Reply to My New Favorite Anger at APS: XXL WL

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Do you honestly think that APS will add 200 - 800 students to WL and not increase the staffing?

Believe it or not, the current population bubble is not particularly unique and your complaints aren't either.  When my oldest first went to WL the school was already over capacity by a couple hundred students.  When my second DC attended, significant reconfiguration of interior space took place to relieve the overcrowding.  That relief lasted about a hot second.  My current WL senior spent 3 years of ES and all of MS and HS in and out of trailer classrooms.   Yes, there is a definite difference between a 2200 and 3000 student HS - I grant you that and that 2200 is preferable to 3000.  But it wasn't that long ago that many in the community were up in arms about APS HSs increasing from 1800 to 2200 students and we all used the same litany of arguments: clubs too big to join, sports teams impossible to get a spot on, counselors who will not know our kids, etc.  I was adamant that my current WL senior would have to go to private school; her graduating class is more than a 100 students larger than her brother's class/  Guess what, aside from COVID complaints, it  has been more than fine.  There are more clubs than ever to join, the vast majority of sports teams, even varsity, are extremely easy to make even if your kid is not athletic (I know - my DC is on 3 of them), the marching band would be thrilled to have another 20-40 members, sorry I don't know about theatre, and more staff has been hired.

Yes, there is a big difference between 2200 and 3000 and I think APS should build a comprehensive 4th HS but in the end it's what you and your kid make of the experience.  Feel sorry for yourself and teach your kid to complain and they will have a miserable experience.

[/quote]

I have one who graduated last year and a current junior. Totally agree. I definitely can sympathize with OP, I thought WL seemed huge and impersonal and I was really worried about DS going there. He wouldn't consider a smaller school so we didn't do the lottery. Both my kids have ADHD. Neither did the IB program although they took a couple IB classes + some AP classes. I have consistently found the teachers and our counselor to be very responsive. Easy to schedule a conference when we had some issues. And, when my DD was really struggling with DL last year I was surprised that the school actually offered to do the full evaluation for her ADHD diagnosis. They both worked hard, learned a lot, made friends. DS didn't do much with ECs but that's really on him for not being a joiner. DD is happy in music and a couple clubs. Her biggest gripe about the switch to DL in freshman year was that she'd just started to make a bunch of new friends before it all shut down and so had to start fresh in 11th (she really only stayed connected to a small group of BFFs during DL) but this year has been good socially too.

The only thing I've found difficult is that the school has a large group of very high achieving kids and the kids put a lot of pressure on themselves to take very demanding class loads plus heavy EC involvement. This seemed to roll right off DS who is always happy to do his own thing but DD has found that hard to deal with and we've had a lot of conversations about focusing on your strengths, run your own race, etc.

I absolute agree the district has to figure out the 4th high school. But, this is where we are and if you have an 8th grader now any 4th HS solution is not going to be ready for your student. [/quote]

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