APS Neighborhood HS - Teachers know all students

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers don't form close relationships with students who are not proactive about reaching out and who don't participate in class. I have twins who generally have the same teachers, my more talkative twin has stronger teacher relationships and may get better college recs as a result. To ensure strong relationships for quiet kids, I think you really need to pay $$$ for private school. I tried to convince my quiet twin to consider private but he was not interested. I view learning to navigate a large high school as good training for college and life in general.

This is very true. A kid who can hack it at a big public is going to have a lot of good life skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers don't form close relationships with students who are not proactive about reaching out and who don't participate in class. I have twins who generally have the same teachers, my more talkative twin has stronger teacher relationships and may get better college recs as a result. To ensure strong relationships for quiet kids, I think you really need to pay $$$ for private school. I tried to convince my quiet twin to consider private but he was not interested. I view learning to navigate a large high school as good training for college and life in general.

This is very true. A kid who can hack it at a big public is going to have a lot of good life skills.

Thats great. But what is best path for kid who is going to be quiet, lost in shuffle, and kind of drift through high school.

Its not like the big public will help prepare them for college in that scenario.

I think they would be better served with a school that encourages them to meet out to teachers, to have that interaction often, so one on one or such so that it seems less daunting.

[Anonymous]

OP here. So the school within a school thing is only for freshman year. In handbook it’s documented as Small Learning Community

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Learning_Community

The 9th Grade "Small Learning Community" (SLC)
W-L specifically targets the transition to high school by organizing 9th graders into Small Learning Communities.
• How it works: Freshmen are grouped into cohorts where they share a core set of teachers (English, Science, and Social Studies).
• The Goal: This allows teachers to collaborate more effectively on a specific group of students, ensuring no one falls through the cracks during the critical first year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. So the school within a school thing is only for freshman year. In handbook it’s documented as Small Learning Community

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Learning_Community

The 9th Grade "Small Learning Community" (SLC)
W-L specifically targets the transition to high school by organizing 9th graders into Small Learning Communities.
• How it works: Freshmen are grouped into cohorts where they share a core set of teachers (English, Science, and Social Studies).
• The Goal: This allows teachers to collaborate more effectively on a specific group of students, ensuring no one falls through the cracks during the critical first year.

They do this at Swanson (or have in some years...not sure anymore) and it's a total nothing. It might be more effective at WL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. So the school within a school thing is only for freshman year. In handbook it’s documented as Small Learning Community

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Learning_Community

The 9th Grade "Small Learning Community" (SLC)
W-L specifically targets the transition to high school by organizing 9th graders into Small Learning Communities.
• How it works: Freshmen are grouped into cohorts where they share a core set of teachers (English, Science, and Social Studies).
• The Goal: This allows teachers to collaborate more effectively on a specific group of students, ensuring no one falls through the cracks during the critical first year.

They do this at Swanson (or have in some years...not sure anymore) and it's a total nothing. It might be more effective at WL.

They also have the mentorship program where upperclassmen are paired with freshmen and new transfer students to help with the transition to high school. Note sure about Wakefield, but this has been a thing at W-L and Yorktown for many decades now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. So the school within a school thing is only for freshman year. In handbook it’s documented as Small Learning Community

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Learning_Community

The 9th Grade "Small Learning Community" (SLC)
W-L specifically targets the transition to high school by organizing 9th graders into Small Learning Communities.
• How it works: Freshmen are grouped into cohorts where they share a core set of teachers (English, Science, and Social Studies).
• The Goal: This allows teachers to collaborate more effectively on a specific group of students, ensuring no one falls through the cracks during the critical first year.

They do this at Swanson (or have in some years...not sure anymore) and it's a total nothing. It might be more effective at WL.

They also have the mentorship program where upperclassmen are paired with freshmen and new transfer students to help with the transition to high school. Note sure about Wakefield, but this has been a thing at W-L and Yorktown for many decades now.

Huh. I think my Yorktown student was paired with no one ever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. So the school within a school thing is only for freshman year. In handbook it’s documented as Small Learning Community

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Learning_Community

The 9th Grade "Small Learning Community" (SLC)
W-L specifically targets the transition to high school by organizing 9th graders into Small Learning Communities.
• How it works: Freshmen are grouped into cohorts where they share a core set of teachers (English, Science, and Social Studies).
• The Goal: This allows teachers to collaborate more effectively on a specific group of students, ensuring no one falls through the cracks during the critical first year.

They do this at Swanson (or have in some years...not sure anymore) and it's a total nothing. It might be more effective at WL.

They also have the mentorship program where upperclassmen are paired with freshmen and new transfer students to help with the transition to high school. Note sure about Wakefield, but this has been a thing at W-L and Yorktown for many decades now.

Huh. I think my Yorktown student was paired with no one ever.

