Does FHS Meets It’s Student’s Needs?

Boston Magazine ranked FHS no. 66 in the District out of 135 based on Enrollment, Student/Teacher Ratio, Per-Pupil Spending, Graduation Rate, No. of Sports teams, Half or Full Pre-k, and No. of  AP Classes.

 Mrs. McKay, Head of the Guidance said,  

 “FHS does their best in supporting and meeting every student’s requirements in the school”.

  I Queen Butahe, a senior at FHS and also a reporter for Panther Book had a chance to interview some seniors, Guidance counselors and some FHS’s Aluminates in order to answer the big question of all times, how prepared are FHS students are for the next big step, college?

 When I asked Mrs. McVay that how prepared does she think the students in FHS are for college she said,

“Students of FHS receive enough support from their teachers and their Guidance councilors to help them do well not only here in high school but also in college as well”.

Ms. Woods, FHS Freshmen Guidance Councilor added,

“Although I don’t meet with students to talk about colleges, I do insist them to take as many challenging courses at FHS. I do know that challenging courses would be very beneficial to them in the long run, when starting to apply to colleges in their senior year”. 

Specific in terms of academics, she feels that FHS students are better prepared in English and Math Department. In addition she added that

 “The Study shows that FHS’s AP average scores are higher than most other high schools inMassachusetts”.

 An FHS alumnus, Chris Anderson, who now attendsBrownUniversity, said,

 “FHS did very well in preparing me for college especially in the English Department. In college, we do tons of writing assignments. Because FHS had a great English Department, I find myself not so stressed out as my fellow students from other high schools”.

 About Math, he said,

 “I do not take math courses in college, in order to say how well FHS had prepared me for Math classes in college. Although I do think even if I did take math classes in college, I wouldn’t face any issues because FHS had a very good math department as well”.

Ben Balon, FHS alumnus, who now attends Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, said

 “FHS taught me all I needed to learn. Most importantly to me was Theater. FHS has an amazing Theater Department. Taking Theater in high school made it very easier for me to major in Theater in College”.

Another FHS alumnus, Cameron Kuney,UniversityofMassachusetts Amherstsaid,

“I loved FHS’s Math,Language and History Department. My favorite class in FHS was American History.  I am taking math course in college; I find myself not having a hard time understanding math because I had great math teachers in high school. They taught me very well”. 

I asked Chris Anderson, what his fears were when applying to colleges; He answered,

“Since I was applying to very competitive colleges like Brown, my biggest fear was if elected to go, and how I could afford to pay for it. I was not so much worried of either I was going to get in or not.  I had confidence in myself that FHS had made me the strongest l students I could be”.

Well, even though FHS is doing its best to meet its student’s needs, there are some things that FHS lacks for its’ students.  Mrs McVay says,

“Although we as a school are very diverse in terms of extra curriculum, sexuality and class, we lack racial diversity in the school among the students and the teachers. This is an issue that FHS cannot do much about it because of the lack of racial diversity in our town, Franklin”.

 I asked Mrs. McVay about, what other things/programs does FHS lacks to provide to its’ students, she stated

“We also lack great programs like new student welcome programs for those students, who transfer into our high school. We do not have friendly programs led by students to help new transfer students to adjust into their new environment”.

 In addition, Ms. Woods added

 “I wish that the Freshmen experience program was free so that it could be available to every freshmen before starting high school.”

Ms. Woods also concluded by saying “Even though some freshmen never got to attend Freshmen Experience Program, they don’t find it to be very hard to adjust in FHS. This is because of FHS’s amazing Peer leaders and Peer mentoring Programs that do very well to help freshmen”. I asked Ms. McVay if the school ever tried to come up with such a program to help transfer students, who come to FHS she answered,

“Yes, the school did try. We tried bringing amazing programs like The Rachel’s Challenge but it failed after few months in school because of the luck of the support”.

In terms of the racial diversity problem in FHS, Chris Anderson says

 “I don’t see that FHS has a problem in racial diversity because it itself is diversity in so many ways not necessarily racially. The school is just fine the way it is”.