Providence High in Charlotte | Military Town Advisor

Category	Rating	Details
Test Scores	9/10	The Test Score Rating examines how students at this school performed on standardized tests compared with other schools in the state. The Test Rating was created using 2025 North Carolina End-of-Course Tests data from North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, and using 2025 North Carolina End-of-Grade Tests data from North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.
College Readiness	8/10	The College Readiness Rating uses this high school's graduation rates, college entrance exam participation and performance, or AP, IB, or Dual Enrollment participation to determine how well schools are preparing students for success in college and beyond. The College Readiness Rating was created using the following data from the 2021 Civil Rights Data Collection: percentage of students enrolled in IB, AP or Dual Enrollment classes in grades 9-12, using 2025 4-year high school graduation rate data from North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, using 2025 Average ACT score data from North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, using 2025 ACT percent college ready data from North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, and using 2025 demographic data from North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.
Student Growth	10/10	The Student Progress Rating measures whether students at this school are making academic progress over time based on student growth data provided by the Department of Education. Specifically, this rating looks at how much progress individual students have made on state assessments during the past year or more, how this performance aligns with expected progress based on a student growth model established by the state Department of Education, and how this school's growth data compares to other schools in the state. The Growth Rating was created using 2024 Student growth data from North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.

Posted: August 18, 2026

I have been going to Providence for years, so this review is based on my own experience. The staff is very inconsistent. Some teachers genuinely love teaching and care about their students, while others seem to hate their jobs and barely teach.

The clubs and extracurriculars are one of the school's biggest weaknesses. Most clubs get little to no guidance from advisors. Competitive clubs especially need instruction and preparation, but students are often left to figure things out themselves. Advisors are barely involved, which makes it difficult for clubs to reach their potential.

The sports teams are really good and have given students strong athletic opportunities. Academically, the school is also very rigorous. Providence has helped me improve my writing and math skills, and most students here get into great colleges. However, the curriculum needs to be updated. Some teaching methods and course curriculum feel outdated, and the school should better prepare students for current careers, technology, and real-world skills.

There is almost no school spirit, and the spirit days are repetitive. The school should create more events and traditions, including things like senior pranks to an appropriate extent, to make students feel more connected to the school. It should also focus on why students are constantly stressed and tired.

The school itself is very old. The air conditioning is always broken, there are barely any windows, and the lack of natural light can make students feel groggy. The building also limits course options because many teachers do not have their own classrooms.

Getting to school is another problem. The carpool line is insane, and frequent car accidents around the school can make traffic even worse and getting to campus stressful.

The workload is also insane and can seriously affect students' mental health (half of it isn't even helpful but busy work). This school can lead to kids crying at least one to three times a year. Providence should keep its academic rigor but find a better balance between achievement and student well-being.

Overall, Providence has strong academics, academics, and is very competitive, but it needs to create a healthy balance so the students do not get stressed out.

(if you do plan on moving here it is essentially a great area to live and the school is one of the best public schools in the area. However attending this school is based your child's needs)

Posted: May 17, 2026

I try to talk about how Im been bullying and harassing by this 2 kids school and they didnt do anything about it.

Posted: April 18, 2026

Ive been volunteering in K12 schools in the area for a while and am very familiar with the various options available. Providence High School is one of the finest public schools in the greater Charlotte area. The teachers are genuinely experienced, and the school maintains a somewhat strict environment.

There is a strong focus on college prep, SAT/ACT readiness, and rigorous coursework. Math, in particular, is known to be challenging at the school. Providence also has excellent sports teams and is gradually expanding to create a more balanced range of extracurricular activities.

Posted: April 18, 2026

Strong academics on par with private elite schools and other top public schools in North Carolina.
Wide variety of course selection
Strong athletics program
Clubs support not where we want it to be
Strict environment
Challenging Honors and AP courses
Top ranked in U.S. News & World Report rankings

Posted: April 23, 2025

The school is rated highly because they care about high test scores. Nothing more. If you have an over achieving child its a good school for you. If your child is an average kid they will be tossed aside. Please beware. My kids were, on average, A-/B+ students. This school only cares about students who perform well above the 4.0 mark.

Posted: May 29, 2024

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Posted: September 8, 2023

I attented this school. From my experience, the teachers I had were not good. You go to class just to copy workbooks and figure out the answers yourself. The teachers did not teach. How can you learn like this?

