I attend a Catholic high school, and I will be a senior next year. My school is not currently meeting my academic needs. There are a lot of courses that I want to take that my school doesn’t offer. For instance, I want to take AP Statistics, Psychology, and Music Theory, but my school doesn’t have them. I have permission to take them online (I did that with AP Environmental Science this year) but that would literally make up half my schedule, and it doesn’t seem worth it to pay the tuition when I’m not even taking a lot of classes there. The quality of the classes I would be taking there is not very great. For example, I love English, but my teacher doesn’t teach anything; he just insults us in class and gives us tests on material that we don’t even remotely cover, and he doesn’t even grade them. He just gives whatever grade he wants. The school reveres him, however, which makes me question what they consider to be a good education. I’ve been begging my parents to let me switch schools, but they really don’t want me to. Ideally, I’d like to take my classes online, where I have more flexibility and a wider variety of classes to choose from, but they don’t want me isolated from people. I have social anxiety and depression (which has been aggravated from all my years at this school), and I agree that isolation wouldn’t help me get better. But no matter how much I tell them that I would participate in community activities (I already take dance classes outside of school), they don’t believe me, they think I’ll just become a hermit. I don’t mesh well with the people in my school, which has caused me a lot of pain for the past few years, but I’ve gotten a little better and I honestly think that I could find ways to handle them. I think I’d be okay going back there if the academics weren’t so lousy. They also don’t want to lose our guidance counselor as I apply for colleges this year, although there are guidance counselors at other schools. My parents don’t believe me when I say that I’m receiving a bad education; they just tell me that I have to learn how to handle my problems, not “run away,” and “you can choose your college.” But I feel like my education is severely hindered by the limited course offerings and low-quality education at my current school, and it has taken away my enthusiasm for learning. I’m a straight-A student who generally loves to learn, but this school is zapping my motivation. I honestly feel sick when I think about going there next year. How can I end this battle and finally convince my parents to let me change schools?
Changing schools is only one solution…
Your underlying problem is that you don’t think you are getting sufficient education.
Can you take dual enrollment courses?
Can you talk to your guidance counselor about other courses that there are?
Can you switch teachers?
There are multiple approaches:
You can ask you parents if they can at least take a tour of another school/your desired school and meet with the counselor there and at least talk about options.
Another approach is to maybe sit your parents down and try to talk to them again and look 104% serious about this decision: have papers, t-charts, whatever (side by side curriculum guide comparison, maybe? or your projected senior year at that school [point out the number of online classes…] and then one at a different school – just ideas). You can supplement to your arguments by having required/recommended courses from top colleges or, even better, colleges that your parents would love for you to go to. If you can’t sit them down at home and have a conventional sort of talk then try bringing the topic up during a car ride.
If your counselor at your current school is a good counselor and they can see that you need more growth or they see that you can go bigger than that school then try getting their input and see if your counselor can talk to your parents or email them.
Try thinking of this like an argumentative essay - have your thesis/purpose (I want to change my high school) and then have paragraphs/points brought the table, anchoring your point of view. Bring evidence to the table and add more supporting arguments to back up your main points.
Regardless of what happens, I hope that your last year in high school turns out the best it can be 