I am currently graduating from a high school that prides itself as a technology based charter school. I like this school, and have a lot of nostalgia, yet there's a giant problem with the school: in this case, all the technology is broken and outdated as crap. It would be fine if this was an ordinary school, yet it really hits hard on that technology aspect as its entire selling point.

The school has laptops for assignments, but none of the laptops seem to have antivirus software and more than half of them have viruses as a result. There's wifi for students to use, but they just now got access to it after the 6 years the school has been open despite the school having the wifi this whole time, and have to jump through hoops just to gain the access to it. Most of the laptops have missing keys or broken keyboards which are very much the fault of the students, and all technology-based classes are filled with kids who use them as a class period to either do nothing or be incredibly disruptive.

The students are actually terrible here, but a lot of my friends from other schools didn't even want to come to the school with the impression that they were too dumb for the school since the school really emphasizes that the students are superior to all other schools.

The school promised a student teacher ratio of one teacher to 15 students. Every class besides non-required classes like Chinese have a ton more students than that, and often not enough desks to hold them.

Even worse is the fact that it is nearly impossible to find math teachers and many classes have spent most of the school year without a teacher. I heard from the music students their situation is even worse as they still don't have one. The teachers we do have care about the students a lot, it's just very hard to find new ones in case someone moves.

Again, these are just regular problems of all of the public schools around here, but this school was founded with the image that it would be different.
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Were any of you guy's schools like this? How far from their image were they?

Well my school requires improvement, as said by Ofsted. Sometimes, I do think the people doing them lie in assembly now.

I think you've learned something: most of the "for the children" politics, like creating this school, is all about people who own businesses like computer sales and construction making money and far less about the students and certainly not about education.

"Do it for the children" suckers them every time.

If you want to learn, you will do it on your own. I learned chemistry, biology and physics all on my own. I took classes just to get the paper that impresses the business majors who like such papers. Those diplomas are meaningless, imho. I work with bachelor's degree engineers who are amazed and ask me to show them how I apply the equation of a straight line to interpolate values in between two points.

when I was in year 7 everyone was told that the school would be rebuilt, I'm in year 10 now (wow where has time gone) and construction was supposed to have started in the summer holidays last year but it was never started, we were told in year 7 that the new school would have been finished being built by 2016 so before we leave. Kind of disappointed that I would have left before the new school is built, it could be a very long time until that happens actually, apparently it was supposed to have been rebuilt when my dad was at school.
the ofted report for the school was also Improvements are needed, everyone blames the head teacher because when the school had the previous head teacher who retired about 2 years ago, the ofted report was outstanding obviously the head teacher blames the students for the bad results though.

My school made no such promises. To be a student at where I graduated a student needed to make promises to themselves, such as: I will not get pregnant or impregnate another person before leaving this school, I will not die in an alcohol-related death, I will move out of this town as quickly as possible upon graduation, I will enroll in a college or other trade school, and so on. Quite a few people were unable to fulfill any of these promises, but I am one of the lucky few who did.

I once went to a school that claimed to be a college preparatory academy. It was mostly just a regular school, however, it brought in a lot of kids bad areas. The reviews for the school are pretty horrible, there's one where it says a student got in trouble for having marijuana, and another that says there was a racism problem towards white males. And the students at the school I go to now are a lot smarter than the ones over there. So what does that tell you about the college prep academy?

I'm pretty sure my high school didn't make any promises and therefore I was never let down.

However, my middle school parroted the "fact" that they were a good, top middle school in the city. Yeah... Fights on the news everyday, lots of pregnancy, and a low school grade proved that was a lie (although I knew it going in, so still, I wasn't let down, although it was way worse than I thought it would be).
It's actually improved in recent years - in the school pamplet guide, it's got a 10% rating now! #SoProud (tears up)

My school didn't make any promises either. The problem I have with my school is mostly that I am completely convinced I was born to the wrong family. I'm a digital artist, a straightedge asexual, an atheist, I listen to metal, and I'm a paranormal enthusiast. I live in a heavily white Christian hick town where common activities for the occupants include hunting, getting drunk/high, staring at their phones, listening to country music, and shaming anyone who acts differently.

