O Henry Middle

This is my third year at this school, and the thing about educating the whole child is BALONEY! SEL is rarely taught in class, and when we do it, nobody even CARES. It's a 30 minute show that nobody would tune in to.

This school in no way cares about STEM. They put the Tech-ed class and The Animation class in an old Storage room with the ceiling gone and just tubing and ducts. Half the time, we just play games in that class. We have something called ACES, which is somewhat like homeroom, and we get to go to an "Enrichment" class, where you get to learn gardening or something like that. However, most of the choices are horrible, and they screw up your choices half the time. If you put one on your top-ten just to do it because you don't see anything else interesting, and you get it, you can't switch out of the Enrichment, and you get a grade for participation. Why should I get a bad grade for the SCHOOL not having adequate choices that I'm sorry, I don't CARE ABOUT! The ACES/Enrichment counts as a class, and teachers have to have 2 periods off, so they only have 5 main classes, which makes our class size hover around 25, from my experience in going to this school for 3 years.

I don't know HOW this school gets good test scores, because I don't learn squat in my core-classes. In history, we were learning how to find relative location by dragging our finger along a map. Then, we spent 20 minutes learning NORTH, EAST, SOUTH, and WEST using the acronym, "Never, ever, smoke weed," which I found funny, but I learned this baloney in KINDERGARTEN, no joke. I keep track of how many days I've spent in school, and how many times I've learned something, which includes fun field trips or science experiments. As of today, I've been through 37 days of school (I'm already having depression) and I've only learned 13 things. That's about 1 in 3 days. ABYSMAL!

The administrators don't even are about whether someone is being bullied. They only care about the PUNISHMENT. They make up stupid things to get us in trouble like, "You threw a biscuit at that kid." Actually, I was tossing a football at him and he knew it was coming and CAUGHT it. Who throws biscuits at people.

There is only one good thing about this school and that has to be its fine arts program. I am in band, and we got all 1s last year at UIL (best possible score). The two directors know their music, and know what makes a band great. I am not in Orchestra, but I have heard that they do well.

Substitute teachers actually hate our school so much that they don't come back. The choir teacher has to sub during 4th period because we don't have enough subs to fill in for our teachers who DO get sick.

In conclusion, this school is not the best place to go to unless you are a big fan of music. I think he only reason that this school's test scores are high is because the elementary schools that feed into them are better suited for learning, and because the school is in a neighborhood filled with rich people, and rich kids usually do better than impoverished kids. Thank you for taking my opinion into account, as someone who goes to this school, and has experienced the pros and cons of it for 3 years.

Great school without needing to be a "magnet". Focuses on the whole child with offerings in the arts to athletics. A Schools to Watch school recipient. Outstanding administration, staff and faculty.