High School Happiness

I do not yet know where the Lone Star Girl will go to high school in the fall, but I have now been to orientation/informational meetings at all three of the schools that interest her and I am very pleased with all three programs.  Any one of them would be just thrilling.

Her first choice, if she can get in, which she has surprised me by choosing herself and yearning for, is Collegiate High School.  This is an early college high school on the campus of our local community college, which means that she could graduate with a free associate's degree and two years of free college credit.  Her interest in this school surprised me because she has, in the past,  generally been a kid who liked to squeak by on her very real brilliance, not one who wanted to work hard.  This school isn't looking for brilliant kids - it's looking for committed ones who want to work their butts off for college credit and, since starting eighth grade, she has suddenly wanted to do that for high school - very much.  She's serious about wanting to take these college classes, even though it would mean more work and fewer fun activities.  I'm pretty sure she would choose to skip high school all together and start college now if we could afford that, which we cannot, and this is the next best thing to her.  I am quite impressed with her maturing sense of purpose.  I know that if she gets in to this school, she will choose it, but the eligibility process rightly favors applicants who face more obstacles to getting a college education.  We certainly are not rich and could really use the two free years of college, but there may well be applicants who need it much more than she does.  It will depend on who applies, so we will see, as they do take kids from every middle school in the district.  It is a perfectly wonderful program and I would be thrilled for her to be able to follow her dream to be there.


The default choice and the one that is probably the most likely outcome, as she is leaning toward it as her second choice, is Ray High School.  This is our neighborhood school, right down the street, and I always sort of expected her to go to this school as there weren't all these specials academies that one could apply for when she was little.  I thought about this school when we moved to this neighborhood.  I have always liked it best of the five major high schools (there are other smaller ones like Collegiate) because it has the most diverse class mix in town, from poor to very rich, and I really value that mix.  There is more to love about it now, though.  In the past year or two, the public GT elementary school she attended and the middle school she is attending have been designated International Baccalaureate World Schools.  I am very in favor of the IB curriculum and have been thrilled with it.  The district also decided to extend the GT program, which has always before ended with middle school, through high school this year and has designated Ray High School as the school where the GT kids will go.  It is implementing an amazing IB program at Ray and it is very exciting.    Having all the GT kids at one school, however, is definitely going to mess with their class rankings (which one unfortunately does have to consider in terms of college admissions) so I had some questions.  The meeting there this week pretty much set my heart at rest.  Their IB academic classes will be weighted for class weight just the same as the AP classes are weighted.  The only possible weighting disadvantage is that the IB program requires fine arts and PE every year and those are not weighted - but, really, I think the benefit of that in reality far outweighs the math issues.  Also, many schools automatically accept kids who receive the prestigious IB Diplomate so I think it will all even out.  The program will have some kinks in the beginning, I am sure, but it is perfectly wonderful and I am thrilled with the idea.


The other choice is the Health Sciences Academy at Moody High School.  Moody is one of the five major high schools in town, but it is way across town.  Its prestigious Health Sciences Academy is celebrating its tenth birthday and in recent years it has started several other cool academy programs for engineering and other disciplines.  I never thought much about Moody because the Lone Star Girl's interests never really fit with the best of its academies...until this year.  This year, after doing her project on contraception and thinking back on some other things, like when her sister was born, she has developed a strong interest in becoming a nurse-midwife.  I really didn't see it coming, but she has latched on to the idea hard.  It seems to be part of all this new growth that has happened.  I have mixed feelings about it as I sort of think that people like her are needed to save the world in high-level policy and science positions, but...I also really do like the idea of her having skills as always-stable and practical as nursing.  Since she is now interested in this field, she is applying to Moody's Health Sciences Academy and we went to their orientation on Tuesday.  It was amazing.  I fell rather instantly in love.  They have managed to work the curriculum so she could take a rigorous curriculum of AP academic classes while still having room for fine arts and Spanish and getting the wonderful hands-on health sciences classes and experiences as well.  One student in her senior year even is placed in labor and delivery!  And she could earn an LVN while still in high school and have her RN within a year of graduating.  It sounds fantastic.


So....I would be totally happy with any one of those three schools for her.  It feels great to only have good possibilities!!!