Laney Walker

This school is great on paper. There's a lot of clubs kids can join (HOSA, TSA, Skills USA, Orchestra, the Reading, Math, and Science Bowls, ACADECA, etc.) and a whole bunch of AP and Dual Enrollment classes for the nerds (including yours truly). On the other hand, if you actually go to this school, it's a lot like a regular middle/high school. Unfortunately, there isn't a basketball or football team, which a lot of kids are upset about. A lot of the kids are pretty nice, even though bullying is still a bit of a problem at our school, but not as much as the average middle/high school. One of the great things about our school is that there are both middle and high school students, which makes the transition to high school a lot easier. High school really starts in 8th grade because there are four high school classes that they take (for high school credits): Algebra I, Physical Science, Spanish/Latin I (Latin is required for everyone in Healthcare), and Engineering/Healthcare I. (For any new 8th graders joining in 24-25, the other classes are 8th grade ELA, Georgia Studies, and Study Skills/Orchestra, and all the teachers are awesome). This year, though, they traded out Spanish/Latin I for PE, and I feel like that might be detrimental to students in Healthcare to put off Latin for a year. One problem I have, though, is that the school started to separate the middle and high schools. For example, middle schoolers have to eat breakfast in the gym, while high schoolers have to eat in the cafeteria in a school of 700. A lot of things have been disorganized over the past year+, and it's starting to turn into a problem. Sometimes the school misses mandatory competitions, schedules were completely unstable for the first few weeks, and in some classes, we have teachers on Zoom with paraprofessionals (even though they're awesome) instead of face to face teachers. The school also hasn't done a great job of notifying parents or students of upcoming events. Their website also needs a lot of updating. The principal is currently intensely focused on the school specific dress code (for example, no hair colors outside of the "natural" range) rather than more pressing issues of conduct and safety. I love ARJ, and it is awesome, but there are a lot of things that need improvement.