Broken Arrow High School

[heironymouspasparagus]

Union seems to have quite a bit of parental participation, too.  I get all kinds of emails about "stuff" going on all the time - by different authors.  Lots of commotion, anyway.

[swake]

The curriculum is the main thing.  As well, they are incredibly efficient with their money.  Swake had posted the numbers here before, but IIRC they actually do have one of the lower rates of spending per student on their annual budget yet consistently get very good results.  Another thing that helps is parental participation.  I'd argue that Jenks probably has one of the higher rates of parental participation in classroom activities and extracurriculars.  Their facilities are kept in pretty good condition and students take pride in the school.

Swake, care to add anything that I may have missed?

Spending is not the main thing. People move the Jenks district for the schools so it being a good school system is kind of a self fulfilling thing, engaged parents have kids that learn. I've read the numbers before and the number of volunteer hours per student is staggering.  Good teachers like to teach kids that want to learn with parents that care. So the district has a real advantage with hiring good teachers, often they have advanced degrees. Districts with better teachers have kids that do better. People want to live where the schools have kids that do well. This to me is the biggest advantage, more than money or curriculum.

The money is there too, following the level of involvement the parents are always willing to spend on schools. Jenks certainly does spend a lot more on facilities than most other schools and they also move as much other costs as possible to the capital budget.  There are bond issues every single year.  Jenks also has a community foundation that helps support the schools and large PTAG (PTA) groups.

The facilities and large school size allows classes that almost no one else does anywhere. Jenks' new math and science center is a LEED certified building with every sort of lab you can think of and a planetarium. The building cost nearly as much TPS's entirely new BTW High School did, $21 million vs $25 million. There are enough gifted students in the elementary grades to have "pods" where almost entire classes are identified as gifted. At the Intermediate Elementary Schools (5th and 6th grade) they have classes taking a mix of pre-Algebra and Algebra, in 5th grade.  Most students in the US take Pre-Algebra in 8th grade and Algebra as a Freshman.  I went to BTW and was on a fast track, I took Geometry as a Freshman and AP Calc as a senior, at one of the best high schools in the US. Some of these 5th graders will be taking AP Calculus as Freshmen. What kind of ACT and SAT scores do think those students will make?

The better facilities helps with recruiting teachers, who wants to work in a dump every day? Nice facilities help with instilling pride in the kids and pride is a huge part of the culture at Jenks. All the Sports are used as a way to instill pride and it starts early in elementary school. There are more than 1,000 kids in football and cheer in 1st – 7th grades and more in everything from swimming to gymnastics.  The kids just become nuts about their school. One result is that a huge percentage of the teachers went to Jenks. In the lower grades it might even be most. Many of them were what they call Jenks Lifers who did k-12 at Jenks.

That's the good part. The bad? Too many kids with too much money and not enough supervision. Drugs always seem to find kids like that and Jenks is no exception. There is a gang element at Jenks too. The schools being so large can lose kids too. It's certainly not for everyone. There are also a ton of special needs kids at Jenks. People move into the district for that as well. A really big portion of the budget goes to special education.

[AquaMan]

Swake, is Jenks offering the IB curriculum? My son is wrestling with that at BTW and if he is able to get the IB diploma he will actually start at TU as a sophomore with 30 hours credit. OU offers some credit too. Its tougher than AP. Even the teachers have to have special training. Very much like college.

The same courses in IB are taught all over the world and they all take the same rigorous testing. They also have to write an extended essay, similar to a thesis, and have it judged on merit by an outside firm. They are required to do real world activities related to their classes, like mock court, volunteerism, cultural activities like Hispanic festivals etc. to accumulate points towards the diploma. Really amazing stuff that I would have struggled with in college. About a third who started as juniors actually finish with the diploma but still receive a standard diploma and some college credit. It really challenges them and makes them better students even if they don't get the IB diploma.

note: IB stands for International Baccalaureate.