<p>Just pondering the fact that the dance, cheer and band display cases (with trophies and pictures) are right by the front door of our HS while the sports display cases are back by the gyms. </p>
<p>At our HS, every group that wants one has a banquet at the end of their season…it’s a sit down dinner where everyone dresses up, most parents attend, sometimes they bring dates, and they give out awards. The banquets are put on by the parent-run booster club for the group. When I first heard about it I thought the whole thing was sort of silly, but I’ve come to think it’s a great tradition. (Oh, also, the school administration sends one person [principal or assistant principal] to each banquet.)</p>
<p>One more thing - even if your school administration is not particularly supportive of all activites equally, individual teachers can make a big impact. The theatre teacher always seems to cast one or two popular football players in the musical…the result: the whole football team comes to see the musical. Teachers sponsoring activites can choose to be flexible in their rehearsal/practice schedule to enable kids in multiple activities to participate.</p>
<p>Owlice - Couldn’t agree more. And our administrators, teachers and their families go to whatever is appropriate for the age group (time of day, venue etc). My son made a point to always go to the plays (but I will admit it also was a way to take his GF to the theater and have a “cheap” date since tickets were always about $5). It’s funny that you should mention some cup or other as our school wins quite a bit. However, we have to credit our debaters as much as our swimmers because they typically bring in as many points. The other day there was no mention of the athletes at the parent association meeting, but there were many kudos for the two kids that placed separately in the national competitions for history day projects. I guess we were lucky in that regard, but my older D went to a very large HS and although there was a lot of support for all the different ventures of the kids, I will agree that there were some athletes who got a pass on a lot of behavioral crap that always ticked me off. And is just one more reason why we didn’t stick around.</p>
<p>I think when you have a small school you have to have a lot of student involvement and support across the board and I really appreciate that our school has made a real effort to pay tribute to all the kids who contribute to the spirit and life of the school. Of course we don’t even have cheerleaders so we NEED the student body to show up to sporting events. I can understand how different kids take different experiences with them to college depending on what happened in HS, but at the same time it would be nice to try and not take the negative baggage with you.</p>
<p>Last night there was a double header soccer game (boys and girls game). It was such a beautiful night and there were a ton of “graduated” parents who came to the games. It was fun to get caught up on how everyone was doing and to reconnect and get to see the younger kids (who are not the younger anymore) step up to fill the roles of those who graduated.</p>
<p>Like RochesterMom our local HS works hard to celebrate the achievements of all. The Speech and Debate Teams are recognized Nationally and the school has a huge wall of Distinction for them with pictures. There is another wall with pictures of the Nationally ranked broadcasting department. The athletes get to have their banners in the gym. The theater people have a wall by the box office at the front of the school. All trophies and plaques are displayed together in the same display cases whether they are athletic, academic or fine arts. Letters can be won in band, choir, speech, debate, academics, sports, theater, service organizations and I’m sure other areas that I can’t think of and letter jackets are worn by just about everyone. We even have Emmy’s from broadcasting. My Ds are just as proud of their All-State Editor, All-State Journalist, AP awards as they are of their State Sports Championships and All-State sports awards and they were honored by the administration and cheered on by the student body at award assemblies for each. It is the administration who sets the climate of acceptance not the students. We chose a school district that was known for strong academics and that offered opportunities to pursue multiple interests. We became involved with athletics because D1 was diagnosed with a lifelong chronic illness at the age of five. We chose to have her play sports and keep moving instead of spending years in physical therapy. It angers and saddens me when uneducated people judge others for participating in sports or other activities. I am sorry so many have resentment and bitterness that administrators didn’t support their child’s school activities. My kids didn’t go in to sports for recognition or because they were physically superior. Actually they each have battled physical problems and suffered from health problems. But it was the battle that made them who they are…strong, focused scholar athletes. Academics is their first priority and they are proud to carry over the lessons they learned from athletics…determination, time management, goal setting, leadership, perseverence, etc. If you don’t like how the administration runs the school or treats the students work to change it! Carrying around resentment and bitterness won’t help anyone. As the saying says, “Just Do IT!!!”.</p>
<p>Right before school starts we have a huge pep rally for the fall sports…every single person participating walks across the gym floor and is individually introduced…every cheerleader, every drill team member, the members of all 5 football teams, volleyball, mascots, cross country, etc…Only the first time we went, nothing was said about the band…there they were, playing music, and not even the drum major was introduced. I was irritated by that and I’m not even a band parent. </p>