Our school has the bare minimum. There aren't any laptops, almost everything on our internet is blocked, the only foreign language they offer is Spanish, the science rooms are growing mold in the walls and my poor Biology teacher is allergic to it; it also gave one very sick student seizures so she couldn't go into the science rooms anymore. The only reason I'm getting an education toward what I want to go into (game design) is because of the Career Center in the city half an hour away. They have CAD classes there, but as much as I love my teacher and as much as I've learned in my 2 years there, I feel as though I haven't learned enough, or as much as I could have. My town just doesn't support the arts at all. There are of course art classes, Art 1, 2, 3, and 4, which is really sad compared to the advanced art classes in the highschool in the next town over. The underclassmen do a lot of meth and there's a lot of drug dealing down in the middle school, lots of pregnancy. It's a bad deal all around. 2 more weeks and I'm outta here, though. Not attending the graduation ceremony, either. When my sister graduated there were too many people attending so they kicked us out of the gym they were using and made us wait in the lobby until graduation was over.

I can't remember my high school having certain promises or other special aspects they used as being a hotspot for anything. Just a pretty boring and decent performing general high school in a Dutch city of ~ 150,000 citizens. But hey, I graduated there 10 years ago, so I could remember it not that precise.

It's only an *officially* catholic high school, but that's pretty meaningless addition in my region (perhaps some minor and ancient political advantages). In the composition of the students it was a mix like the rest of the multicultural neighbourhood/city iself plus surrounding villages (school is situated at the edge of the city). We had no special rituals, like praying and whatever real religious schools do. The only religious thing we had, was the mandatory and general course religion/philosophy, but there had christianity the same importance as subject as new age or whatever. And something like sociology had nothing special related to religion.

I was homeschooled. Homeschool was homeschool.

"What your school can do for you" is mostly bullshit. The only exceptions are some higher education organizations where you're basically riding the natural enrollment of the institution (It's true. Going to Harvard or Yale gets a better than average chance to graduate with a future governor, senator, President, or CEO) or the reputation (graduating from MIT doesn't mean you're smart or smarter than anyone else, but people might perceive you as such when you're waving around your electrical engineering degree until you prove yourself an incompetent moron.) The only people your high school will ever matter to are your parents, your fellow alumni for reunions, and maybe the person considering your college admissions.

Almost everyone's high school experience is horrible, right up until they graduate and it's suddenly kind of awesome in hindsight. For the real world high school is mostly just a box that's got to be checked on the application for you to be hired, because someone who can't manage to sit still long enough to graduate from high school generally isn't the sort of person you want to be trusting around your equipment without a lot of proof of exceptions.

It was quite ok!
I think High school is quite different in my country compared to the US. Not quite sure how the rest of the world works. Our Middle schools (11 to 13 year old) are all the same, but when one turns 13 they have to decide for very specific high schools; we don't have "general knowledge" high schools, you basically need to already know what your dream job is like, at 13. -_- I also understand that in the US you have some mandatory classes but then you can choose other classes and therefore make up your own timetable with the subjects you would like to learn. We don't. You choose a school and that's what you get.
I was really into humanities so I chose the Liceo Classico, whose peculiar classes are ancient Greek, Latin, hardcore History, Italian and Italian literature. Problem is, it was an experimental Liceo Classico, with TONS of Math classes. I couldn't keep up with two subjects I literally loathed (math and greek) so after two years I moved to another school, closer to home and which was Turism-oriented (I live in a ski-resort town).
That has been a great experience, I've learned lots of languages (I've learned more during 3 years of French in HS than during University) and I had a great time with my schoolmates!

My high school was also a 'technology college'. They pride themselves on technology even though a lot of it was outdated and crappy. I remember in Year 9 I didn't have a specific classroom for maths, we had different classrooms on different days. Though, things got worse when they merged with another high school (who were rivals, so the first week was just fights) when I was in Year 11. Because I had been studying creative & media (a class that already required me to be in different schools on different days for some reason) and the school was stupid - they decided to schedule these classes at the same time as Statistics and chemistry. Which was a pain because Statistics required coursework which we were not allowed to do at home, which means I got a big fat 4/100. because I only managed to attend 1 lesson a week which means I was barely starting my coursework when it was time to give it in. The exam didn't go that well either, so I left with a D. Chemistry was terrible in class because I didn't know anything and the teacher would think of me as 'stupid' because of it. Luckily my friend was also doing creative and media so she was in the same position. We'd sit next to each other and try to help each other with the work, but then we'd get told off for talking. - I somehow managed to get a C in Chemistry though... so that's okay I guess.