At W-L it's called the Connect Mentoring Program and it is wildly popular with students. It really helps with adjusting to a large school and the higher expectations of challenging high school courses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. So the school within a school thing is only for freshman year. In handbook it’s documented as Small Learning Community

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Learning_Community

The 9th Grade "Small Learning Community" (SLC)
W-L specifically targets the transition to high school by organizing 9th graders into Small Learning Communities.
• How it works: Freshmen are grouped into cohorts where they share a core set of teachers (English, Science, and Social Studies).
• The Goal: This allows teachers to collaborate more effectively on a specific group of students, ensuring no one falls through the cracks during the critical first year.

They do this at Swanson (or have in some years...not sure anymore) and it's a total nothing. It might be more effective at WL.

They also have the mentorship program where upperclassmen are paired with freshmen and new transfer students to help with the transition to high school. Note sure about Wakefield, but this has been a thing at W-L and Yorktown for many decades now.

Huh. I think my Yorktown student was paired with no one ever.

At W-L it's called the Connect Mentoring Program and it is wildly popular with students. It really helps with adjusting to a large school and the higher expectations of challenging high school courses.

Yorktown has The Bridge Mentoring Program which pairs the most accomplished student-scholars with younger students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. So the school within a school thing is only for freshman year. In handbook it’s documented as Small Learning Community

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Learning_Community

The 9th Grade "Small Learning Community" (SLC)
W-L specifically targets the transition to high school by organizing 9th graders into Small Learning Communities.
• How it works: Freshmen are grouped into cohorts where they share a core set of teachers (English, Science, and Social Studies).
• The Goal: This allows teachers to collaborate more effectively on a specific group of students, ensuring no one falls through the cracks during the critical first year.

They do this at Swanson (or have in some years...not sure anymore) and it's a total nothing. It might be more effective at WL.

They also have the mentorship program where upperclassmen are paired with freshmen and new transfer students to help with the transition to high school. Note sure about Wakefield, but this has been a thing at W-L and Yorktown for many decades now.

Huh. I think my Yorktown student was paired with no one ever.

At W-L it's called the Connect Mentoring Program and it is wildly popular with students. It really helps with adjusting to a large school and the higher expectations of challenging high school courses.

Do the freshman have to sign up? Because my DD who will avoid asking questions with teachers is definitely not going to sign up to be the Little Sister (tm) of a Junior… Is it not compulsory and automatically assigned?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers don't form close relationships with students who are not proactive about reaching out and who don't participate in class. I have twins who generally have the same teachers, my more talkative twin has stronger teacher relationships and may get better college recs as a result. To ensure strong relationships for quiet kids, I think you really need to pay $$$ for private school. I tried to convince my quiet twin to consider private but he was not interested. I view learning to navigate a large high school as good training for college and life in general.

This is very true. A kid who can hack it at a big public is going to have a lot of good life skills.

Thats great. But what is best path for kid who is going to be quiet, lost in shuffle, and kind of drift through high school.

Its not like the big public will help prepare them for college in that scenario.

I think they would be better served with a school that encourages them to meet out to teachers, to have that interaction often, so one on one or such so that it seems less daunting.

The best path is to push that kid to get out of their comfort zone and be more proactive. It is possible that a small environment will help build those skills but it is also possible that a kid will get used to a small, comfy environment and then struggle to adapt to college and working life.

[Anonymous]

I would definitely look into private school for a child with that vibe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers don't form close relationships with students who are not proactive about reaching out and who don't participate in class. I have twins who generally have the same teachers, my more talkative twin has stronger teacher relationships and may get better college recs as a result. To ensure strong relationships for quiet kids, I think you really need to pay $$$ for private school. I tried to convince my quiet twin to consider private but he was not interested. I view learning to navigate a large high school as good training for college and life in general.

This is very true. A kid who can hack it at a big public is going to have a lot of good life skills.

Thats great. But what is best path for kid who is going to be quiet, lost in shuffle, and kind of drift through high school.

Its not like the big public will help prepare them for college in that scenario.

I think they would be better served with a school that encourages them to meet out to teachers, to have that interaction often, so one on one or such so that it seems less daunting.

The best path is to push that kid to get out of their comfort zone and be more proactive. It is possible that a small environment will help build those skills but it is also possible that a kid will get used to a small, comfy environment and then struggle to adapt to college and working life.

These are high schoolers. There is no pushing them to do something at school, parents are pretty out of the picture. Its between teacher and student. I wish the teachers had the bandwidth to reach out to the quiet students.

[Anonymous]

Wakefield parent here: teachers know my kid. Kid seems to have had overlap with a group of learners. The Spanish immersion kids also are grouped together. Kid is introverted, shy to engage adults but it is working. We are very happy with the school, teachers and how our kid is learning. We also worried it would feel too large and kid would be lost in the crowd. It isn't the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wakefield parent here: teachers know my kid. Kid seems to have had overlap with a group of learners. The Spanish immersion kids also are grouped together. Kid is introverted, shy to engage adults but it is working. We are very happy with the school, teachers and how our kid is learning. We also worried it would feel too large and kid would be lost in the crowd. It isn't the case.

Wakefield will feel smaller because there is some natural cohorting, about 50% of kids take AP, vs 90% at WL, so if you are one of the college bound graduates you will likely stand out more and see the same people more often. Same thing happens at ACHS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:or try HB or AT.

+1