Enlightening Parent Night at Local H.S.

My son is in the 8th grade at a rigorous k-9 charter school. (I posted about our high school expansion quest here.) Next year all 9th grade students in the district are shifting from jr. high to the high schools. We want him to stay at the charter school for 9th grade. My son, of course, wants to move to a district school, so we're checking them out.

My husband and I left our neighborhood high school (Rocky Mt.) info night for 8th graders & parents in disbelief. In one hour of presentation by the principal, 4 vice principals and several counselors (not all 7 were in attendance), almost no time was devoted to academics. Here's the gist of that 2 minutes and 27 seconds:

"We have a lot of AP classes."

This is the actual list of concerns of the school represented on a powerpoint slide, my thoughts in parentheses:

• Safety (how will the parking lot work, traffic, what is an open campus)
• Student differentiation (There's a club for everyone)
• Capacity (We aren't a school of choice because we're over capacity and we aren't adding buildings because they are too expensive)
• School choice (You can't opt in at this school, see above)
• The Lobo Way (Not too sure on this one, they expect the kids to behave?)

The principal went on to state that the school had 3 specific goals:

1. Meet AYP

2. Prepare children for transitions: from 8th to high school & from high school to post-secondary school

3. He didn't give a third, but mentioned prepping kids for post-secondary education again, then said those were the school's 3 goals.

The bulk of the hour discussed:

• lunches (6 stations next year)
• beakfasts offered (They set a record for milk consumption last year!)
• clubs (If kids aren't involved, they aren't successful students)
• busses
• the school's internet powerschool-type program
• traffic patterns (9th grade gets dropped off with the handicapped kids)
• how the Spanish teacher had students learning videography by performing and recording a cooking show (in Spanish)
• assemblies (We're taking students to the local jr. highs and shooting off t-shirts to get them excited for next year!)
• Lobo 101 (mandatory "how to study & how to use their media center" class)
• late start one day a week for staff meetings (Bummer - it moves from Monday to Wednesday next year.)
• did I mention clubs?

I know what you're thinking..."How did they fit all this content into 1 hour?"

SO... we went up to 2 of the vice principals at the end and asked specifically 2 questions: "What differentiates you from the other district high schools?" and "What about the academics?"

Their answer to the first: "Well, we have block scheduling, Collins (Fort Collins HS) has a traditional schedule and Poudre has a mix of schedules."

Their answer to the second after we clarified that we were interested in math and science: "We're the only HS to offer Calculus 3 in the district, so you'd be well served here." (I didn't ask what textbook they were using or what the teacher's qualifications were.) At this point one of the principals fled the auditorium. (This is not an exaggeration.)

In all fairness, half the auditorium had students already in attendance at the school and were probably more interested in traffic, late start and lunches than we were. The night was advertised as "for all parents & students of incoming 9th graders" and the principal did acknowledge that many of us might be new to the school.

On the way home, I thought my husband and I did a great job keeping our bias to ourselves and asked #1 son what he thought of the school.

He liked the block schedule and the late start.

I'm going back today and re-reading all posts on KTMII tagged "high school". I have a lot of research to do before choice applications are due.

Next week my husband will be handling Poudre & Fort Collins H.S.

I'll be at the Core Knowledge conference - stop by & say "hi".