High School Guide: Admissions, reviews, and advice

Organizing dedicated school buses for high schoolers is honestly a nightmare and just doesn't make sense in the US. If we actually tried to roll out those specific routes, costs would skyrocket, and kids would still end up waiting forever anyway. It’s way smarter to just beef up the regular transit lines—buses or commuter rails—and let them adjust based on actual demand. Right now, it's always one extreme or the other: either totally empty or packed to the gills.

Now, I don't live in some tiny, remote corner of the country. My family lives in a city where the kids head to high school, and we have plenty of bus and train options running all day long. But even then... it’s tricky. First off, not every high school starts at the same time. You’ve got some starting at 7:20, some at 7:30, others closer to 8:00. Then you’ve got the commuters heading to work at all sorts of different times. Even class schedules vary—some days they finish early, some days late. How do you sync a schedule to fit everyone perfectly? You’ll have one train arriving way too early, while another might be ten minutes too late. And the equipment is a mess, too; during off-peak hours, they run these massive trains that are basically ghost towns, but when the rush hits, they switch to express services with half the capacity, leaving kids standing shoulder-to-shoulder.

If we went the school bus route, a quick 20-minute trip would turn into an hour-long odyssey because the driver would have to wind through every single little neighborhood to drop everyone off. It would be like a road trip from hell.

It’s definitely not as simple as people make it sound when they live in big cities with easy transit right outside their doors.

Michelle Nelson4 said:I’m not really trying to make a case for public transit itself; it's more about the sheer distance involved. My point was simply that it's far more cost-effective to run a bus route than to fund an entire high school facility just to accommodate three classes and maybe ten students per grade level. 12 miles It's only a 20-minute ride by bus.

If you look at the geography—from the Napa Valley area out to the borders of the Barrios and Indianapolis (which most people there likely commute toward), then down to Gary (which leans more towards Memphis), and finally the Rural township that might gravitate toward a smaller town while the rest heads toward Indianapolis or Memphis because of its location—you realize how spread out things are. All together, those areas in the Rural counties don't even hit 20,000 residents, and I have no idea how many of those are actually high school-aged kids.

Now, if the distribution for the 15-19 age group matches the rest of the county (about 5.6%), we’re looking at roughly 250 students enrolling in freshman year across all those municipalities combined. Total.
Which means, frankly, claiming there are 60 spots available is pure fantasy if there's no hope for things to improve down the road. Here is the breakdown:
age group - percentage of population
10-14 - 5.2%
5-9 - 4.6%
0-4 - 4.2%

As I mentioned before, every new generation is smaller than the one before it, which inevitably means the teacher-to-student ratio is going to keep climbing...

I mean, if we actually decided to open a game development track at a high school over in a place like Memphis, I suspect the enrollment would be filled up in the blink of an eye.
We really ought to be paying closer attention to where the job market is heading—it’s about following the trends, I guess.

Well... they do have a full faculty dedicated to agriculture and economics, though.

That’s precisely why we should be looking toward scaling back and eventually phasing these things out—instead, we ought to be introducing entirely new, forward-looking programs.
Alternatively, one could tie these initiatives directly to the established companies already operating in those regions. Though, I suppose I'm not entirely sure what the industrial landscape looks like over in the Finger Lakes or the Midwest.
For instance—I recall watching a documentary about an area near Philadelphia where they have a vocational school offering specialized training in gunsmithing, or something to that effect—and there happens to be a factory right there producing handguns.
In those cases, the classes fill up instantly because students get a scholarship, hands-on internships, and a guaranteed job waiting for them.

Michelle Nelson4 said:Well... they do have a full faculty dedicated to agriculture and economics, though.

Look, we have to preserve the teaching staff at all costs. They’re the only ones that matter; they're the only metric that counts.
That said, in defense of the system, it makes zero sense to shut down an ag school in regions where farming is actually a major industry. It doesn't mean we shouldn't look into quotas, though.

mellowskipper said:I mean, if we actually decided to open a game development track at a high school over in a place like Memphis, I suspect the enrollment would be filled up in the blink of an eye.
We really ought to be paying closer attention to where the job market is heading—it’s about following the trends, I guess.

You can't just launch a specific "game production" major—that's way too niche. But you could offer something like computer programming technology. Graduates from those programs could go into gaming, sure, but they could also handle serious software like CAD or CAM.

nimblelynx7 said:Look, we have to preserve the teaching staff at all costs. They’re the only ones that matter; they're the only metric that counts.
That said, in defense of the system, it makes zero sense to shut down an ag school in regions where farming is actually a major industry. It doesn't mean we shouldn't look into quotas, though.

You can't just launch a specific "game production" major—that's way too niche. But you could offer something like computer programming technology. Graduates from those programs could go into gaming, sure, but they could also handle serious software like CAD or CAM.

