Saint Joseph School

My son attended St. Joseph school for several years while we were stationed at Fort Lee. I found the administration staff, some teachers, 1 priest and a lot of the parents to be extremely bigoted and racist. We understand that bigotry and racism are not looked at or understood to be bigotry or racist to those who’ve grown up and live in Petersburg and the surrounding areas. To an outsider however, that’s exactly what it is. But, we still made a conscious decision to keep our son in the school primarily because of our religion. On one occasion, I picked my son up from school and the pain on his face surprised me so, that I immediately asked him what was the matter before he got in the car. He told me he hurt his arm earlier that morning. I asked him if he had told his teachers and he told me yes. He said his teachers did not believe he was hurt. I looked at his arm and immediately took him to the hospital. He fractured his radius, ulna and humerus. He was in the 5th grade, surrounded by people who hated him and of course his life did not matter to them. The school never made any attempt to contact me. Everything pretty much went down hill from there. It was so bad, the school never printed his name correctly on any of his certificates or awards. His name is even incorrectly spelled on the sports banners in the gym. It was like he was never a student at the school. Although my son is a young man now, I do not recommend this school to minority parents. I did not see or hear about problems with non-minority students. So, if you are away from your home state, and your student is working on receiving their sacraments and you’re not a minority, this school may work for you.