Regarding John Horgan’s March 12 column, “Oceana High School is facing a new reality,” you know little of Oceana, an alternative public school pumping out ridiculously prepared and well-educated young adults. An inclusive, project based school with a focus on humanitarianism, immersive research projects, social emotional health and preparation for a meaningful college, career and adult life. Unlike traditional schools, students must complete a Senior Exhibition project and 100 hours of volunteer service.
Participation in extracurricular options is down? Oceana just began a popular music program, Rock Band, where students are learning, writing and performing their own music. Diminishing numbers in public speaking? Our entire program is hinged on public speaking from Freshman Orientation Project to Sophomore, Junior and then Senior Exhibition, essentially a thesis project required in order to graduate with an Oceana diploma. Where students complete a written research paper and present orally to hundreds of peers and community evaluators, a public speaking task most adults wouldn’t attempt.
Diminishing participation? An award-winning mock trial team, laundry list of student led clubs, or our athletic teams you elude are suffering? Our soccer teams that completed tremendous seasons, our active and growing cheer team?
The attempt to diminish a thriving high school simply because they opted to move to a different athletic league has nothing to do with the success of its program. Yes, we are moving to a league other than PAL, which has no bearing on our school climate or our skyscraping college acceptance rates. Shame on you to equate a minor league change to the inaccurate nods to school closures.
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.