By Renee Aymar
I started at Minnetonka my freshman year and everything was going great; I had a lot of friends and my grades were good. About half way through the year, my grades started slipping because I didn’t understand what I was learning and I was not getting the help I needed to fix my problem. There was no time for the teachers to wait for me to understand things because the class sizes were just too big. So my grades continued to slip and I ended up failing just about everything except gym. That’s when I came into Mini-School.
Since I have been in Mini-School my high school experience has made a huge turn around. I think this is because the classes are smaller and much more personal. I also feel like I can ask as many questions as I want without making everyone else mad about waiting for me. I also think that Mini-School has worked so well for me because I am learning about things that I am actually somewhat interested in and that makes it a lot easier to focus and do well.
One other reason I think that Mini-School has helped me is because there is rarely, if ever, homework. In main stream I would never do my homework because I would get home and forget how to do it or have questions about it and no one to answer them. So doing all the work in class makes it easy to get help.
Mini-School is also helpful because I feel the teachers are way more down to earth and understanding and because of that they can teach in different and, I think, more effective ways. When I was finishing my freshman year, I never thought graduating on time would be possible. Because of Mini-School and the wonderful staff, I am now on the right track towards graduating on time.