My oldest son goes to high school next year. In our small town there are really 3 choices (excluding religious schools, which I'm not doing). One choice is great academics, military-style boarding school. My son is young because of late summer birthday and a grade skip and he doesn't want to leave home (nor do I want that, but I'd sacrifice if he wanted it), so that's out, at least for a couple years. The other two are kind of like out of a TV show with the slightly privileged and the "other side of the tracks". We live in the area feeding the privileged school, but zone exemption is possible. Believe it or not, the other side of the tracks is supposed to be a better school, particularly for math and sciences. My dilemma is whether I should send him to the other side of the tracks (sorry to keep using that euphemism, but it fits) where he'll encounter gangs (not maybe, but definite) and may not connect with a social group at all, so it'd be purely for the academics, or to the privileged school. I think he'd be able to succeed academically either way, but I don't know whether I'd be doing him a disservice in the big picture of life by sending him to the "other" school. Both schools offer some APs and honors courses. Only the "other" offers science clubs/competitions and they seem to have a better, more interested staff & admin.
I've always scorned parents who make school decisions based on "friends", and here I find myself agonizing on precisely that. My kid is not particularly sociable as I'm sure most PG kids have trouble finding a peer group with common interests, but he's been isolated in small class settings all through his schooling, that I just thought he should have some social opportunities in high school. I guess part of me is also afraid that if he doesn't get some experience with friends and fun in high school, he might go wild in college when he should really focus on academics. Any insights/suggestions?