Posted: April 3, 2023

My experience has differed from others in the site. Maybe only people with poor experiences get on here? Our child has a 504. Counselors have been proactive about ensuring its followed. Teachers have been supportive as well. As with any school, not every teacher will be a great fit (& this has been the case for us as well), but Id say overall, they are caring & my child has definitely learned a ton and is well prepared for college & beyond.

Posted: December 15, 2022

My son is graduating this year and has grown so much as a person and student during his time at PHS. He has maintained his college preparedness even through COVID. PHS is not an easy school but it will challenge your student to grow and prepares them for whatever path they choose by holding them accountable. He has many options for college and has enjoyed most of his teachers while taking honors and ap courses. He passed all of his AP exams and scored well on his ACT.

Many on this site say no one cares but from personal experience he has been mentored and challenged by his teachers through out his time at PHS. If you are a reluctant learner who doesnt engage then PHS will be a struggle but if

There are many great clubs and active arts programs at the school. If your student has an interest they will find like minded peers.

Posted: November 26, 2022

Teachers are more concerned with proving that Providence is a tough school academically than ensuring their students are mastering the material. The communication with students who reach out and parents as well is abysmal. It is awful that teachers do not respond to students seeking help. This school is horrible.

Posted: November 7, 2022

The counselors and principal take great pride in the rules that they make up for their school as they go along Rules that are not part of CMS. They really feel that theyre superior to the rest of CMS but they are not. They do not seem to care about the students themselves at all despite their claims. They forced my sophomore to take difficult junior English class. They refused to give him credit for a class that he passed with flying colors in Virtual CMS and made him repeat it. It really is as if they are trying to make his life more difficult. Their reasons for these decisions dont make any sense. They are also completely inconsistent with these made up rules. My child deserves better. Hes an advanced gifted student and Ive realized that they do not deserve him. Weve both had enough. Im taking him and his sky high test scores elsewhere.

Posted: June 22, 2022

This school is a mixed bag. As a student speaking from my personal experience I would not recommend this school to really anyone. The school is too old and is run down. The teachers dont teach and just give a ton of busy work. The AP classes are a joke and the teachers dont prepare you well for the AP exam. The math teachers are always looking at their answer key to answer any of the questions the students ask. The kids here are alright but some of them are really toxic. People here always look miserable and if you ask anyone in this school if they like it, they will say no. Overall I wouldnt recommend this school to anyone. Just move 4 miles out to balantyne and go to Ardrey Kell high school or just move to union county.

Posted: May 31, 2022

This review is not an exaggeration, and I hope in writing this I can discourage students from taking APES. The AP Earth and environmental teacher (who I will not name because this will be taken down) is the worst teacher to ever be hired to teach here, and quite possibly the worst Earth and environmental teacher ever. I have had plenty of great experiences with the staff here, but this entirely excludes her and the AP environmental science class. She is too lazy to even make an attempt at teaching, simply sitting at her desk the entire hour and half block, and assigning copious busy work without even a basic understanding of how to collect work or how to set expectations for her students, who are left constantly confused. She refuses to grade work, and it is unclear if it is out of sheer laziness or an ignorance of basic technology. Quizzes and assignments are left for months ungraded, skewing perceptions of grades, and for what? The ten seconds it takes to open an automatically graded quiz on canvas and enter the grade in powerschool? If there are circumstances that entirely prevent her from doing her job anywhere near effectively, as there appear to be, she needs to sort it out outside of the classroom. There were 0 labs or hands on work done this year, despite being fully in person and capable of doing such. If the AP exam wasn't such a cakewalk, I am quite sure all of her students would fail as a result of the complete lack of teaching. A robot could do the work she does, and probably more effectively. And when she does grade assignments, she does so in an entirely unfair manner, nitpicking for inaccuracies in the grammar and information we had to learn and synthesize entirely independently. If not for students checking behind her, many many mistakes would be left in her ruthless grading. It would be one thing to viciously grade answers on major projects and tests that we actual learned about, but to set your expectation miles above the resources and material you teach and provide students, therefore tanking their grade, is simply barbaric. I cannot speak to her chemistry class, but AP environmental science receives a firm 0/10 from me and every person I've spoken to that took the class. Hopefully PHS actually reviews their teachers in-classroom in the near future, so they can stop wasting their money.

