I'm a Coonley RGC parent (1st), with a 5th grader at Decatur. Coonley is by FAR the preferable of the two schools in our opinion. By FAR. Thry consider the whole child, not just their test scores. We've found it to be such a breath of fresh air compared to Decatur, truly. While I adore most teachers and many parents at Decatur, the administration is abhorrent, and cares nothing about either their rampant bullying problem (going on since our kids were barely in 2nd grade) or the welfare of the emotional health of the children. Very sad, indeed. (They also have zero accommodation for parents with disabilities either at pick-up or drop-off). Coonley is open, warm, inviting, available. I can volunteer in the classroom (never permitted at Decatur) and I can walk my child to class (also never permitted at Decatur). The administration is accessible and accommodating. Fabulous school. We are considering sending our Decatur grad there for 7th and 8th grade, which says a lot..

Quote Originally Posted by Amanda View Post
From what I can gather, Coonley School recently received a grant to create a Regional Gifted Center. That's great, of course, if you live in the neighborhood and your child tests into the RGC.

But will that improve the school overall? I'm hearing that Bell received the same grant and created an RGC, which improved the school overall and made the neighborhood and the school all the more desirable.

Apparently people are now flocking to the Coonley neighborhood boundaries with the thought that Bell will be the same. I might be one of them, but I want to make sure I understand correctly what is going on.

Coonley rates at 8 with Great Schools, which is pretty good, but it's not currently as high as some of the "big name" neighborhood schools on the Chicago Magazine ratings list (Bell/Burley/Audubon/etc). Will that change once the RGC is in place? And how long will it be before the school is "great"? (Or is it already great?)

I'm a newbie to all of this, so thank you for your patience!