Just had to get this out for the rest of the world to see. Our town has 5 high schools. We use to have one city and two county high scools before consolidation of the city and county systems. As part of the Unitary Status federal court order about 6 years ago there were two more high schools added, only you got one new physical building. Jackson Cental Merry High School (JCM) started out as two segregated schools. The two were in the central part of town. One side the black school, the other white school were separated by only a street and a civic building. The two combined in the early 70's to be one school. As part of the Unitary Status lawsuit, JCM reverted to the former "black campus" and the former "white campus" became a magnet high school with emphasis put on academics. This is where my kid goes to school. Madison Academic High School started out with a limit of 100 per grade level, but has since upped each class by 25, so there should be around 500. When MAHS opened of course some of the teachers at JCM decided to work at MAHS. Students there have to keep a 3.0. If you fall below that you have the following semester the bring up your grade. If not, you are booted out and have to go to your zoned school. BTW... all students have to apply, but don't have to have any certain requirements to get in (just two teacher recommendations from middle school and a writing sample). JCM has complained that "Madison got all the good teachers", "Madison got the good building". JCM had to offer school choice this year because of graduation rates and of about 800-900 students, over 200 decided to opt out and go to another school. What's left at JCM is apparently mostly all black students (there were lots to begin with before the 200 left so it wasn't just white students who among the 200 who left). The local NAACP has said "they need a new building, that will fix the problems". Not considering the Madison building is actually older than the JCM side. Ok, that's your quick history lesson of the two, now what has sparked my attention is this: On the local newpaper's on-line forum, a JCM student has just posted that she is 7th in her senior class and has a GPA of 3.2. MY kid at Madison has a 3.3 and among about 100 in his class is ranked around the 50-60 mark. And don't go saying "well, all those are smart kids". Yeah, true. But my kid's girlfriend goes to the other "new" school and she as a GPA of 3.1 and is ranked 60 something. There's probably about 200-250 or so in her graduating class. What does it say about a school when the 7th ranked person has a 3.2?? Anyway, if interested the sites for both schools are: JCM http://www.jmcss.net/jcm/ MAHS http://www.jmcss.net/madison/ I encourage you to click on each site's "more information about" links. And from just what you see, what do you think about the two? Got any more questions about the two ask away and I'll try to answer them.
You kid should go to the other school. Valedictoria looks better on a college application than 3.3 any day of the week!
I disagree. A more competitive atmosphere will prepare people for college better than an easy 4.0 ever could. A lot of the kids here who are having trouble with the workload are the ones who took easy classes for a higher GPA, or who went to a school that didn't challenge them.
