Cissna Schools gets three stars because:
a) there are some…read moretruly good teachers here.
b) the library is more than decent for a town this size.
c) there is no c.
So really it should get two stars, but I'm going to be overly nice. I attended school here for far more years than I care to remember, and there are plenty of downsides to this school system, believe you me.
It is unbelievably small, so there is approximately 0% diversity of any kind. This promotes some of the most mindless clone-ism I have ever seen, and I currently live in L.A., so that's saying something. The town itself is a bastion of the most elementary Christian, right-wing fundamentalism, and although this DOES, contrary to some progressives' opinion, have some positives, such as a general atmosphere of honesty and self-reliance, overall it combines to a blanket of stifling conformism and appalled shock at anything different or, heaven forbid, liberal.
Because this is a small school, problems that all schools have are here magnified. For example, in all schools much of the student body is apathetic, average, mundane, and petty. However, in large school systems there are enough exceptional students to give them classes and programs to challenge and stimulate them. In a small school, it is general policy (and is considered even a necessity) to cater, if not quite to the lowest denominator, then certainly to the lower end of the spectrum. This is a tragedy.
The student body tends to be close-minded, unambitious, and of the opinion that a good Friday night involves drinking in a cornfield and/or driving four-wheelers through mud and/or shooting wildlife with high-powered rifles and/or going to tanning salons and working out (for all the rural-ness, there's a most emphatic value assigned to looking good---conventionally good, of course). The most popular, ubiqutious aspect is, surprise, the drinking part.
Also, this school system has one true pride: sports. This is sad, as it means academics are often sacrificed or cut to size in order to bow to the pseudo-gods of the playing fields. This isn't a particularly Cissna thing; in basically all American schools jocks enjoy a much higher status than nerds. In a school this size, though, there isn't a large amount of status to go around to begin with, so this means there's very little passion left over at all for academics, if any.
No person could wish any truly talented or intelligent child to attend here unless a proponent of the theory that boredom and misery build character. And even then, it might be overdoing it a little.
HOWEVER, as I mentioned before, there ARE some very caring, dedicated, intelligent teachers, teachers who will take the extra step to aid students who truly wish to learn. They are the greatest asset any school can have and are by FAR the greatest asset of this particular school system. I salute them, and it's to them I dedicate these three stars.