Posted: May 16, 2022

This school is socially wise is VERY whitewashed having 70% white students, academically its very advantageous for students with a good work ethic. If your kid struggles with the day to day standard class homework don't have them go to this school, but if their very willing to try hard for their future while following strict rules I'd recommend this school.

Posted: April 26, 2022

While Providence prepares students well for college, there is so much emphasis on grades that a toxic and competitive environment exists among students. Students are so focused on grades and getting into a good college that we forget to take care of ourselves and our mental health. It's a miracle if an Honors/AP student gets more than 5 hours of sleep a night. And if you don't take AP or Honors classes, you are judged immediately. There is too much focus on comparing students to each other, as opposed to themselves. Outside of the classroom staff members claim to "treat us like adults," however, the strict dress code and cell phone policy are child-like and unnecessary. If my shorts are considered "too short" or a "distraction to others," I am removed from class until an acceptable pair of pants can be brought to me. A school that puts this much pressure on our test scores seems to have no problem with interrupting girls' class time because of their clothes. The cell phone policy is inhumane, and I have a hard time believing it's legal. If found using a phone during the school day (in class, between classes, lunch, etc.), your phone can be taken overnight for 3-5 days, not including weekends and school breaks. While this seems like a strong incentive to not use a cell phone, a school should not be allowed to take away a "distraction" for 5 days, especially when said device is also used as a safety and communication measure. If Providence wants to treat their students like adults, they would understand that it is the student's responsibility to use/not use a phone or dress as they like. It's not affecting anybody else, and Prov's morals should be consistent in- and outside of the classroom.

Posted: March 30, 2022

throwing work and not teaching effectively. Super small and broke

Posted: March 30, 2022

Posted: March 18, 2022

The children all seem miserable (mine included ) and the homework workload is unacceptable. This isn't college yet people.

Posted: March 18, 2022

Posted: January 25, 2022

If you want your child to be overworked, bullied by staff, subject to ridiculous dress code and hate waking up every day, this is the school for you.

Posted: January 25, 2022

Posted: July 1, 2021

Providence is a great high school. Yes I agree its a tough school but my kid always got good support form teachers. There are enough activities, providence has a great swim team. My second kid is all set to join Providence as Junior.

Posted: July 1, 2021

Posted: January 20, 2021

Students often say they hate it here because of their work ethic and therefore poor academic results. I'm an all A student with a current 4.4 GPA taking honors classes and I glide through all my classes. I participate in sports and clubs while managing great grades and still have free time. Students think that just because they put in no effort and no time, that the school is bad since they get bad grades. Because of these bad grades their mental health drops and they loose motivation. I will admit this school is very challenging at times, but a hard school is a good school. Most teachers teach units excellent and prepare all students for tests/quizzes. However most students get mad at the school when they don't study, have missing assignments, don't pay attention and as a result get bad test grades and that is completely the student's fault for not willing to put in the effort to get good grades. I would highly recommend this school as it is a really hard school and prepares you for college and teaches students well (as long as the students put the work in).

Posted: January 20, 2021

Posted: November 17, 2020

They dont help you unles you have a good grade

Posted: November 17, 2020

They don't even talk about it properly or care.

Posted: November 17, 2020

Worst experience of my life. Struggled with more than I ever thought imaginable. Anyone who says it is a good school I lying because any student I ever have talked to hates this place even if they ddon't go here. I hate providence

Posted: November 17, 2020

Give way too much and never let up.

Posted: November 17, 2020

Don't care for students' well being or mental health even if they lie.

Posted: November 17, 2020

Only care about their stupid grades and precious rank

Posted: November 24, 2019

They tend to push you further than your able to work, they expect the best out of every single one of the students and there is no room for failure.

Posted: November 24, 2019

I've seen and experienced many forms of bullying and even when you report it to administration, not much seems to happen, a year later and I'm still dealing with the same person I've reported four times now and my friends have reported too.

Posted: November 24, 2019

This school tries to show how amazing it is through test scores and how amazing their teacher ratings are, but they don't show you the pain and struggle the students go through everyday that pushes them to their breaking point. 2/10.

Posted: November 24, 2019

It depends on who you go to. The administration attempts to help but aren't as effective as they should be.

Posted: September 8, 2019

No. Sometimes the staff are bullies. I cried at home at home almost every day because I just could not deal with their behavior. Bullying doesn't have to include just malicious words it can be also the things that you do causes emotional pain to students.