And here we go, just another endless wave of Ford employees dreaming about passing their teaching certifications so they can chase the dream of instructing high schoolers for that absolutely incredible salary.🤣🤣🤣

nimblelynx7 said:Look, we have to preserve the teaching staff at all costs. They’re the only ones that matter; they're the only metric that counts.
That said, in defense of the system, it makes zero sense to shut down an ag school in regions where farming is actually a major industry. It doesn't mean we shouldn't look into quotas, though.

You can't just launch a specific "game production" major—that's way too niche. But you could offer something like computer programming technology. Graduates from those programs could go into gaming, sure, but they could also handle serious software like CAD or CAM.

If this were in Washington, D.C., it would be my first choice on the enrollment list.

urbantinker8 said:And here we go, just another endless wave of Ford employees dreaming about passing their teaching certifications so they can chase the dream of instructing high schoolers for that absolutely incredible salary.🤣🤣🤣

Ford grads? Probably not. But then again, what exactly is the point of the IT track at FF? Maybe they could do it.

Does anyone know which FF offers a computer science track? I thought it used to be based out of Seattle, but I believe they moved it to a different college recently.

mellowskipper said:If this were in Washington, D.C., it would be my first choice on the enrollment list.

Ford grads? Probably not. But then again, what exactly is the point of the IT track at FF? Maybe they could do it.

Maybe you're thinking of information and communication sciences?

So, they actually have a program for that over at the University of Washington—it's part of their information science studies, specifically within the teaching track.

Sarah Hall53 said:So, they actually have a program for that over at the University of Washington—it's part of their information science studies, specifically within the teaching track.

Exactly.
I suppose they could be the ones teaching the kids. It doesn't really make sense to me that Ford people would be doing it—I have a friend who's a Ford guy, works over at F=ma, and he'd probably write an entire manifesto about it first.

With all due respect to everyone here—IT professionals who actually have the chops to thrive in the private sector, regardless of what specific degree they hold, aren't going to find much luck chasing teacher salaries. We're seeing a massive trend toward negative selection in public sector hiring lately.

I mean, I believe it—but then again, life happens. Even mathematicians are seeing more demand in the private sector lately; they could easily make a killing out there, yet some still choose to stick with academia.
A close friend of mine finished her engineering degree and was absolutely grinding away, working herself to the bone for $20k a year—she just snapped. She ended up knocking out those teaching credentials and now she’s teaching at a local high school for maybe a third of what she used to make. But honestly? She says it was the best decision she ever made.

A friend of mine actually stepped down from her management role at a big firm to go teach economics at a local university instead. I guess she’s finally found her calling. 🤷

I honestly feel that standard computer science curriculum could be taught by anyone who has completed a degree in a tech field along with some basic teaching credentials. We don't necessarily need MIT students for this. These are the fundamentals, after all. It’s likely that these kinds of specialized high schools will eventually become mostly private institutions where instructors can actually command a decent salary.

At the same time, public schools really need to realize they have to rethink their staffing model for these subjects. They should look for people who aren't looking for full-time roles, but rather those who genuinely want to teach—perhaps alongside a primary career. Think about someone working part-time because they love the classroom, or maybe a veteran in the industry who is over 50 and tired of constantly chasing the latest coding languages and industry buzzwords. They might prefer teaching half the week while keeping their consulting gigs on the side, especially if they are already financially stable.

The problem is that our school hiring system is incredibly bureaucratic, and let’s be honest, the office politics can be toxic. If someone walks in with noble intentions to shake things up, they often get shut down pretty quickly.

PS — You really can't compare the working conditions and opportunities of someone in, say, economics, to a senior developer or a systems engineer. Those tech professionals are in such high demand that they call the shots on where they work and how they work. If they aren't happy? They just move on to a better gig immediately.

northerntiger9 said:With all due respect to everyone here—IT professionals who actually have the chops to thrive in the private sector, regardless of what specific degree they hold, aren't going to find much luck chasing teacher salaries. We're seeing a massive trend toward negative selection in public sector hiring lately.

The real issue with education budgets is that too many people (including a lot of unnecessary perks) are eating into the funds meant for high-quality teachers. This ends up squeezing the pay for the great educators, while those who lack quality but can't find work elsewhere (or simply don't want to seek it out) stay afloat on public funds.

And honestly, there’s no sense in forcing schools to stay open just because there's available staff right now, a principal's salary to cover, or a building that costs more to heat and light than a county would spend on busing ten students to the next town over. Then you have the extra costs for new teachers who might not live in that small rural area and need travel stipends just to show up to work in the middle of nowhere. (Though if you haven't noticed, in places without public transit, the mileage reimbursement under the new collective agreement is actually quite decent and bumps up their pay nicely—someone might end up spending as much on gas driving to a remote spot as someone in Chicago does commuting across town, even after the stipend.)

In my opinion, we're spreading ourselves too thin by funding computer science for grades 1-4, and even for the mandatory classes in grades 5-6 🤷. I think those hard-to-find tech specialists should be moved to high school, or perhaps even general prep schools should offer more computer science hours. We could also focus on developing specialized schools like the ones > linked if we really want to provide quality education to kids who show an interest and talent in that field.

