America's Top Public High Schools

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by smurfgirl

Like I said in my previous post, AP scores are not everything. (This is one of the reasons that I think a lot of the "rankings" of schools locally and across the country are somewhat pointless; there are so many criteria that aren't analyzed that should be, and some that are taken into account that are can be false indicators, like AP scores.)

If what you say is true, then your team is a brilliant example of the point I am trying to prove. Standardized test scores are not always a good indication of someone's ability to understand a subject and apply themselves to a real-world task (like building a robot) or to communicate effectively to make meaningful contributions to the world (like community service).

If you ever came to Hawaii and asked about a college-prep curriculum at our school, no one would even consider sending their kid to Waialua.
Part of our (robotics program) mission at our school, is trying to change that mentality. Private schools in Hawaii only accept the creme of the crop and you have your fair share of public schools that I refer to as the "public private schools." Almost all of them have FIRST teams now.
The pressure for us to deliver a high-level program to continue to attract high-level sponsorship from large businesses and foundations..................well, lets just say its beyond the roof.
My role on the team has slowly moved from construction team to lead administrator/coordinator/coach/documentation-leader in order to solely work on this aspect of our team.