Posted: September 8, 2019

No. Not really. Again unless you don't have an A, the teacher doesn't give you much attention. I mean if you do ask for help personally, you just can tell that teacher really doesn't have much enthusiasm to help you. And if you have mental illnesses, it doesn't get recognized as much not even on a 504 plan. If you're not the top, you're not really cared for, unless if you have social qualities and that's why the teacher likes you. Also counselors are just not helpful even with the admissions process.

Posted: September 8, 2019

I liked this school at first when I was 14-15, but that isn't just the case. Having graduated from this school and attending UNCC, has really changed me for the better. I thought I was the burden most the time and just felt really alone, I wish I'd realized that it wasn't me that was problem other teachers had said, it was many external factors. I feel sorry for the students who go here, because "[they] push students to achieve above their potential. You never know how much you're capable of until someone believes in you. It's hard driving, but gets students ready for college" as some parent said below this comment. Yeah I guess so, but students need have time to explore their potential outside of school. These days colleges focus on what you do outside of school for the admissions process and do you actually care about them. If we don't have the time, how are we supposed to truly do something different just piling on all the extracurricular that Providence has to offer JUST for the college admissions rather than person interest. Some of the clubs were just doing some service hours and showing up to some meetings. I could just go on. Some were just so expensive. I fear that my sister who goes to this school will be burnt out, given a wrong perspective, and most of all treated badly because she is my sister.

Posted: September 8, 2019

Sometimes the hw is pointless. The hw in 9th and 10th grade is good because it does have a purpose, but after those years it doesn't get any better. Often times I would turn in hw and it would never get collected for a grade or some kind of credit. Sometimes the hw would get grade so harshly. If you did one mistake, you get automatically get one letter grade down (this gets worse in the language department esp. with the upper lever Spanish teacher). They try to model college, but it's simply not. Yes we have fewer assignments, but professors give back feedback on every assignment and they are pretty generous with grading depending on what type of assignment it is. They also give us clear expectations, resources, creativity (which is certainly not a thing with providence), and theyassignments are given well in advance. Memorizing facts, doing too many IDs and then tested on by given an impossibly hard quizzes because random facts/exact dates apparently are more important than the actual context/significance/concepts are certainly anything but effective. I don't really remember using textbooks for a lot of my classes at Providence to be honest. Some classes enforced readings, but it's not like we did any of the activities mentioned in the textbooks. It was again just memorizing rather than concept based learning. We used technology way too much to do hw then actual paper given assignments, which was a thing that my parents found frustrating because the principal tells almost everyone that you shouldn't be on your laptop for most of the schoolwork, but that clearly was not the case. I don't know, I just find my learning experience UNCC to be a whole lot better than at high school, it's more relaxed, fair, and I feel like I am actively learning. I also get fairly graded on my assignments. It's kind of shocking that the same effort that I put into my work had earned me bad grades in some of my college level/honors classes, is quite the opposite in college. I guess it's not the student sometimes if you spend the time doing the assignments and trying to study for the tests, it just might be the teacher. Also in college, if you are a weak student or just having a hard time, but you work hard, Proffesor are willing to reward you and maybe help you out just a little bit without it being too unfair.

Posted: September 8, 2019

Eh it depends. I have had only 5-8 teachers that I though were phenomenal and just deserve to be recognized for their teaching methods, their relation to the students, how understanding they are, and just knowledgeable. I wish more teachers understood students and reach out to students if they are struggling too much. Like a email or counselor meeting. Sometimes students are embarrassed to talk or scared. I know it would have helped me becoming more open. Some of the teachers just I don't know made things hard in every aspect of learning and life.

Posted: September 8, 2019

I mean students mostly have these when they come to school, but over the school environment just changes to be vastly different. If anything, the school needs to fix it's problem with not understanding mental health. Growing a thick skin, isn't just right. Students feel the need to engage in recreational drug use, taking pills, missing sleep because some of the hw just too much high expectations, self harm. These were things that I heard being talked out loud. It wasn't a secret. I don't know how much the school could be blind about this. Maybe they aren't.

