Anderson High School

Our child is now a senior. After moving to Austin from the East Coast, we toured and spoke to representatives at 4 high schools in the area. We landed on Anderson for its diverse student body and IB program. Our child is graduating and we have nothing but good things to say about the school. It hasn't always been a breeze. Our child has met academic and social challenges along the way. Unpleasant ones. But the school has always been incredibly supportive - from counselors to teachers to vice principals to learning coordinators. Yes, there have been a few undesireable teachers. These kinds, however, were few and far between in my child's overall 4-year experience. Even though we steered our child towards the IB program, we weren't sure they were going to pass muster with their grades and be permitted to partipate. Anderson worked with us to make it happen and our child exceled. Both the academic rigor and engaging teachers made our child into an interested and interesting student! They are now a critical and curious learner. Whew. We would be remiss to also not point out the fantastic support from Anderson's college and career advisor. She was amazing. This is our second go-around with "the next step" and she offered top-notch advice - in touch with our child through the journey.

We’ve had a great experience at Anderson. It is a big school with lots of opportunities. It’s a great mix of kids and mirrors “real world” demographics, which I appreciate. I love that my STEM child felt both challenged and encouraged.

Coming to this school from one of the top schools in Dallas I thought I would be fine, because my research said that this was a top performing school in Austin. Little did I know that the school doesn't assign homework, which is fine (except in math), yet kids always complained. The school rarely assigned reading assignments, yet kids always complained. The workload was less than what I had in sixth grade and I was being taught basic grammar and vocab in an AP class. I was underwhelmed with the education and ended up leaving my sophomore year.

If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't ever picked this school. As a parent, do your research with the 70% of children that get left behind here. It would serve you best to speak/find those in the bottom 10% so that you see what suffering they have and will continue to go through.