Souhegan HS vs Surrounding School Districts

Submitted by OkLime8702 t3_ye8dbc in newhampshire

Hello couldn’t find anything specifically on this but anybody have any idea why Souhegan seems to rate below neighboring districts (e.g. Hollis, Bedford etc?). Having just visited these areas Amherst appears to be comparably nice and charming with similar property value tax base so just curious why this district seems to get a lower rating/drop the ball relatively speaking. Any local thoughts and perspectives would be helpful. Thanks in advance

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a1234321 t1_itwor3p wrote

Highschool rankings are pretty garbage unless you're looking at the absolute top or bottom.

Any of the middle of the road schools aren't going to be appreciably different.

It honestly mostly comes down to the kid and the parents. Schools don't do a lot for kids unless they have passionate, rockstar teachers and those are generally in the top schools.

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Larry_O_Arabia t1_itwwjwx wrote

Souhegan also has a unique philosophy that people either love or hate, i.e., students call teachers by first names, no bells, off campus privileges, and to put it in glib broad strokes, a hippy-dippy approach. Real good school if you're looking for a less-structured environment. No idea what Hollis or Bedford HS's are like, but I imagine they are more traditional than Souhegan. We can get into a stupid argument about which town is nicest/ richest, but all three are ballpark similar upper-middle-class affluence, so I doubt it's a funding issue.

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tehproxy t1_itxlc0j wrote

I don't have any kids at Souhegan, but my thought is that they tried to differentiate themselves as a town in the past by joining the Coalition of Essential Schools and trying different things to separate themselves from the competitive nature of the Hollis/Bedford school systems, which I believe are more traditional, but also more competitive.

The philosophy that instead of raising a few rockstar students, to instead try to ensure a base level of success for all students seems to me to be the difference between Amherst and the surrounding towns.

They left the Coalition a while back, but I still think Amherst has an identity crisis as a town that doesn't know what it wants to be. I maintain that anyone with $1M to spend on a house would choose Bedford/Hollis/Nashua if they wanted to stay closer to civilization than to choose Amherst as a first pick. The rest of us with (approx) $1M homes are here because we like the big lots and privacy or something.

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UnfairAd7220 t1_ity4jp1 wrote

Your zoning lot size is a feature, not a bug. Unfortunately, it limits your tax base and with you guys being a spendy District, that translates to a high property tax. It gets you nice surroundings, but it's expensive.

Souhegan has been around a lot longer than Hollis Brookline HS and BHS. I want to say HBHS was built in the mid 1990s and BHS was opened in 2006.

I'm in Bedford, so I can't really talk about HB.

What I can say is that when BHS was being developed after the vote to build it passed in 2004, the Amherst HS model was considered and widely and rapidly rejected.We settled on the Bow model thanks to the first principal, George Edwards. IB focus for those driven students. A responsible education for all the other students.

Bedford's zoning is more accepting of commercial expansion and, along with financially aggressive school boards gets that competitive education at a state wide quite low tax rate.

Bedford's tax base is pretty close to Merrimack, but they score (HS wise) at the top of the bottom half, and they spend $5M more than Bedford to do it with 500 fewer students. Their cost per student is similar to Amherst.

The difference is the quality of the School Boards. Until places like Amherst and Merrimack get some aggressive management chops, they'll continue to just muddle along.

Another reality is that the academic performance of students can be predicted by the economic success of the parents. Seeing that Bedford and Hollis jockey for the highest income position in the state, their academic expectations and success give them a leg up...

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jgren91 t1_itwywzp wrote

It's a major problem in Amherst with that school. They ask for more and more money every year but the school actually gets worse. This past town voting we gave the middle finger to the school system and told them to deal with what they have.

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Disciplined2021 t1_itwtdwk wrote

It has to do with their administration and awful special education programs.

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YouAreHardtoImagine t1_itz17gn wrote

That sometimes happens when you mix multiple districts in one school (ie: different theories on education, monetary support from towns, etc.) Not saying that’s the one here but definitely one I’ve experienced before.

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