Beacon Hill Elementary of Longview, WA

Smiling faces, the extra effort put forth into helping one another, teaching children the values of hard work, and going the extra mile to offer incentive for the children to random acts of kindness and feel good about it. This school is really one to rave about in the small town of Longview, WA!

I personally wasn't raised in this town. I moved here from Vancouver, WA just a few short years ago. In this time, I have come too see many different sides of this town, which will be explained in another article of mine. Talking specifically about schools, I have worked at one Middle School here and my daughter has attended two Elementary Schools. We will keep only the two following Elementary Schools in mind for this article's sake:

1. Beacon Hill Elementary School (my daughter's current school)
2. Mint Valley Elementary School (the school my daughter attended for most of Kindergarten)

Let's do a little comparison, shall we? Mint Valley staff is not helpful if they don't have to be, the teachers are not involved in any kind of one-on-one with the children, the classrooms are small (or the portables are small, in my daughter's case) and the unity of school and parent(s) is pretty much non-existent. More than 20 times I was told how my daughter, who was a typical kindergarten girl, had been disruptive, was being flirtatious with the boys, didn't want to sit through class, was being a "Chatty Kathy", etc. and so on. Not once was I informed of anything positive coming from my daughter. In my eyes as far as school was concerned, it seemed as if my sweet-when-she-wants-to-be little girl was only sweet-when-she-wanted-to-be at home and turned into some kind of Chatty Kathy doll sub-human energy box when she hit the school grounds. School was rough the entire year, and in turn, the home life wasn't what it could have been.