St. mary's academy Reviews

I'm an alum and now my daughter is going. We drive ridiculously far but it's worth it

My sister's went there and they are both smarter then me.

Our family began our search for a Pre-K program pre-COVID. We were immediately impressed with the welcoming community as well as what the Pre-K program had to offer in terms of social emotional development and academics. Once we began the SMA Pre-K program, we were dealing with COVID restrictions. Despite this, SMA went above and beyond to give the children as normal as an experience as possible. SMA kept the Pre-K program open all year long while staying committed to keeping the school open in a safe manner as well. We watched our child thrive in all aspects, due to SMA's commitment to the whole child, both academically and emotionally. The staff is amazing and dedicate themselves to the children and their well-being. Our daughter is super excited to begin Kindergarten in the Fall at SMA and we are excited to be at SMA for many years to come!

My niece is there and it is an amazing school. Highly, highly, recommended.

St Mary's Academy is a beautiful school with great facilities. The admissions process was exemplary and communication with staff and teachers was excellent!

When we moved to Colorado we found very few quality school reviews and I wanted to write this review with the hope it will help new families. Overall, St. Mary's is a good school but really appropriate for the right type of family that is Catholic and wants a significant part of the curriculum incorporating religion. Here are our honest thoughts from our experience of sending our son there for 2 years:

Pros:
1) Our pre-k experience was hands down beyond any expectation we had, largely due to the amazing teachers our son had. Both sets of pre-k classes had strong teachers that were empathetic and caring.
2) Great facilities (which you would expect to receive in a well funded private school).
3) While religion was part of the program at the pre-k level, it was what I felt appropriate (prayer before lunch, occasional mass assembly)
4) Smaller class sizes than public school (for example, Kindergarten class was 14 versus the typical 20-25 classes)

Cons:
1) While our pre-k experience was wonderful, the curriculum quickly changed in kindergarten to be very religious. Due to covid, we had the opportunity to view the curriculum from home when the school went remote. We found on some days, nearly 30-40% of the time was devoted to videos around this. The other teacher in the second kindergarten classroom was more religious than ours and we found out that on certain days she would have her students repent for their sins, something we found inappropriate at this age.
2) During Covid, we sensed the school became a bit disorganized and chaotic with the teachers overwhelmed and constantly stressed (about 5 times they closed the school for a day to give the teachers a break). No doubt teachers already have one of the toughest jobs out there and covid only made it tougher, but when we compared our experience to that of our friends in other schools, they conveyed their teachers were resilient and equally committed. Through our son (and his emotions) we saw the classroom turned into a very stressful environment for the children in particular. Whether it was due to this stressful covid time or not, we found the staff was just not empathetic to students and had a very short fuse. For example, when our son had situations where he was reprimanded by a teacher, he never was given a chance to share his version of the story.
3) We found the culture overall at the school to not put an end to bullying. We had several friends who had horrific experiences where their son or daughter would be dragged across the playground during recess. After much complaining by the parents, it seemed like the supervision was increased. However, I can tell you that the badly behaved kids never improved their discipline and it was just astonishing to us how the school let this continue to happen.
4) Following that point, we did see a theme of the families who returned each year, as well as those who were big donors, get some free passes with regards to their kids behavior.
5) Finally, expect homework every day at the Kindergarten level which I found odd at such a young age. The prestigious Cherry Creek school system recently did away with all homework before high school as they found through evidence based studies that it was hampering students progression (which makes sense as we are all exhausted after an 8 hour day). Examples like this made me believe St. Mary's wasn't progressive on the latest scientific studies and was still stuck in the old world of education.

Overall, I don't want to be overall negative as the school is a great fit for the right family. For example, my good friend who is Catholic has two daughters there and he loves St. Mary's because of the strong incorporation of religion, the fact that the high school is all girls, and the high school is one of the top programs in the state from what we heard (which apparently is very hard to get into if you don't join the school earlier with your kids).

I wanted to write the lengthly honest review in the hope it is helpful to those new families looking at various school options.

I have been so happy with all three of girls experiences here. The caring and guidance they provide is top of the line.