Posted: September 8, 2019

The adminstration has a long way to go. I think that's where a lot of the problem is. Say if a student does something or accused of something and you want to see proof to prove your innocence, that is not going to happen. I was unfairly accused of cheating and skipping (when I was having stomach problems) and I asked the administrators where are is proof that I did any of that. Show me the camera footage, they would not show me it. Words are trusted than actual proof. I remember I was belittled by the counselor, the front desk ladies, and yelled at. You shouldn't ever yell at a person who suffers from anxiety ever and they yelled at my mom and trying to be parent here. They wouldn't let me talk to her. How can you say out loud that you had diarrhea? And when I said that separate office meeting a week after that had happened (if an incident is reported it should be brought up a day after) I was told a stomach cannot be sick 30 mins by Dr. Barnes (who doesn't know anything about my problems or my body). Everything about some of the teachers and the administration is just so immature.

Posted: May 23, 2019

This is a school that pushes students to achieve above their potential. You never know how much you're capable of until someone believes in you. It's hard driving, but gets students ready for college. Excellent experience so far!

Posted: April 14, 2019

Absolutely not! I know many friends that have reached out for help or have an IEP or other accommodations and teachers and administration have done terrible things putting those students at an even higher disadvantage.

Posted: April 14, 2019

Students already have these traits usually so the school doesn't do much with this.

Posted: April 14, 2019

Tracey Harrill does not care about student concerns as well as the rest of administration. They could care less about anyone suffering at the school and only want to uphold the strong academic reputation of the school. If there were people who actually acted like civil adults running the school, maybe students would have a more positive experience.

Posted: April 14, 2019

Absolutely terrible. I have suffered since I first walked into the doors of this school and I cannot wait to graduate so I never have to see this school again. Administration has gotten worse over the years and does whatever they can to cover up scandals and blatantly lie to the student body. Teachers either cannot teach, extremely rude, or overwhelm students with unbearable amounts of homework. If you have the option to go to a different school I would definitely recommend going to any other CMS high school than Providence.

Posted: April 14, 2019

Overloading students with busy work and pointless assignments is anything but effective.

Posted: April 8, 2019

The only way to get past this school if you have learning differences is to force your way into Tracey's face and threaten to talk about how they wont care for your issues, and then she will care about you and your problems

Posted: April 8, 2019

There is hardly anything to be done in a situation where this occurs and there is no real push in preventing it

Posted: April 8, 2019

The school has no idea how to not constantly suffocate students with work and give them no breaks to even catch up on it during any school day

Posted: April 8, 2019

There are many teachers that work at providence that just have no right to. These teachers have little to no care for the students and are hurting not only their mental health, but their future as well

Posted: April 8, 2019

Almost every leadership program they try to implement fails because they cant seem to realize that they cant force students to be motivated

Posted: April 8, 2019

The overall experience with this school is utterly horrendous from all of the issues it seeks to cover up and hide away all because of Tracey Harrills huge ego, and they will definitely care more about your grades than your mental stability. The only thing it has going for it is the students who also see how broken the school is and how they seek to fix it

Posted: March 9, 2019

This is one of the worst schools in Charlotte! All they care about is test scores.

Posted: January 31, 2019

While my child was not bullied by other students, she was definitely pushed around by teaching staff. I have been deeply disappointed in the maturity of some of the teaching staff at Providence.

Posted: January 31, 2019

My student has test anxiety. I reached out to multiple teachers over the years to ask how they could help her address it (especially important as test grades = 2/3 of the overall grade). I did not receive a single response to this question. (Notably, the German staff proactively recognized her anxiety and created a solution with my daughter to help her on German tests.)

Posted: January 31, 2019

Culture is defined by tone at the top. If student mental well-being were as important as test scores, the culture of this school would be much different.

Posted: January 31, 2019

The teachers at this school must be under immense pressure to cover vast amounts of material. It's the only reason I can think of their dismissive attitude toward students who take class time to ask questions to make sure they understand the content.
Heaven forbid your child is shy or introverted, the teachers at this school are so busy that you really have to be overly pushy to get their attention. We pushed our daughter to ask her teachers for help and when she said that they just sloughed her off on other students, my husband and I sat down with one of the teachers ourselves. The teacher told us in that 1:1 meeting that our daughter should "ask the smart kids in the class for help." Wow. Luckily this specific teacher has since retired, but I find this attitude all too pervasive: If you don't 'get it' the first time, you're simply not smart enough and will be labeled as such through the semester/year.
That said, there are some bright spots at this school, namely the German Department where the teachers care, will actively reach out to parents when they have questions/concerns and will ask the students how they can support their learning objectives.

