Dear Editor:
As the mom of a freshman at Hoboken High, I wanted to share our experience with the school so far and with the high school application process that we went through at this time last year. Our daughter went to elementary school at Hoboken Catholic and middle school at Elysian Charter. When it was time to start the insanely competitive, stressful and downright silly process of applying to high schools, we were not considering HHS at all for reasons that we are embarrassed to admit today. We listened to rumors and untrue information and got caught up in the negativity that seems to be contagious in Hoboken. At the last minute, we went to the open house at HHS basically dragging our daughter there under the assumption that we wouldn’t be sending her there anyway. We were blown away by the facility, the programs offered and the staff that we met that night. We had no idea there would be an honors track or AP program that rivals any of the other local high schools we were considering. We were incredibly impressed with the theater and sports programs. Basically, we had to eat a huge serving of humble pie that night.
We went on other school tours, spent a ton of time and money creating a portfolio for her applications, applied to half a dozen schools. Our daughter was on the honor roll at Elysian Charter and had great state test scores. We choose HHS and despite other people giving us their negative opinions on our choice, we didn’t change our minds.
Our daughter goes to school in the morning looking forward to her day. She comes home at night with a huge smile on her face. She didn’t know many of the kids on the first day, now she has a great group of friends and feels good about herself. We know her future is bright and we believe HHS will play a big part in that.
If you’re in the midst of filling out applications, going on school tours, creating a portfolio just to get your child into high school, I ask you to be open minded and come take a look at HHS, meet the principal and her staff, ask questions. Hey – come to a home football game! Hopefully you won’t have to eat as large a serving of humble pie as we did.
We teach our children not to judge a book by it’s cover…let’s lead by example.
Sincerely,
Sarah Raynor