My experience at St. Raphael has been a great one! The teachers are great, the activities are fun, and the specials like music and gym are also fun.

This is not a positive review. Keep in mind, Im speaking about my experience over 20 years ago, and things could have changed (I hope they have):The teachers were usually kind, but they were generally not highly qualified. They showed a lot of television shows and videos, and academics were poor. Sports were a main focus of students. I was grossly underprepared for high school, and I believe that factored into the employee turnover when I was in the upper/middle school (7th and 8th grade).One example: We had a math teacher leave mid-year, and the person who came into the position was not even certified to teach mathematics (she had a reading certificate). Although parents complained about her practices, nothing changed. I dropped from As in Algebra to a lower level math class since I started to fail. By todays standards, I would have been considered gifted in mathematics (I know this from reviewing my old Iowa Basics results). I always did the homework, received no feedback, and understood the concepts after I received test results (generally bad), but by then it didnt matter.A second example: Our reading teacher assigned more pages of grammar worksheets than literary reading. I was able to achieve high grades (often working with other students) when I could barely functionally read. This would be immediately caught and addressed with the Ohio testing system in public schools, today.While I would hope educational practices changed, it is worth pointing out that only one principal had to manage a K-8 building at the time; that would be the job of two to three people in a comparable public school. Last I heard, they had similar ratios.Finally, the religious education was subpar: I attended a Catholic High School following my years at St. Raphaels - there, I learned what I had not learned at St. Raphaels school/church/confirmation classes. I was shocked at how much we were not taught in eight years of religious classes - they were typically the content you would expect for elementary kids, and we never really discussed deeper theological matters. The main reason that his is disconcerting is that about 97% of our eighth grade class received their Confirmation. One student did not (who was, literally, chased around the room by a lady sprinkling holy water at him and yelling that he needed to get the devil out of him); needless to say, they pressured that student all year to comply. In hindsight, I should not have been Confirmed at the time since I truly did not understand what was being asked of me. it felt very much like a show.Please understand, this is not a commentary on the Catholic faith or the church - it is specifically an evaluation of the concepts we were taught in religious studies. I

Freshly remodeled catholic church. They have an excellent fish fry on Fridays through lent.

I love your school.