Posted: January 31, 2019

Providence teaches perseverance and survival of the fittest. Providence has crushed my child's self-confidence with teachers who bully students, threaten them to make specific choices that benefit the teacher -- rather than the student -- and belittle their efforts. In this environment, the students learn the value of determination and the application of true grit.

Posted: January 31, 2019

Unfortunately the homework load at Providence is extremely high. I am not opposed to homework to reinforce learning done during the school day. However, when I regularly wake up at 3:30 in the morning to find my child *still* working on assignments from the school day, that is simply too much. Time spent on homework should not exceed time spent in the classroom, yet it regularly does.
Worse yet, many times the homework is not graded so the students have no indication if they spent all those hours reinforcing the material correctly or incorrectly.
The homework policy is so bad that during graduation speeches, the students actively joke about going to college so that they can finally get some sleep!

Posted: January 31, 2019

Providence looks great on paper and there are certainly bright spots within the school. Our first child suffered through it for four years, not excited to go to school, nor energized to learn. While she was admitted to her first choice college, I dare say it was not due to the encouragement of her teachers, nor the school counselor who set the bar exceedingly low for her.
After this experience with our first, we thought that maybe Providence was just a 'good-fit' school for kids who are outgoing and competitive. So, when we sent our second child there (who is extremely smart and driven) we thought she would see more success. Unfortunately, we found that to not be the case either. Rather than reliving the experience twice, we ultimately pulled her out of Providence and are sending her to a private school where she has regained her enthusiasm for learning. We are so happy to have our child back and she is grateful to have enough free time to pursue extracurriculars! We didn't realize the level of stress that Providence was creating for the entire family until we moved schools. Our whole house is happier.

Posted: November 23, 2018

Some teachers are a gem. Most of the other teachers lack empathy and grade too harshly and do not give you meaningful feedback. A lot of the teachers are lazy and do not correct stuff, give so many tests and quizzes, and do not bother teach students properly. They try to teach that way to demonstrate what college environment is like, which is not all what happens at college. Not everything is fill in blank notes, wordy power points, and actually there are very few assignments. Every unit of study is usually a month. Lectures are focused on grasping the important topic and are drilled down until you get it in one 1 hr. There is no time wastage like the teaching in hs. I went from a uw 3.0 GPA in highschool (I had 1 F, couple of Cs here and there, 2 As, and few Bs) to an unofficial 4.0 because the teaching environment was so much better. My classes require me to use my textbook and a lot of my professors teach from the textbook and a few online resources. They teach something so good that I don't have to scour the internet. THE TEACHERS DO NOT DO THAT AT PROV. Many of the teachers are dishonest. They won't tell a student upfront how they feel about you. I had this one teacher at providence who didn't really have much of a problem with me, but when my parents asked her about me she I was disgusting and she even lied that she kicked me out class 4 times. I was so confused. The principle in my class is that if a student is disruptive he or she gets kicked out of class or points are docked off of an assignment. There is no business done with trying to call the principal or filling out a referral or waiting for a student to stop being disruptive. Professors in my school model maturity in lecture. The teachers at Providence acted childish. Also the teachers at prov try to give out failing grades on seeming easy assignments (esp the language and english teachers). For the most part in college I mostly get As and few Bs. I'm not sure how I am doing well at UNCC (because I actually put the same effort that I did high school actually trying to learn the material) than I did at Providence. I also got encouragement from one of my professors to apply to the multiple honors programs at UNCC. Encouragement from teachers never was usually a thing when it came to the last two years of high school.

Posted: November 23, 2018

Horrible. I love college not because I'm doing well but I am also mentally/socially doing well. Something highschool never taught me. This school gave me lots of pain and I will never forget it. It really hindered me to do my best in school. This school prepare you for the college application, but not life or college. I was belittled by a handful of teachers, devalued, and called a liar. I was nothing but a number for them. A handful of the teachers need to be fired for student mistreatment.