<p>The next year I sent an email and copied everyone I could think of…they’ve never chosen to introduce the *entire *band, but since then, the drum majors and the seniors have always been introduced. </p>
<p>Because I am a taxpayer who sends her kids to public schools, I have sort of a “consumer” attitude. I try not to be a huge pain in the rear, but if I don’t like something I don’t suffer in silence.</p>
<p>Of course, for all I know, it could have been the *band director *who didn’t bother to turn in a list of names to be read, but at least things changed.</p>
<p>Rochestermom, Modadunn, and NorthMinnesota, I’m just making comments that I understand when people complain that their schools don’t celebrate non-sports activities like they do the sports. I’m not afire to change things. My son has moved on. I pick my battles, and this isn’t one of them. </p>
<p>In many ways my son’s high school was wonderful, and he was picked for special awards and distinctions. Also, let’s note that my son couldn’t have cared less about the accolades within the school. He did these things for himself. My beef is actually more with the local newspaper, actually, for its inaccurate coverage of debate in previous years. </p>
<p>My son got (ridiculously) huge trophies for winning at the district and region level in debate. There was some discussion about whether or not those trophies should remain at the school, but his coach said why bother adding them to the tops of the dusty bookshelves in the library with the rest of the trophies for all sorts of things dating back 40+ years? So my son has them all. They were individual trophies, anyway. Interestingly, the state championship trophies were smaller than both the district and region ones. There was never any question that he was never going to give those to the school, since they meant the most.</p>
<p>We’re always happy to get stuff in the local paper but don’t have great expectations as to accuracy. The last article about HS theatre had our HS performing its shows in another HS’s auditorium. Most local papers now have tiny budgets and staffs. They’d probably appreciate a few volunteer reporters to cover/fact check school items.</p>
<p>Only way we get stuff in the local paper is to have someone (usually coach/advisor) submit the article. They then gladly print it. Typically that does make it correct!!</p>
<p>NM, it sounds like she’s really adjusting well. I had a quick chat with D this morning on “g-chat” - today she has a Calculus review session, a Chemistry exam, French, a Physics review session, a Calculus exam at 7 p.m., an event for a group she is involved with at 9, then study more for a Physics exam tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. The rest of the week doesn’t look much better! College is definitely for the young.</p>
<p>Not to change the subject (I’m not going anywhere near the sports debate), but is anybody else’s student taking exams this week? S2 made a careless error on his calculus exam he thinks cost him 10-points (no grade back yet), saying “I’m mainly disappointed in the miscommunication between my brain and my hand.” He has always been prone to those types of mistakes but this is the first time I’ve heard him take ownership of it in a semi-constructive way. He thinks he did well otherwise. </p>
<p>He was definitely impressed with the rigor of the tests, which went well beyond the material covered in class. So even though he is at a school with a poor academic reputation, he is finding his classes to be plenty challenging. He is struggling, however, with the level of motivation of fellow students. Because a lot of group projects are assigned (has his third this week-end), that directly affects him. His brother says those kids will all quickly wash out, so not to worry but he was at a pretty different school in terms of reputation so I’m not quite so sure.</p>
<p>Ah, nice to hear some college talk…I was assuming that none of us had heard from our college students, so we had to revert to talking about high school.</p>
<p>I think classes started August 25th for D so she is just starting her fourth week? She has 18 credits this term so will be busy. Only class that has her very nervous is Physics but it’s a hurdle every engineering major must cross. She has always put so much pressure on herself to do really, really well. Sometimes a B or “gasp” a C is perfectly okay. They have plenty of graded homework/quizzes/exams you name it to check progress but real exams aren’t until early October, I don’t think. Our mantra is “just do the best you can”. </p>
<p>I hear from D pretty regularly but the communication is definitely tapering off, which is a good thing, I think. At the end of two weeks I went over to deliver some items and we had breakfast out and a nice visit. Much less of the “I’m lonely” contact and much more of the “You won’t believe what I’m doing now!” contact.</p>
<p>Have not heard word one about classes since the first week for all practicality. It was “I love my classes.” Now… with tests probably on the horizon, it will be interesting to see what he has to say. I texted him last night about whether he had gotten some things in the mail and he was on his way to his Calc’s professors office hours at around 5:30. Later hours for a prof in my opinion, but it is probably close to 100% residential campus, so… probably helpful to most students.</p>
<p>According to the school’s professor rating thing, she is a very nice professor but not exactly known for her ability to multi-explain. Fortunately son has always been pretty good about “teaching himself” math, but if he is going to her for help, we’ll see how well she did (if he even tells me OR I remember to ask!).</p>
<p>A mom last night, whose son goes to Stanford, told me that during freshman orientation they told the kids, you are all top of your class, but this is a new class and some of you, by mathematical certainty, won’t be that any longer. “Don’t sweat it and just do your best” was pretty much the advice.</p>
lol!</p>