North Middle School

I actually go to the school and have discussed and experienced almost all of the teachers in some way. The curriculum is good and paced well and really only lacks in the two subjects where there are not honors/accelerated classes available. Key point: some students are not challenged enough because they are not enrolled in honors classes. All of the honors classes I`ve taken were and are above par and challenged the students well enough to teach them. As for the extra curricular activities, they are great. Overall the lack of challenge or the essence of mediocrity boils down to the student and the part they play in their own education. No one at North will hand you success, but with realistic but hard work, I`ve seen amazing things happen. The staff are nice to the majority of students, the ones who are not intentionally disruptive for attention or what have you, and the only real complaint I have is with the budgeting skills which have caused us to go to trimesters instead of quarters. Honestly this change is not bad because I could see GFPS going that way anyway and NMS still runs on a quarter esc schedule with early outs on quarter days. The only thing that changes is when grades are pulled and how many related arts are available. Again, the amount of "extra" you get out of your time at North will be heavily proportional to the "extra" you give in, so before blaming the school for being average, think about how you many opportunities it provides for those who decide to put the work in to be above average.

As a military family, we've moved a lot and have been to a few different schools. This one by far is the worst. I know there are worse schools out there but we have never encountered one so it was a huge disappointment. The teachers don't challenge the kids. I really feel they try to cram so much into a day, it's just really not necessary. They had an open house which was extremely rushed so it was borderline pointless. There really isn't a whole lot of good things to say. The only one so far at least is the 7th grade counselor is nice. For a school that has been around for quite some time, it's just an unfortunate mess. It's definitely just an "average" school. Nothing has stood out as great and has had us seriously thinking about homeschooling.

Unfortunately, North Middle School continues its mediocre approach to education. While certainly not the worst middle school that we've encountered, it still remains below average. We would rate the quality of academic programs as "average," but it speaks volumes when a former Great Falls school board member decides to put her/his child in another school because North isn't challenging enough.However, to be fair, we would rate the music, art, sports, and other extracurricular activities as "above average."The "open classroom" approach detracts from North's learning atmosphere and, while several teachers can be rated as "outstanding," the majority of the teaching staff seems to be either "average" or "just below average."The level of parental involvement is a real problem at North - there are a handful of parents who seem to control administrative policy, and favoritism runs high...