A New Chapter

This week marked the first day of school for Hope and Grace. It came up so fast; I mean, didn't we just start the month of August?! It could be worst, the schools in Maryville started Aug. 4th. This was a particularly challenging start; Grace started Jr. High, Hope- High School.

Grace is going to Powell Middle School, Hope's school from last year. We met her teachers, signed up for PTA (finally) and walked around. She has a new science lab along with a beautiful new gym.

Hope, as written earlier, is starting Hardin Valley Academy; a school that was opened to the public just last Thursday. She went through to her classes so much she didn't have any problem finding them.
Hardin Valley Academy is a new model of high school that incorporates the college model. There are four academies: Liberal Arts (Hope's chosen academy), Health Science, Law and Public Affairs and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathmatics. They must meet all the regular high school requirements in addition to the academy requirements. These will count towards college credits. She will have enough credits to enter college as a Junior in college after high school.

Each academy has its own principal, advisor and counselor and each semester has four blocks of classes . It is the only one of its kind in the state. The principal stated there are all schools from all over the nation coming to learn more about it. The facility is beautiful, each class is equipped with a smart board and two computers. The library has about 25 computers and more shiny books than the Borders. It is also nestled in the foothills and adjacent to one of state colleges. This allows the professors to come and teach at the high school as well.

The grading is stricter that California. All Knox County Schools grade tougher; An "A" is a precentage of 100-93, a "B" is 92-83 and so on. Hardin Valley in order to graduate from the Acamedy you must posess a "B" average. The actual prinicpal over HVA was able to hand pick each teacher: good for us, sour grapes for other schools.

The only draw back is it is in Oak Ridge. The same Oak Ridge that has the ORNL (Oak Ridge National Lab-from the Mahattan Project-someday we will have to rent that movie). So I go to Grace's school about an hour early (I get alot of reading done) to get in first in line so we can drive 20 minutes to get Hope from her school. They both start and end at the same time so Grace arrives early and Hope gets picked up late. Grace doesn't seem to mind; she wants to go there to HVA when she starts high school (I don't even want to entertain that idea just yet).

Grace started her school having friends (yeah). Hope once again started a different school knowing no one. I couldn't believe she wanted to go through that again after facing the same thing just last year. But she never wavered. She loves her classes (her favorites are acting and choir, of course) and has made friends. Grace's favorite is Choir-no suprise there.

We have now etablished our route after much trial and error. Norm would call me at work and tell me how he went, I would see him in the evening and tell how I went. The first day was tough (on me). Ah back to school lunches, projects and No. 2 pencils. -Tina