I don't know that my school promised anything. I'm not really sure where I would have heard what a school promised anyway. Word of mouth? I had no friends. Advertising? I went to public school, they didn't advertise since you pretty much had to go to whichever is closest. Not sure if that's changed. Well, I did hear rumors that my high school was where the rich kids went, and it did live up to that rumor. Lots of kids of doctors and lawyers. One of my classmates drove a brand new Acura CL. Another drove a Lexus LS400. Very nice cars back in the 90s. Some got more reasonable cars like brand new Camaros and Mustangs. Kids that had to work and save up to buy their own clunker were the minority.

Other than that, I knew my high school was a winner when I went to Freshman orientation the summer before, and saw students had vandalized all the vents up near the ceiling, bending the slats so they spelled out obscenities. Clever, clever students, but how did they even get up there? We also didn't have A/C and our backs would stick to the old, gummy varnish on the backs of the chairs which were the same ones from the 1960s, I'm sure. Technology? We didn't have any. Just IBM PS/2s with 486SX/25 processors that booted into MS-DOS. Ok, this was the 90s, so maybe that wasn't that bad for back then.

Wow! My school taught how to use a slide rule in physics class - now that was technology! It was the last time it was taught, tho. I was one of the first to have a calculator - a Rockwell something. It even had log and trig functions. I was always checking the calculator with the slide rule.

I was in the first computing class offered at my high school: At first we had these cardboard computers. Seriously! Later we had one Programma 101 and still later we got a terminal to an IBM 360. We had to share the Programma 101 and terminal with the whole class. You booked time in a log book set by the terminal.

I'm not sure what country you're in. But if this crappy school tricked your parents into sending you there...tricked them into spending money to place you there, and if you're in the USA, you can file a formal complaint with the BBB. Essentially, they ripped you off. At the very least, a letter from the BBB might embarrass them. Make sure you document EVERYTHING...every piece of correspondence, etc.

If you are in the States, most states have some sort of Board of Regents or other such accrediting agency for schools, public and private. Complain to them in writing, sending along COPIES of any relevant documents...cleared checks, contracts, pamphlets, newspaper ads (letters to and from the BBB), etc. Be specific, and make sure that it doesn't sound...personal.

Make sure to CC to your local newspaper and TV stations.

If you could get other members of your senior class, (and maybe some kids from earlier graduating classes) to sign the letter with you, that would add more weight to your complaint.

I can't remember that far back ....

I don't think my high school promised us anything in particular. I went to public school so my experience was pretty average I'd say. Pretty large public school (about the size of my college now...) with a confused relationship as to whether it was part of the North or South and part of the city or country. Rednecks but also people moved out from DC like my family. We also had the fastest growing population of Hispanics in the U.S. for a little while there.

For a semi-rural high school, my two high schools in Monroe were rather pleasant. My father was working at Microsoft at the time and the technology at school was up to date. They served dragonfruit and agave cactus-flavored drinks in the cafeteria for those who were brave enough to try new flavors in the emerging drink market, so it was a social experiment at lunch aside from the standards of high-calorie options because the building was huge and if you had alternating classes on both sides, you'd be a minute late to class. The kids were nice as this was pre-cyberbullying, so the only problem in terms of harassment was the one kid who was a 4th generation Nazi. I took him down with confusion and he realized how small he was, considering he was outnumbered by 500 kids who had enough of his crap.

The most disturbing issue of it all was the atrium in the cafeteria. The atrium was great on sunny days...with the exception of the view outside. It was unfortunate that our school's atrium faced the maximum security prison in Snohomish County. My dad morbidly joked that it was planned out to say "That prison is your future if you don't adhere to a work schedule."

It was a 79% out of 100.

Holy crap, what kind of garbage dystopian system is that?

Most adults don't know what they want to do.

My high school is arguably the "best in the district," out of a couple in a pretty major city (Pittsburgh.)
Of course, I've only visited one other school, so I guess I can't speak for the others. However by best, they mean in terms of diversity and test scores. We're only the best in terms of statistics.

