Oh, Happy Day!

Yesterday Josh, Hannah, and I had a meeting with the high school teacher at the charter school.  It. Was. Amazing.  Our little hearts were doing flip-flops of joy through the whole thing.

Some HUGE pluses:

*They have a strict, modest dress-code - they try to teach the idea that what you look like is not who you are - it's what's inside that defines you.  Rules include: modest shorts, no tanks, no funky-colored hair, no making out in the hallways.

*They use 4 programs for the subjects that are not taught by the main teacher - one of which is BYU High School.  !!!!!!  Joy!!

*They believe that family is important and want parents and families involved.  The teacher said they encourage the kids to strengthen their family relationships as family is the fundamental unit of society and so important.  How awesome is that???

*They want all of their kids doing service.  This year for the first time the entire high school is going to Nicaragua on a service trip to help build schools.  They raised money for the trip all year.

*All their kids are encouraged to be college-bound.  They take field-trips to visit a variety of colleges to get the kids excited for that.

*They are not big on bureaucracy (that was music to Josh's ears - you can imagine).  They do the state testing, but there is so much flexibility in how you get your education - it really can be tailored to your personal needs and talents.

I am still totally excited. This is seriously exactly what we were looking for in a school opportunity for our kids.  I'm feeling like it is a definite blessing that she won the "lottery" this year and got in.  Ms. K asked Hannah to consider being her accompanist for choir next year, as the one they have now is a graduating senior (a girl that we know as she and Hannah take piano from the same teacher).  I think Hannah would like to sing...maybe I'll have to offer to help play.  Stretch my talents a little bit.

Anyway, I don't know about the other two, but I was ready to do backflips as we came out of that meeting.   The great thing is, once one family member is in, siblings are automatically eligible if they want to go.  So as long as we keep one kid in school, we are good and can take advantage of so much of what the school has to offer.