13 Sierra Trace
Ballston Lake, NY 12019

I have 2 children in K and 3, and have been a Chango Parent for 3 years. Simply put, Chango is a happy place. Students are cheerful, polite and secure, parents are (for the most part) very satisfied and involved, the PTA is active and enriches the school experience. Teachers, administrators and staff are professional and range from very competent to excellent. We have had teachers in 4 grades ranging from brand new to mid-career to decades of experience and have not had a bad experience yet. The school is academically rigorous and prepares kids very well for the state tests. Chango has a well-deserved reputation of being one of the best of the 8 Shen K-5 schools. As far as public schools go, I cannot imagine a better one. It is worth noting also that Chango (and Otke) are "off campus" in Shen district, meaning they are not part of the giant district complex (4 K-5schools, 3 Middle, 2 High) at exit 9. They have a late start too - 9am. I never have to wake my kids up for the 8:30 bus. The Y runs an early am dropoff program at Chango if parents need an earlier start (7:30am on). One negative: they need to hire their own art teacher, not 4 "fill in" ones from other schools.

When you see National School of Excellence on the sign outside of the school you set high expectations for me as a parent. My two daughters have gone to Gowana and this school has lived up to my expectations. The addition of notebooks, tablets and chrome books shows that they really are trying to take education into the 21 century. Most all of the teachers use the parent portal to post grades, assignments and use e-mai to communicate. As a busy family it really helps keep us a parents engaged and on top of our students work before problems can arise. I am very glad I bought my home in this school district as it is large enough to have all of the bells and whistles but small enough for us to feel like we have a community. I look forward to my son attending Gowana in the future.

This school is terrible today my friends smelled paint thinner which is known to cause cancer the last few days they smelt smoke and bad smells having to cover their nose the school is not whatsoever worried about the safety of students there was a student who brought in a BB gun the few months ago someone brought in brass knuckles and another nunchucks the school could’ve bought a metal detector for the front door but instead they used all the money on weight lifting and gym equipment all they care about is sports,money and themselves not ever the students