<p>My youngest D attends a K-8 magnet school with ~400 students. The school board is planning on moving the program to a larger building and adding grades 9-12. The old building will be used for something else.</p>
<p>The committee that was set up is taking public input. Right now everything is vague and undefined. I realized CC parents have good experience with great high schools. </p>
<p>What kinds of kids do you have? Suburban? Urban?</p>
<p>Knowing nothing at all about this – I’d recommend the smallest classes possible, uniforms, and single sex wings of the school. (I’d actually recommend an all boys school, but I guess that wouldn’t help your daughter!)</p>
<p>My gosh, where to begin? To die for. Wish we had that opportunity here.</p>
<p>I strongly feel that abundant arts opportunities should be included, even if not the solitary or main focus. Esp. the performing arts, which get short shrift in site schools (including often & esp. in heavily academic prep-type schools). How specific do you want to get on curricula? because boy do I have a list of particular courses in the arts.</p>
<p>I also feel that technology courses should be <em>a</em> focus, and better if learned as applied technology (for example, digital arts). </p>
<p>Additionally, one thing that magnet schools can provide is a center for less available foreign language learning. For example, a classics dept., and/or merely an array of foreign languages. (A CC parent’s d went to a magnet school offering Russian; I’ve seen Italian occasionally offered at other magnet schools. Etc.)</p>
<p>Small classes have my vote. While we have magnet programs in some elementary schools our high school has taken the route of offering programs that you can do on top of a regular high school diploma. They started the performing and visual arts program quite a few years ago. Kids take an extra period before the school day and another art course during the day. They get a special designation on their diplomas. </p>
<p>I think you have to make some philosophical choices early on - do you want to have a theme and have kids with common interests or do you think diversity of interests is more important? For example - is it better if your history class is full of artsy kids, or science kids, or would you rather have a mix? </p>
<p>The thing I liked best about my high school? I know of at least three occasions where students were able to get teachers to teach courses that hadn’t previously been offered. (Medieval history, economics and British History). They were all great courses with extremely enthusiastic students. We also weren’t bound by AP curriculum ideas for any of them.</p>
<p>My point exactly, mathmom – regarding the unusual offerings. This is how & where a magnet school can provide something different & attractive. Many of the successful ongoing magnet schools have fewer AP’s than the “standard,” but many more interesting course offerings.</p>
<p>Unfortunately the magnet schools here are even under-performing the lousy schools they were meant to replace. They are all in urban and predominantly poor areas though. No quick fix I guess.</p>
<p>The charter school my S2 attended for middle school is adding high school starting next year. They plan to add a grade at the time. So next year there will only be 9th grade and then the next year 10th will be added, etc.<br>
The middle school has a well organized athletic program with every sport except football so I’m assuming that will continue into the high sch. They also have a very popular/successful Odyssey of the Mind program that will surely continue along with band and art classes. They plan to offer AP classes but haven’t said how many. We are in an upper middle class suburb so nobody would go if AP’s weren’t offered. Haven’t heard any plans for any special emphasis so far except of course that it will be all college prepstuff, no vocational type classes. You gain admittance to this school by entering a lottery.</p>
<p>Since it’s a little less obvious than many of these things and no one has mentioned it, I am going to say that there should be an honor code and some kind of honor board or honor review process. This is successful in many colleges and private high schools.</p>
<p>A benefit of having a k-12 school is better integration between k-8 and 9-12 curricula. The 9-12 teachers know what the students are supposed to have learned and the k-8 teachers know what the 9-12 teachers expect students to come prepared with.
Some suggestions
–Small classes. Our are capped at 30 but 25 would be better.
–Teachers who get to teach over a period of two years so that they get to know the kids better.
–Small learning communities. If the school is going to have ca. 2,000 students, break it down into smaller learning communities with their own administrative staff so that the students get better known and receive more support.
–A decent number of GCs.
–A good vocational program.</p>
<p>All of you have brought up good points! Thank you. </p>
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<p>Really? Are there criteria to meet before you are placed in the lottery pool? Our K-8 magnet school has an admission minimum of stanine scores of 7 or above which is approximately 75th percentile and up. About one-fourth of them are gifted students who weren’t happy at their zoned schools.</p>
<p>The magnet high school idea has been floated for years but it was depicted as being harmful to the other high schools because it would steal away their top students.</p>
<p>No, there are no criteria to meet. Students of all abilities attend but most tend to be above average from my observations during S’s 4 years there (the middle school is grades 5-8).
There was space for about 125 kids per grade so once the applications exceed that number (and they always do), it turns into a lottery. The only exception is that if a new applicant has a sibling that is a current student, the new applicant automatically gets a spot. Also if a family is applying for 2 children in different grades, if one gets a spot, the other is an automatic admit.<br>
It will be the same for the high school. Current 8th graders at the school get first shot. Some will undoubtly choose not to go because of it being a first year thing and some just want to go to the big county high schools for various reasons. Applications from the general public will then be taken to fill the remaining openings.</p>
<p>My school is considering looping the 9th grade teachers to 10th grade as part of their smaller learning community approach. If it happens my son and I are both going to be there complaining. Both his history and English teachers have been quite mediocre this year. I know there are better teachers out there because my older son had them. </p>
<p>Looping has some good aspects, but I’ve talked to teachers and students who agree that while there is less playing catch up in the fall, by spring both parties are thoroughly sick of each other. (Mind you this is elementary school looping where kids and teachers spend most of the day together.)</p>
<p>Obviously having bad teachers two years in a row is far worse than have bad teachers only for one year! That really is the downside of looping.</p>
<p>My Ss went to a k-18 school with combined grades and it worked very well for both teachers, parents and students. Every year, only half the class moved up, so the teachers needed to familiarize themselves with only half a set of students and their parents; the juniors got to be seniors and helped the newcomers get accustomed. And we did have some terrific teachers. They had both horizontal and vertical integration (very important). The horizontal integration meant that different classes of the same grades were conducted pretty much the same way, with the same expectations. Vertical integration meant that teachers at different grade levels knew what was happening or supposed to be happening at the other grades.<br>
This vertical integration, however, broke down between k-8 and high school, which made the transition rougher for both students and teachers. This was particularly true since there is only one high school into which feed 12 different k-18 schools, each with its different curriculum and pedagogy.
One other thing I would recommend when starting a new school: plenty of time for teacher development and teacher preparation.</p>
<p>My son attends an urban gifted magnet HS. One thing I haven’t seen mentioned here so far is a community service requirement. To tell the truth, between his music and athletics and friends (not to mention video gaming), I’m not sure he would have done ANY community service had his HS not required it for graduation. Because it did, he worked for 4-5 different agencies, absolutely loved doing it, and will graduate with more than 4X the hours his school requires. Yay.</p>
That really is the downside of looping.</p>