<p>My child is currently a junior at a new STEM program high school in our area. She also has a base public high school to which she goes for sports as well as national honor Society programs. We have heard in years past that there has been limited communication between our similar local program schools and the students' base schools from which their official transcript originates and where their official graduation occurs. We thought we were being proactive by meeting with and discussing these concerns with both schools principals and guidance counselors early this year (my daughter has taken an active role during this process). We were assured that there would be no issue. However, during the recent awards ceremony at the base school we realize that our concerns were founded when multiple of the high academic awards my daughter should have won fell through the cracks.</p>
<p>I have received a fairly significant education over the past months on many high school and college bound topics from the good posters on CC. I certainly do not wish to burn any bridges as my younger child will be attending the same STEM program next year. However I do want to be a good advocate for my daughter as she should be in line for a number of significant nominations for awards and scholarships. I would be grateful for any recommendations of how to proceed during this upcoming senior year from posters/parents that may have encountered and navigated similar difficulties.</p>
<p>My D went to a county public themed magnet school. The students at her school could still do sports, band, drama, etc. at their local public high school (what you may be referring to as the “base” school?). They did not, however, take classes there and were therefore not eligible for the local academic awards. Her magnet school had different teachers, location, and curriculum. They also had their own awards system. I’m not sure I understand why students going to magnet programs would be eligible for awards from their catchment-area schools they don’t attend. What kind of awards did you feel your D missed out on? </p>
<p>If you are only worried about the annual awards ceremony at the school, I would suggest letting it go. Just make sure there is good communication regarding the courses your child has taken, and that her transcript is correct.</p>
<p>Lax, agree with Thumper. You have two big challenges ahead of you wrt college, etc. First, you need to make sure that the description of your D’s actual program/school is accurate. This is a form (not customized per child) which is prepared by the district. It has demographic information, data about the student body, etc. You can request a copy, and you should, to make sure it accurately reflects the school. </p>
<p>The second challenge is to make sure that the information on your D’s personal transcript (this is the personalized form) is correct. You may or may not get pushback from the school on obtaining a copy. Work with other parents on this one.</p>
<p>So at some high schools, the transcript will show all standardized tests taken since 8th grade. If your D wants to try both the ACT and SAT and only submit the higher scores, she won’t want a transcript which has everything on it. Some transcripts will show grades in HS level classes your D took in 8th grade. It probably won’t matter since your D is a strong student, but why have a B show up in advanced chemistry if it doesn’t need to be on there?</p>
<p>Make sure the transcript is an accurate description of her 9-12 academic record, and you’ll be fine.</p>
<p>Save the arguing about the book awards and the local honor society and all the jazz for someone whose kid has a weaker academic record (since it might make a difference to their kid)- it won’t impact yours.</p>
<p>Our public school system runs much like NJSue describes for home school and the area magnets - they use the public high school for sports and clubs, but are not eligible for the public high school academic award, programming or graduation, etc. I’m sure the theory is that the magnets have their own programs and home school kids are home schooled because they don’t want to participate in the public school academic programming. Our public also “invites” the magnet kids and home school kids to take the college related standardized tests (PSAT, ACT) along-side the public high school kids but I believe the public school does not pay for those tests.</p>
<p>OP I guess I’d look into the language of “base programming” if that is a term that is familiar to your circumstance and see what exactly that encompasses. It’s possible your student is eligible to participate in all the programming surrounding sports and some of the clubs (like NHS) but I would not assume that your student is eligible for all the academic programming since that may be the responsibility of the public magnet school but since the graduation is at the public and combined and the transcript comes from the public high school and combined, I do find it odd that they would not combine the students for senior academic awards. </p>
And neither do I understand. If your d doesn’t take her academic classes at the base school, then why should she get academic awards? Doesn’t the STEM program high school have its own awards? </p>
<p>Thumper1 - I must not have adequately expressed myself. I am not worried about yearly award ceremonies. However, I am worried that it may be an indicator of more significant obstacles in the process to come. There are a number of scholarships and nominations that must originate from the base school counselors. There have been past students who missed out on scholarships and more prestigious awards due to miscommunication between the schools. We have had to have corrections made to the transcript and it was no easy task. It took multiple emails, numerous follow-up calls, and many weeks to correct.</p>
