Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
We've found that the social acceptance of a kid often varies more from class to class at a particular school than with the school itself. Teachers and administrators know this early on, and will identify their "edgier" classes as they move through the system/district. For instance, I've heard a middle school administrator say "yeah, we've known about the boys in this 7th grade class since they were in 2nd or 3rd grade. They've more than lived up to their (bad) reputation. And this year's fifth grade girls have also been labeled as a real mean bunch as well, so I'm really not looking forward to getting them next year."
Bottom line is that in the public system, your mileage may vary from class to class, and not necessarily from school to school. Some of the local private schools do seem to have more of the established culture that you seem to be looking for.
We've found that the social acceptance of a kid often varies more from class to class at a particular school than with the school itself. Teachers and administrators know this early on, and will identify their "edgier" classes as they move through the system/district. For instance, I've heard a middle school administrator say "yeah, we've known about the boys in this 7th grade class since they were in 2nd or 3rd grade. They've more than lived up to their (bad) reputation. And this year's fifth grade girls have also been labeled as a real mean bunch as well, so I'm really not looking forward to getting them next year."
Ah, this is so true and always has been regardless of where you live.
Our boys' class in NY was terrible. And they've grown up to be a nasty, mean bunch. I saw that writing on the wall when they were in second grade. Not why we moved away, but a definite perk of having done so.
While this is not meant to be interpreted as a knock on one particular school, when the "pressure cooker" term has come up on this forum in the past regarding Wake County High Schools, the one mentioned most frequently would be Green Hope. This would have to do with both the high academic standards and the social climbing/latchkey demographic.
We have close family friends whose kids graduated Green Hope within the last 5 to 10 years and all three are incredibly well adjusted and successful as adults, but I suspect this speaks more to the way they were raised than to their High School experience. I also have an ex-coworker whose child took their own life shortly before graduating from Green Hope-my awareness of the circumstances surrounding that tragedy would lead me to believe that Green Hope may have a more pervasive drug culture (or at least it did at that time) than some of the other schools you mention.
I am sure that someone could chime in and dispute/refute what I have written here, but that is the challenge with answering your question. All of this is a moving target and it depends on so many variables that are out of any parent's control. You could move into a respected/coveted/well rated school zone and end up living next door to the kid who smokes weed daily just as easily as the valedectorian.
Our neighborhood is districted for Middle Creek HS. Our neighborhood has fairly low turnover and we know many kids that have gone thru MCHS successfully. Although we consider moving from time to time we have decided to stay put until my daughter (now at West Lake Middle) finishes high school. We want her to have stability and long term friends around her as she goes thru the rest of her public school experience. We try to keep her busy and involved with neighborhood kids whose parents we know and trust to be doing the same thing, and who plan to stay put as well. Building a safety net for her through church/girl scouts/neighborhood friends seems to be the best way for us to support her.
Middle school seems to be where the kids choose the path they are going to take. My boys went off to middle school....that's when you kind of lose track of the kids they aren't friends with. In elementary school, you're up at the school all the time, you see all the kids and they're all basically just little kids. They go to middle school and there's little opportunity to work in the schools so you don't see the kids. Then they went off to high school and I'm seeing hair raising things on their twitter accounts. These were nice kids just three short years before. Middle school is really hard on kids, and if they decide the best way to fit in is to do whatever it takes to appear cool, and you're not on it as a parent, you're going to have problems before Day 1 of high school.
One of my kids goes to private school. A kid he knew in a different grade got expelled at the end of the last year. The problems he had, did not start when he got to high school. But even more so in a private school, you have parents who are donors, or the school doesn't want to lost a family, or whatever, and they just look the other way. Think he'll outgrow it. And so on. And he ends up expelled before he can finish freshman year.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
