Two other options for you to try. Windows Server 2008 R2 will run the Kinect for Windows SDK. A bit over kill in some ways but it works even if not officially supported for all application. And students can get it for free if their school signs up for DreamSpark which is also free.
http://www.dreamspark.com is the place and a faculty member from your high school can sign up and give access codes to students. If fact if you are interested in software development this is much too good a deal for you not to jump on. :-)
Next option, for those of you who really like living on the bleading edge of technology Windows 8 Developer Preview is supported and is a free download from
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516 Read all the warnings first as this is pre-beta and cannot be reoved with an uninstall procedure.