When someone hears the words “small town,” they often think of a tight-knit community where a tiny population is balanced out by friendly smiles. This was my experience growing up in Idaho City, Idaho.
Nestled in the mountains of southern Idaho, Idaho City has a population of 459 people and is about an hour-long drive from any hospital, stoplight or Taco Bell. My high school had about 110 students, and my graduating class was made up of just 23 seniors.
There are many great things that come with being raised in a community with 1,000 people or less – making friends at school was easy, because I often had the same people in all of my classes, and the support the school received from the community for anything from sport events to school concerts was incredible.
Jessica Gee
However, as proud as I am of my small-town community, graduating from a small-town high school came with some disadvantages.
After starting college classes, I learned that a lot of my classmates had six or more credits under their belts before they even arrived to school. This bewildered me – I thought a high school student had to be a kid-genius to start receiving college credit before high school graduation.
However, I was quickly informed that many schools from different cities offered Advanced Placement (AP), Honors or other college credit classes. I felt like I had been slightly cheated, because my school didn”t offer these kinds of courses.
A lot of AP classes are set up how actual college courses are. This means that beyond earning college credit, a lot of students from other schools received more opportunities to prepare them for a higher education than I did at a smaller school.
Not only were those students more prepared for college than I was, but some of them also graduated sooner than me. If a student began high school the same year as me and took more advanced courses, they could graduate a semester or even a year early. That”s less time they need to take in college, and less student loan debt for them after they graduate.
Also, high schools in small towns usually lack proper funding.
During my time at high school, both our arts and foreign language programs were severely cut back due to budget constraints. When our Spanish teacher was fired and our two-year foreign language requirement remained, many of us had to switch to online classes, which was no substitute for an actual foreign language teacher.
Though disadvantaged, students from small towns are not unintelligent – in fact, I think students from small towns often have a unique perspective of the world and have a good set of core values. Small-town high schools offer advantages that might not be available in larger communities, such as overwhelming community support and involvement in extracurricular activities.
However, if I ever have kids, I will not make them go to a school where there is inadequate educational opportunities and poor funding. I regret not having the chance to take Honors or AP courses and I empathize with other students of small schools that lacked important courses or teachers.
I want people to have the educational experiences I never received. As much as I love my small town, when it comes to academic opportunities, small town schools often get the short end of the stick.
Jessica Gee can be reached at [email protected]