<p>Yes…lax, those transcript issues are not uncommon when students go to a magnet school, but actually receive their diploma from a base school.</p>
<p>You should request a transcript at the end of this academic year…and review it.</p>
<p>If there are specific scholarship awards you believe your daughter is eligible for, that needs to also be conveyed to the base school counselor. Perhaps the magnet school counselor can help you with this process.</p>
<p>Thanks to all above for the advice. I have gathered that some of the problem has come from competition between these types of schools as well as a notion that the few program schools are skimming off all the top students while leaving the base school to deal with the more difficult cases. There also may be a desire to give preference to their on-site students most likely since these are the kids that they are most familiar. However the base school administrators don’t complain when the program school test scores are averaged into theirs. They are even quick to advertise perfect SAT scores and NMS as their own.</p>
<p>I think you can make this work for you … if you are willing to do some work. Befriend the principal/counselor/whoever at both schools who can make your life easier and offer to help them. Tell them that you want to make this right for your dd but also for the schools. Tell them you had heard that there might be issues if you did the two-school thing but that wanted to make it work and that now that your dd has had such a wonderful experience you want to make sure that others aren’t turned off to the arrangement because of the talk like you had heard of the difficulty of these kinds of issues. Offer to work on putting guidelines in place so that everyone is clear on roles and expectations.</p>
<p>My kids went to a magnet school but didn’t seem to have the complicated issues you describe. It was clear what kinds of awards were given to whom and where the schools intersected … and didn’t intersect.</p>
<p>Since the OP stated this is a new STEM program, this is probably an example of growing pains. Why isn’t the STEM school issuing its own transcripts? Does it have gcs? Why is NHS at the base school? Are there any clubs/activities/honor societies at the STEM school?</p>
<p>YOU have to do the legwork and make sure that nothing falls between the cracks. That’s the case for a lot of things but when there is something different like this in the picture, you have to take up the slack. Meet with the counselor regularly. Send info to the counselor and keep very much informed. </p>
<p>I was very upset when one of my kids who went to two high school had a non college sanitized transcript sent to colleges from one of the school It showed his quarter grades and exam grades instead of just the final grade. It did not occur to me to have to check this, and yep, it happened. This is the sort of thing that can happen when you don’t fall into the auto stack of how things work at a school. Do try to get in contact with parents whose kids have gone through this and also have gone off to college to get some ideas as to what possible pitfalls are.</p>
<p>^^^ That, but it helps to make it seem like you are doing them a favor. I always volunteered to edit my kids’ HS profiles, even in years where it didn’t directly benefit them. If you approach it as doing something beyond just serving your personal interests, most people are glad to have the help.</p>
<p>YDS and CTH - I like your suggestions as I want my S to also benefit from this system.</p>
<p>T1 and CTTC - I agree that much of this might be growing pains. However there are well established program schools that seem to have similar problems. I do agree that much of the issue stems from a cloudy division of responsibility for each school. Official transcript, rank, and Grad honors come directly from base school while all classes are taken at the Program school. All sports, band and many clubs are only offered at base school. Although my D has helped start subspecialty honor societies and clubs at the STEM. It does all get a bit confusing for the parents and students. This has actually been an issue at the local school board and the Stem school asked my a Wife to speak on its behalf as she serves as the parent liaison b/w the stem and the superintendent board.</p>
<p>Your wife is the perfect conduit then! I think you can make this work for yourself and so many others. It sounds like there is widespread acknowledgement that there are some gray areas so now sounds like the perfect time to resolve them.</p>
<p>Trust me, I totally get the tension in this situation. Our district ended up just creating two schools that co-locate, so each has a valedictorian, etc. I think this works because it wasn’t fair to the local kids to have all the honors sucked up by the non-local kids. At the same time, it wasn’t fair to the non-local kids to not be recognized for all they bring to the campus as well. Maybe one of your solutions might be to give an award to the (best student/musician/whatever) on the base campus and the program campus so that neither population is slighted. Once you start doing research on magnets and other similar situations, there’s a wealth of info out there.</p>
<p>Your wife can pursue this as parent liaison to get a definitive understanding. But just so you know, my D was also in a specialized program in the HS and was not eligible for certain awards or even the main school’s national honor society. It did not hurt her college application in the least. </p>
<p>You also might want to work it from the STEM program end–why isn’t it having its own students applying for the awards, scholarhsips, etc.? My guess is that the base school has a lot of meetings, both with students and parents, where info gets disseminated. There is no reason that the program your daughter cannot get up to speed and do the same.</p>