By Anthony Ciano, Staff Writer
September 29, 2023
ROCKLAND- Students living in towns outside of Rockland have the opportunity to join the school community.
School Choice is the opportunity for students living in towns outside of Rockland to attend Rockland High School.
Although not many towns around us offer this, Rockland takes pride in its school-choice population and acceptance.
According to Dr. John Harrison, “Rockland High School currently has 35 school choice students."
With a decent number of school choice students, Rockland High School is always looking to expand opportunities to others.
Extracurriculars are a component that Rockland High School prides itself on.
Students living in other towns are not only able to attend RHS but are also welcome to participate in the many extracurricular activities and sports offered.
Junior Joshua Campoverde, an involved school choice representative, stated that the most appealing extracurriculars to him are “SGC and for sports Winter and Spring Track.”
Campoverde, originally born in Brockton, lived in the Dominican Republic and now lives in Abington.
Campoverde believes that “Rockland has a lot of really accepting people in the community and the spirit in the school is something that [he has] seen before.”
Although school choice can have its pros and cons, the pros seem to attract students.
Junior Xander Wehnau, a school choice student born in California who now lives in Abington, believes that “Rockland is such a great community to be a part of because it is loving, compassionate, and always helps out when you are in need.”
With school choice being established, Rockland High School is able to open up amazing opportunities to students from all over Massachusetts.
Dr. Harrison said Rockland is “able to offer many of the same programs and services that large schools have but (in) a tight-knit community”.
Many students choose this community because Rockland is able to support each other through academics, extracurriculars, and many areas of life.
According to the website schoolchoiceweek.com, out of the 306 school districts in Massachusetts, currently only 170 offer school choice, including Rockland.
With Rockland being one of them, the faculty seems to have no plans to stop the school choice program at the high school.
Dr. Harrison adds that if school choice happened to be removed, “students already enrolled would stay enrolled."