For this blog, I am choosing to cover something that personally affected my high school experience and education. I went to what I would call a relatively small high school. Over the past few years, the population has consistently been less than one thousand students and I my graduating class consisted of about 250 students. My high school, which I will refer to as North, was located on top of a mountain, about a 40 minute drive from what we refer to as “town” or the more populated, urban area in my city. There was another high school in my district, South, that was based in town, so as a result the high school had a significant higher population of almost 1400 students. From anyones perspective, it was clear that the high schools were very different, as expected. The student population at North is extremely diverse, with the majority of students being from a diverse background. The student population at South consisted of about 50% white students, much different than my high school.

Throughout high school, I participated in many extracurricular activities. I was part of the band, choir, National Honor Society,  Varsity Cheerleading, and more. The sports programs at my school were weak. There were inconsistencies in the coaching for sports year after year and we had lost more games than we had won. Over the last three years, my high school football team has only won ONE football game and it was in 2019. Not all of our sports were terrible, but each year the teams got smaller and less students wanted to participate due to the low number of wins that we have had. On the other hand, high school South has been known statewide to be good and hard to beat when it comes to athletics. They have won the District Championship for Football, Cheerleading, and Basketball several times and have gone on to compete at the state level championships. They have large coaching staffs and supporting faculty, which clearly encourages the students to be more involved in clubs and athletics while in school. Many coaches are alumni of HSS and have dedicated their time to giving back to students like their teachers did for them, and most of them stay working as a coach until they are able to retire. These are the same two high schools in one school district. It has been suggested several times to combine to teams in order to give the students at North the opportunity to succeed and allow their talents to grow and be recognized. I personally know students that have actually switched schools and moved or commuted away from home just to be on a sports team. It is obvious that each school doesn’t have the same athletes, but it is clear that the administration doesn’t care about the struggles of the sports at North as long as South is excelling in athletics.

Something that I appreciated about my high school was that our performing arts programs were really good. As I mentioned, I was in band and choir all four years in high school and it is the only thing that I miss and would want to experience again. I was able to travel to DisneyWorld and march in a parade in Magic Kingdom when I was a freshman in band and we went on yearly trips to Hershey Park for a music competition between high schools. I enjoyed choir and was very close with my teacher, which made me want to tryout for Chorale which is a small coed choir that you have to audition for. With that, we performed at festivities and hospitals in my hometown and it was my favorite club through high school. Both my band and my choir teacher had been at the school for a long time and I had them all throughout school. I don’t know much about the performing arts programs at South, but being a part of music education at North taught me to love music even more than I already do and to appreciate it. The groups that I was a part of were extremely talented and I miss sitting in class and being able to hear the music that we were creating together. I am not musical theatre person, but I also supported the spring musicals that my high school would put on and they were really good as well. Our music programs were always praised by faculty and administration and we are always asked first to perform at community events. I’m sure the programs at South are just as good, but they are not as well known as the groups at North. As I said when it came to athletics, it is obvious that each school doesn’t have the same students, but it is clear that the administration doesn’t care about the success of musical education in one school as long as the other school is performing better.

Overall, these are just two aspects of my high school experience that clearly showed some sort of discrimination between my high school and the other high school in my district. Another issues that I have had to deal with in school include going to school in the snow and staying in school while there is inclement weather. My school is located on a literal mountain while South is in town, more toward the “city” area of East Stroudsburg. I have been in school while expecting blizzards and because the weather is more extreme on the mountain than in town where administrative offices are, we have rarely been sent home for early dismissals or had snow days for the weather, even though the road to my school is already dangerous and is even worse in wintery conditions. Several people have died in car accidents on that road and it needs to be taken into consideration when it comes to things such as inclement weather.

I didn’t have the best high school experience, but I made the most of it. I had some really amazing teachers and met amazing people as well as found opportunities for myself to grow and succeed in my school. However, the administration can do more to gain a sense of community between the two high schools and make it more comfortable for students like I was.