Posted: November 23, 2018

I have been given homework that does not correlate to the class or it does not require me to think critically. Half the homework I got never got corrected or never really taught me anything throughout my 11th and 12th grade years. In the 11th /12th year the hw quality is worse. Teachers do not correct it for accuracy and if they did I would get Ds to Fs. I have been taught to memorize useless facts but never taught to apply the things I have learnt in class to a discussion or a some kind immersive learning experience. That is what school should be. If anything this school taught me how to fill in scantrons and write essays. I'm a freshman at UNCC and I can tell you I have not really used anything I have learnt from high school. The famed Junior Paper that every teacher talks about DOES NOT help you for college that much. Many of the papers I have written in college used both APA and MLA (btw they don't teach you APA at all) and required different formats, which I had to learn by myself). In college, I was forced to think creatively, which was a bit different for me because creativity at Providence was not really allowed. It's not that the homework was difficult, it was sometimes meaningless. In college, I am required to participate in discussions all the time, instead of memorizing facts in history we learn about the time period and immerse ourselves in the time period through debates and propositions, in my science class we have daily problems to solve and at lecture the professor picks on students to demonstrate answers and students are required to critique it, and in my English class we have assignments that are purposeful and require us to discuss. While there is literature we have to read, we don't write essays but instead we are required to answer construct responses and talk about it in class and we even have peer review sessions for students to give feed back on. Homework should be treated as an enrichment activity not something to prepare for a test. I think Providence doesn't enforce that really. Very few teachers at Providence treated homework as an enrichment activity. The years that I had purposeful hw in highschool and given instruction on how to approach an assignment actively by the teacher was the year where I could see academic improvement (usually sophomore/freshman year). I am actually doing far better in college than in hs.

Posted: October 10, 2018

Your child will receive no support at this school. I wish we had taken the comments about this school more to heart and decided to send our children elsewhere.

Posted: October 5, 2018

Overall it has been a surprisingly negative experience. I've also been shocked to find almost 100% of the parents I've spoken to who had children attend Providence have a very negative opinion of the school. Many would actively search out an alternative if doing it over.

Posted: October 5, 2018

Students at Providence High School are assigned considerably more homework than students at comparable local high schools. As a parent, I want my child to be challenged and prepared for college.
However, Providence is breaking down these students to the point they relish the "relief" of a college workload.

Posted: October 5, 2018

The good- Students are learning and able to perform well on AP exams.
The bad- Very few teachers seem to care about the students and treat it like us vs them instead of a partnership geared toward making the students successful.
Grading and workloads are much more challenging than comparable local schools. Too many teachers like to hand out very low grades at the beginning of the semester, forcing the students to dig themselves out of a hole from the start.

Posted: October 5, 2018

There are great clubs such as Key Club that instill character in students.
Unfortunately, the administration treats students more like prisoners. For example, beginning 15 minutes prior to the start of school, if a student is seen using their phone IN THEIR CAR, the phone is confiscated. This includes texting, talking, or reviewing academic material. To make it worse, they
proactively patrol the parking lot looking for offenders.

Posted: October 5, 2018

Culture flows down from the top, and the culture here is one of over-stressed, depressed students.
Leadership is rightfully proud of the scores obtained by Providence students, but unfortunately, to the detriment of students' mental and emotional health.
Current research on effective teaching and student development seem to be ignored in favor of a "we've done it this way for a long time, and look how great our scores are" philosophy.

Posted: March 22, 2018

If necessary, a student with a learning disability will receive the accommodations that student requires (this is a CMS rule and applies to all public schools in the area).

Posted: March 22, 2018

In order to save the reputation of the school, instead of helping people in need, the school tries to cover everything up and pretend that nothing happens (this is purely my observation as I myself am not bullied but do see a lot- I repeat, a lot- of bullying around campus).

Posted: March 22, 2018

Just walking around school gives you an incredibly negative vibe, this is due to the fact that most of everyone utterly hates the school they are attending. There have been all too many issues regarding secrecy/cover-up (around the administration) and stuff like suicide and self-harm at this school.

Posted: March 22, 2018

Instead of helping you succeed, the teachers are obstacles to your success you must learn to overcome. The few that do overcome those obstacles end up with an A, most of the rest fails.

Posted: March 22, 2018

All a student learns from this school is building a resistance to a lack of sleep. There is so much useless work that one must complete every night resulting in a troubling lack of sleep.

Posted: March 22, 2018

The councilors are incredible unavailable and unreliable.

Posted: March 22, 2018

They give you pure busy-work, so much so that if one fails it's usually not because the material is so difficult but because they had -3 hours of sleep (3 hours of homework left after 0 hours of sleep) :/. This causes a lot of stress and negativity around school, resulting in multiple suicides/attempts.