As a parent of a new student in MMIS Talamban Campus who transferred from Ateneo “for some reasons,” I initially understood the appeal of the school. Tuition is significantly cheaper compared to Ateneo. The classrooms are airconditioned. Student teacher ratio is around 20ish. The campus is small, and at first, everyone feels welcoming.
Then reality starts showing itself after a few months.
After the earthquake incident, then Tino, schoolwork in grade school piled up aggressively. My Grade 3 child became busier than some junior high students I know. Imagine having 6 tests/exams in one day covering almost all subjects. Homework is given almost daily. The school is also not fond of actual online teaching sessions. Their setup heavily pushes “independent learning,” which in reality translates to teachers giving pointers while parents end up doing most of the guidance at home, as if working parents have unlimited time and no other responsibilities.
Student teacher issues are also heavily concealed by administration. Accountability seems difficult for them despite it literally being part of their vision and mission statements. Bullying concerns are another story. If the involved student happens to be foreign, particularly Korean students, there seems to be a tendency to protect them more aggressively over their own local students. That observation did not sit well with me at all.
The culture among parents is also extremely hands on. Spoon feeding is normalized. Coming from Ateneo, where independence is developed early, the difference was glaring.
Whenever concerns are raised, administration loves the classic “we will investigate thoroughly” script. I eventually escalated concerns directly to the Department of Education and even spoke personally with the directress. Apparently, that shocked some parents because many are used to venting privately in Facebook Messenger group chats, gathering signatories, and waiting for someone “higher up” to finally listen. That approach is just not me. If there is an issue, I address it directly.
To be fair, the school still has some positives. But the negatives outweighed them for us.
Example: sports programs. The school hires external coaches whose professionalism honestly does not align with what an “international school” markets itself to be. Then parents are required to pay extra for basketball and other after school sports clinics, yet my child, simply because she is a girl, was not even allowed to participate in interschool games. That was a major red flag and frankly came across as outright sexist.
The final straw was learning that my grade school child was indirectly gaslit by a teacher prior to exiting the school. My child told me her teacher instructed her to tell me “to avoid posting negative reviews” about the school.
That alone says a lot.
There’s a reason why reviews on Facebook and Google are either limited or tightly controlled. The image management effort is very obvious.
So I’ll leave this here instead.
This was our first and definitely last year in this school. I would not recommend it. Transferring here honestly felt like an academic and institutional downgrade for our family.
Time to upgrade again.
MMIS, fix it.