Sadly, enrollment quotas for physicists and mathematicians at major research universities haven't increased in years, while chemistry spots aren't shrinking either (even though there's supposedly a shortage). The only group that stays steady is theology students at their university, and there are plenty of them! It's wild how various instructors or experts without any teaching credentials can step in to cover for absent or missing math and physics teachers. You have to wonder when kids will start being taught math by theologians (if they aren't already 😲). Sure, the pay is lower when you're just a temporary substitute, but it gets the job done... regardless of whether the kids actually learn anything useful.

Michelle Nelson4 said:I honestly feel that standard computer science curriculum could be taught by anyone who has completed a degree in a tech field along with some basic teaching credentials. We don't necessarily need MIT students for this. These are the fundamentals, after all. It’s likely that these kinds of specialized high schools will eventually become mostly private institutions where instructors can actually command a decent salary.

At the same time, public schools really need to realize they have to rethink their staffing model for these subjects. They should look for people who aren't looking for full-time roles, but rather those who genuinely want to teach—perhaps alongside a primary career. Think about someone working part-time because they love the classroom, or maybe a veteran in the industry who is over 50 and tired of constantly chasing the latest coding languages and industry buzzwords. They might prefer teaching half the week while keeping their consulting gigs on the side, especially if they are already financially stable.

The problem is that our school hiring system is incredibly bureaucratic, and let’s be honest, the office politics can be toxic. If someone walks in with noble intentions to shake things up, they often get shut down pretty quickly.

PS — You really can't compare the working conditions and opportunities of someone in, say, economics, to a senior developer or a systems engineer. Those tech professionals are in such high demand that they call the shots on where they work and how they work. If they aren't happy? They just move on to a better gig immediately.

I'm not sure if you were replying to my previous post, but the person I used as an example was on a management contract—we're talking a salary in the tens of thousands of dollars, plus all the standard corporate perks and gear. She didn't leave because she lacked opportunity; she left because the stress was insane and she was essentially working 24/7.

Susan James said:The real issue with education budgets is that too many people (including a lot of unnecessary perks) are eating into the funds meant for high-quality teachers. This ends up squeezing the pay for the great educators, while those who lack quality but can't find work elsewhere (or simply don't want to seek it out) stay afloat on public funds.

And honestly, there’s no sense in forcing schools to stay open just because there's available staff right now, a principal's salary to cover, or a building that costs more to heat and light than a county would spend on busing ten students to the next town over. Then you have the extra costs for new teachers who might not live in that small rural area and need travel stipends just to show up to work in the middle of nowhere. (Though if you haven't noticed, in places without public transit, the mileage reimbursement under the new collective agreement is actually quite decent and bumps up their pay nicely—someone might end up spending as much on gas driving to a remote spot as someone in Chicago does commuting across town, even after the stipend.)

In my opinion, we're spreading ourselves too thin by funding computer science for grades 1-4, and even for the mandatory classes in grades 5-6 🤷. I think those hard-to-find tech specialists should be moved to high school, or perhaps even general prep schools should offer more computer science hours. We could also focus on developing specialized schools like the ones > linked if we really want to provide quality education to kids who show an interest and talent in that field.

Sadly, enrollment quotas for physicists and mathematicians at major research universities haven't increased in years, while chemistry spots aren't shrinking either (even though there's supposedly a shortage). The only group that stays steady is theology students at their university, and there are plenty of them! It's wild how various instructors or experts without any teaching credentials can step in to cover for absent or missing math and physics teachers. You have to wonder when kids will start being taught math by theologians (if they aren't already 😲). Sure, the pay is lower when you're just a temporary substitute, but it gets the job done... regardless of whether the kids actually learn anything useful.

And I guess interest hasn't really increased either. 🤷

Anthony Ward6 said:I'm not sure if you were replying to my previous post, but the person I used as an example was on a management contract—we're talking a salary in the tens of thousands of dollars, plus all the standard corporate perks and gear. She didn't leave because she lacked opportunity; she left because the stress was insane and she was essentially working 24/7.

Oh, I am very well acquainted with what a management contract looks like and those kinds of paychecks. Honestly, for every one of those roles out there, there are probably a hundred equally talented people just waiting in the wings, ready to jump in and kill themselves for that exact same money.

A senior developer can pull in that kind of salary while maintaining a normal 9-to-5, and companies will practically roll out the red carpet for them because they know a guy like that could easily jump ship to a massive tech firm or start his own freelance consultancy tomorrow. And finding a replacement? Forget about it. Any decent candidate could land the same—or even better—pay elsewhere right now. Add in the lack of niche expertise and that classic, frustrating "everything is documented in his head" situation, and you see the whole picture.

It’s a completely different league, though I suppose that’s a bit of a tangent...