We have a pretty even amount of white/black students, for an inner-city school. The only reason we have high test scores though is because every CAS (honors) class is 95% white. Mainstream is 95% all black. It's pretty sad how it works out. I've been in mixes of both honors and mainstream courses these past three years, and I've been both in the majority of white students and also the minority. In one of my math classes in 9th grade, I was just one of 5 white students. The rest of the 25 were either black or didn't speak any English. (Keep in mind that's 35 kids total. Mainstream classes are bursting at the seams.)
So while my school prides itself on being racially diverse and having the highest test scores and college readiness, they forget to address the racial barriers.

Other than the white elephant in the room, we're an alright school coming from my point of view. All the money in the district oh so obviously goes to the arts and the brand new performing arts school I almost went to. (I would've gone for creative writing, but unfortunately the end of 8th grade and all of 9th grade was when I became clinically depressed, and since then I've never gotten back into what used to be my favorite hobby.)
So while that school gets shiny new classrooms, equipment and what-nots for programs, their own laptops, etc, my high school still lacks doors on the bathroom stalls. Heck, our nickname is dirty 'dice. What baffles me is that our principal went to our school. Yet she's blind to how disgusting the place is?? I'd like to see her use the girls bathroom with not a single door on the stalls and no paper towels/soap/working sinks in sight. (Or maybe the bathroom that had menstrual blood in every. Single. Toilet.)

The good thing about Dice is that you're bound to make a friend. Maybe not many you'll remember 5 years from now, or even a year from now, but once you establish yourself, you'll at least find someone who can put up with you. And usually, you'll get a schedule with an equal amount of teachers who do care & take their jobs seriously, and the rest won't even care to show up the other half of the time.

After typing all this I feel like I've painted a pretty bad picture of this place- and I have. But the fact that I'll kind-of officially be a senior in less than 25 days makes me love the school in retrospect. The first two years are awful, but I've had a wonderful Junior year experience. High school is just what you make of it, and this year I've finally grown to not hate Dice.

My school doesn't make any special "promises" which is good because if they did, they would break every single one of them.

Never misunderstand my post: the community of upperclassmen is very tight-knit and liberal, while the lower classmen are a lot less organized, loud,occasionally violent, and tend to be the cause of most of the broken items in the school. The things that aren't caused by them are caused by the lack of funding. While people in the state claim they like charter schools, the amount of funding from the government does not show it.

The main issue is the funding and the lack of coherent information among those in charge. Those in charge often fight over what rules they want to keep and what they want to ignore, and even how they will enforce them to the point that something allowed in the school rules one month might get you a detention the next one. This is especially true with what types of jackets and hoodies students are allowed to wear. Sometimes this argument has more negative results than just uniform, and various students have gotten off the hook for beating up women and female-bodied individuals only to get expelled for smaller things. I have no idea if this is sexism by some in charge, or just a lack of communication between them that disrupts the disciplinary process.

my school made no promises, it was opened in about 1950, and has duck tape on the floors, a 2nd floor hallway where you can hear the lockers rattle as you walk by, and in an earthquake zone too, 1000something students, 2 gyms the empty room kind without machines, and badminton, several portables, many computer labs, windows people can climb out of, a stump within 2 metres of the property line where people smoke in view of a couple busy roads and a mall oh there's also the mentions in the municipalities urban dictionary's definition about stabbings here, the mid 2000s must have been filled with crime, though on the positive side there's nothing out of movies and tv where a group somehow has power over everyone else, even if someone tried it'd be nearly impossible

The true test will come next year when the 2 new high schools are built, one on what was the first elementary school i went to, then it closed sat there for almost 6 years before they tore it down and started building one of the new schools, both look nice from the virtual tours, one has ocean views on what was once a gravel pit, the other a view of 2 lakes on what used to be the elementary school, both have openings between all 3 floors, with windows above the 3rd floor, the one with the ocean view has a rooftop area open to use, a theatre, and large kitchen for professorial training, the other school between the lakes, has 7 science labs as a main selling point er feature and uh a 2 floor library, of corse there's stuff from both I've left out, neither being finished yet.