Relocating between Middle and High School

[GrnMtnMan]

Positive or Negative experiences to share?

I had a great experience going off to boarding school for 9th-12th. Parents had decided to move from NYC suburb to Vermont upon my dad's retirement, so I would have been going from big school system with lots of schools, to a town with one school each for elementary, middle, and high. And the school only sent about 30% of its students to college, so it was a bad fit for me. So off to prep school. To this day, my friends from there are my closest and dearest.

And few comments themes I've seen in many posts:

1) When you go off to college, you usually start over and make new friends. I know that 14-15 is different than 18-19, but many people have to go through the process of meeting new people and making new friends someday...

2) I imagine going into a small school system where everybody knows everybody is tougher than a big system where there's a big shuffling at the high school stage....I know in the DC area, even within the public school system, people go lots of different places for HS.

3) Isn't teenage angst, alienation, and parental resentment standard issue for the teenage personality? Do people think they would have just picked a different thing to resent their parents about, if they had not moved?

 

[teacup princess]

I went to the same school my whole life in a small town and had a rough time in high school. Hated it and had few close friends in our very cliquey class even though I had gone to school with them my whole life. Admittedly I'm a bit of a loner, a "Debbie Downer" at times, and didn't put my best foot forward all the time with my peers. Others who transferred into our school in high school were social butterflies with positive attitudes and made close friends quickly. I'd look more closely at the personality of your child and have some very heartfelt conversations with them about making the best of the situations that life throws your way even though they might not always be ideal, having a positive outlook, and being the person you want others to see you as. Also, make sure even if the school isn't ideal for awhile while they are adjusting your homelife is. That is equally as important. Good luck. We want to try to pretend we can make life always perfect for our kids but that is not the nature of living. That's not a bad lesson to learn at an early age in my opinion.

 

[Simba's Mom]

I am hoping to hear some success stories that others have had in relocating and switching their child's school between 8th and 9th grade. Due to a number of factors I will be facing this issue with my 8th Grader after this year and ideally i'd rather relocate now than after he's started HS. My town does not have a High School, so everyone will now be attending a Regional or Private HS with many new faces in the fall. I would also not be relocating far, but I would cross county lines a few towns over which is also in my ex's school district (a positive I believe).

Any advice? Positive or Negative experiences to share?

My son had to transfer between 7th and 8th grade, and did AMAZINGLY well. I had wanted him to wait until between 8th and 9th, partly because in his former school, he'd be going to a regional high school where 80% of the students would be new to him anyways. Well, actually I didn't want him to have to transfer at all-from a small town, very rural school to a big city with gangs, major drugs, etc. In his "old" school the only gangs were gangs of cows! Massachusetts to Texas-and even though the Massachusetts people had me scared s****less, he adjusted very well.