South Walton High School

Do not send your children to this school.

If I wasn’t for some of the relationships I’d formed there I would have left without a doubt. But teachers like Mr Libby, Ms Smith and Mr Hartness who made you not feel so alone there because despite what you think the administration doesn’t care about doing what’s best for you, they care about the stats and how good the school looks. I was an honors and AP student my whole life, my senior year life started to fall apart bc my parents lost there house and went to jail and I was crashing on my grandmas couch while she took care of my sisters and great grandmother who was full time care. I missed school a lot bc life seemed void and I had no motivation. South Walton didn’t like how my attendance was making them look, they told me they’d kick me out and have me walk at Freeport bc my grandma lives 3 miles away on the first road across the bridge which was technically Freeport but I lived closer to sowal. I tried to reach out for help bc I was having a hard time, when I expressed how I didn’t want to be here (hoping the vice principal would tell me why it’s important to go come and graduate since my parents weren’t in the picture to be the adults I could talk to) but what did he say? Nothing encouraging, he said “I’ll hand you withdraw forms right now, I don’t care”. Like seriously?? I obviously was a kid in trouble who needed help? They even had things on file showing I was in therapy and I had never cried so hard at school. But he wasn’t there for me, and after I wrote a letter to them about how they didn’t care about me the vice principal went out of his way to say hi to me in the halls, but still couldn’t get my name right, because we mean the little to them. All they care about is is being a “A+ School”. Needles do to say I still graduated with a 3.75 and am going to college this fall despite south Walton’s lack of help.

Horrible, I’ve never in my life been treated so bad. I get that students need to follow the rules, but there is no need to demand things, and make me feel like less of a person. The principal won’t eveb let me talk. And I have anxiety, so I freak out easily. Well I was having a panic attack she was more concerned about a meeting. And well I wanted to talk to my mom, she when back to her meeting, and had me miss lunch waiting. Then later all she did was tell me to go back to class. I needed to speak to my mom, I was having a break down and she didn’t care one bit. And that isn’t even the full story.

Things have dramatically improved with our new principal. Academics are more challenging and there is more interaction with parents.