep in touch with you after the first few meetings. In fact, the staff member I was talking to was venting to ME instead of the opposite way around. (Comparing their work stress to my social/general anxiety)

2. Wasting your class time by pulling you out of class at random intervals. Instead of setting up a specific time with my parents and I to talk, they just pulled me out of class on random days at random times. I know every kid loves the opportunity to skip class, but it always ended up making me fall behind. It wouldn’t be as bad if it didn’t happen EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

The worst time was accidentally being taken out of a suicide psa type thing going on in one of my classes, aka something that would’ve been nice to be there for as a mentally and emotionally unstable kid dealing with suicidal thoughts and similar minded friends. I wasn’t even told why I got pulled out, and later FOUND out after missing class that some kid’s parent had opted their kid out of that class for the day but they ended up switching me out instead. Later on that week, I missed ANOTHER full class just so they could apologize to me. Are you absolutely f****ing kidding me.

3. Enforcing the dress code and no-showing-affection-to-each-other-in-the-hall rules are more important than dealing with bullies.

Self-explanatory, every kid from this school will most likely tell you the same thing.

Of course I have my stories of bad teachers, but the staff are the real problem.

The staff don’t even want to be there, so neither shoud you. They only care about the mental health of your kid once it starts affecting them. And by then your kid is already slicing into their wrists. A few teachers were good, but the administration… don’t trust them with your kids.

They always said highschool would be difficult, but compared to what I refer to as “the Mountain Ridge hell hole”… highschool is undoubtedly better.

I have been at that school for almost 3 years now and frankly their are more cons then pros. In 6th grade I used to get bullied every day people would call me names and stuff. My parents met with the counselor and all she said was “Oh, we’ll talk to him” and guess what it continued and the counselors are very invasive to and have no need to be. Then 7th grade honestly that was a great year I was on team 731 and the teachers were really great and at times ya homework could be a bit much but not consistently. Then where I am right now 8th grade has come by and I had started to notice that the special ed teachers are really rude and have no reason to be I think they need payed for more because they have a hard job I know one nice one the rest are really rude. Then their the teachers for 8th grade. Their is no middle ground between nice and rude. And with some of our teachers we get packets of homework every night I have been spending from 4 let’s say 40 to the normal amount 1 o’clock I will admit I have a 20 min break here and their but we are supposed to have 80 minutes and I have way to much. I had to get out of soccer because I would have no time and I can’t do any sports because of how long homework takes. Then their is lunch yes their is variety but no quality. But some of the teachers I have give us no time to collaborate in groups and the whole time it’s “Be Quiet” and doesn’t even teach us he gives way to much homework to I even complained to mrs. Collarelli about it. Also about the amount of work in French but they do nothing . If you want a school with way to much structure and no room for creativity then I think you found it but I have been to multiple schools but never been bullied/had has much homework/ or cried/ even been yelled at by a teacher then when I went to this school. If their was one thing this school need to fix the most are two things homework and teachers attitudes because school is hard enough without teachers making it worse. We don’t want to be their either. Thanks for your time :).

As a student leaving this year, this school had a lot of ups and downs. My sixth grade experience felt the least aggressive from the teachers, but around this year in eighth grade two of my four primary teachers were either very monotone and felt like they dragged on, while the other, notably, had a student pulled from his class because he told the student to “Stop being weird” and that “he’ll never make friends that way” (mind you that’s none of the teacher’s business so yeah)
Secondly, the counselor assigned to the 2013-2016 group was pestersome. She can be rude and actually be offensive at times but her one most visible quality is that she is the only one enforcing the majority of rules. She can target certain students (or groups) and always tell them that they’re doing wrong, like my group, but in general any other teacher will make their uncaring attitude obvious as they brush past.
In general, there are nice things to do. When the school can muster up enough money, they often splurge and get field trips to places like Eliches or buy new teaching devices, but overall they are a very messy, uncomfortable school and the system is something any logical parent shouldn’t force their child into. (Don’t go for Challenger though, that place is a breeding ground for drop-outs)