4516 Laurel Ave
McAllen, TX 78501

This school has been the worst to deal with in regards to attendance! My oldest daughter was highly involved in church as she served as the Regional Leader for the South Central region. With this leadership role, my daughter was involved with creating spiritual retreats 4x a year that involved 150-400 youth members from CO, NM, TX, OK, SD, KS. SHS did not recognize her role nor involvement with church and would not pre-approve any missed days. Even with a letter from the Director of our church. They said her involvement was not recognized as a Holy Day and would marked all her missed absences as unexcused. In addition, they are not giving credit to my Junior student due to attendance. My Junior student had Dr's orders to stay home as she was dx with hand foot & mouth which is highly contagious. So in order to avoid further contamination, we kept her quarantined at home for 4 days (Dr's orders were for 7 days). My daughter had 1 more absence, and now is currently not getting credit for classes that she has successfully completed. SHS states that no credit will be issued if 90% of school is not attended regardless of approved or not approved attendance. They have not been willing to work with us and just state that although the class was completed, my daughter will not be getting credit!This is absolutely ridiculous as my kids have been excellent students and excel academically. I am appalled that Religious Leadership roles outside of school are not recognized and were counted against my oldest.. and that Dr orders to stay home counted against my Junior student. The staff at SHS was neither willing or able to work with us on these matters as they stated that the State of TX requires ALL students to be at school for 90% of the time or NO CREDIT will be given. After further investigation on the state of TX attendance policy, I have found this to not be true, however SHS will not comply with anything else.

Scholars are happy and excited about learning. Teachers and staff are friendly and quick to help out.

I've had a handful of issues in the the years my child has been attending. I've seen my child's learning process digress as this school has continued to place my child with children that need more specialized attention. I diligently drive to assist my child in advanced ideas and methods during the summers and after school only to have my child placed in a low expection class. My child is not challenged to grow and advance learning skills and now has a " I don't have to do more because it is not expected of me in my class" view. I am not okay with this minimal goal setting and this school needs to do more to encourage just the opposite mentality in these children. I've been told by a teacher that they won't push them to read so they enjoy reading more. Goal setting IS pushing them to read. Give them a higher goal and at least give them the opportunity to meet a higher challenge. The expectation from the higher level classes vs the lower level classes is extreme. The Starr test wouldn't be as stressful if some of these children were taught with a bit more confidence in their ability to comprehend. "Things are difficult if WE make them difficult" is what I have always told my child. Every child that is capable of being challenged at a higher level SHOULD be challenged. This school is creating a pool of children that will have to work that much harder in high school and college to catch up to the median. Unless this is this district's median. Needless to say we will be disenrolling; my child is worth more than this.