This school system is okay at best. I will say that the district has made a lot of terrible…read moredescisions when it comes to hiring teachers. The only worthwhile elementary schools are Roosevelt and Cleveland while all the middle schools have terrible violence, bullying, alcohol, and drug problems. The high schools have better education then the others though.

All four of my children have attended or are attending CCS. We absolutely love the school and the…read morecommunity. The school is very structured and disciplinary issues are kept to a minimum. We are so glad we chose CCS 12 years ago for our children. Two have finished and two left to go. This school is definitely worth the money.

Legalism overrules all, including Grace. Unfortunate how the teachers are stressed and frustrated…read moredue to administration's overbearing, relentless, and pugilistic methods to enforce even minor "rules". (e.g., berating a teacher in front of everyone at an athletic event for wearing the "wrong" flat shoes in violation of the code... like Ms. Trungbull and Miss Honey from the movie "Matilda") Did not see love there. Ever. Not in the administration. Not in the teachers. Not in the kids who may be mirroring the adults they are with a majority of the day.

Le Monde has a policy of using second grade for total immersion learning in a foreign language…read more However, not all children, including bright ones, can adapt well to such an environment. The way this was handled for the French class was that students were given insufficient cues for picking up the gist of what was being said, so that some children were unable to understand instructions for subjects other than French. Those children are stunted by the experience, with some having to repeat the grade. Worse, the teacher socially isolated those students who were struggling to keep up. Especially cute was her giving instructions for a school event in French were the children were supposed to don a certain style of attire. Those who missed out on the instructions were inappropriately addressed for the event. When confronted with the problems my child was facing, the principal categorically backed up the teacher, claiming the effectiveness of immersion learning. But the reality is that almost a quarter of the class can't keep up. He and the teacher mean to achieve high standards for the school by washing the under-achievers out.

I can't believe no one has rated my high school!…read more First of all, when I went to high school back in the dark ages the city of Norman divided up the high school into mid high (9-10th grade) and high school (11-12 grade). They were on completely different campuses. I'm not sure why, but it was rumored to keep senior boys away from freshman girls and reduce the teen pregnancy rate. Oklahoma is a largely Baptist and Republican state, and I don't think sex education was high priority. In fact, there was a separate class where all the pregnant students were taught. They were actually separated from the rest of the students and put in a separate class with a hidden entrance and I can swear this is true because I accidentally opened the door to the class and there were like twenty pregnant girls sitting at desks looking horrified at my discovery, girls we all thought had moved away. Thus actually seems very sad and Salem-like, ouch. This perhaps illustrates how divided the student population was- everyone was in a category. Goths, preps, ropers, jocks, cheerleaders, nerds. It was like the Maginot line, each student group had their own hangout on campus and places to smoke cigarettes if they partook. Yes, we could smoke on campus and you could buy cigarettes in vending machines back in the day! I went to school before the internet, so whatever "alternative culture" existed was found in SPY magazine, weird movies (rented at Blockbuster) and zines. My favorite movies were Gothic, Sid and Nancy, and A Room With a View. My favorite musicians, Morrissey and The Cure. So, obviously a very confused gothic romantic. My friends and I were in an amorphous group, a crossover that fit nowhere. We would walk across the street to La Baguette, Taco Mayo, or Homeland grocery store for snacks but normally I would just go in my car and get the heck out of dodge at lunch for a precious 45 minutes to escape the hell that was Norman High. I was a rebel without a cause, a person who had been displaced from her home up North, "Yankee." I had tried in vain to fit in the first two years after my family moved against my wishes to Oklahoma, (ha! Who asks a 13 year old?!) and I had a permanent chip in my shoulder, a square peg in a round hole. Perhaps my attitude was atrocious, but I despised so much of the small minded provincialism and judgmental Bible belting that my penultimate act of rebellion was getting suspended for three days after telling the cheerleading coach who also doubled as a communications teacher to "F*ck Off" after she told me I was sick and disturbed after reading a poem out loud, as per the assignment- happened to be written by Cure lead singer Robert Smith himself which began, "It doesn't matter if we all die," a polemic against nuclear war. Somehow I survived this place, and it made me even more the stubborn and intransigent person I am today. My mindset then: When you have a curly perm, I'll dye my hair black. If you're reading Seventeen, I'll read the Anarchist's Cookbook. I hated school so much after graduating from NHS it took me 19 years to go back, whereupon in a decade I got an associate's, a Bachelor's, and a doctorate degree. I think I learned the most in the 18 years I was out of school, though. My mindset built at NHS: whatever you tell me I can't do, I'll do it. I found my people who helped me cope with this madhouse, and I wish that maybe I hadn't had quite the edge on me so I could have been more open, but my walls had been fortified for survival. I also have eternal gratitude for my creative writing teacher Ms. Argentos who I adored and made me feel safe to express myself and allowed my love of prose and poetry to flourish. If something is stupid and unfair, I'll fight it. I will outlast and outlive you. And, The First Amendment is my favorite amendment!