Episode Details

Anthony Godfrey:
Welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. It's an alternative high school where you will find some incredibly talented teachers and students doing amazing things. On this episode of the Supercast, we take you inside Valley High School, where a different approach to learning is changing lives and leading students to success in ways some never imagined.

We are here with two students from Valley High School to hear directly from them what it's like to be here, but first let's let them introduce themselves.

Axinia:
I'm Axinia, I'm the student body representative.

Kylee:
I'm Kylee. I'm also on the school leadership team.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. I know you also go by Z. So I'm gonna go with that. Z, let's start out with just talking about why you've chosen to be at Valley.

Axinia:
So I chose to be at Valley because at my boundary school, when I moved states, because I lived in Arizona and then I moved to Utah, they didn't transfer all of my transcripts, so I was missing credits. But previously to that, I had had major back surgery and I had an infection that was like killing me because it got into my spine and my hardware. So from that I had like 72 absences, just that. And then I was missing more credits on top of that. I decided to go to Valley the next year, just so I could get caught up with my grades and stuff like that. And I also know Valley was a really good school because my sister had previously come here.

Anthony Godfrey:
Kylee, tell me why you've chosen to be at Valley.

Kylee:
Similar to Z, I had a lot of like health issues and things like that. And at my boundary school, they were not very accommodating. They didn't really like, excuse the absences. I tried to work with the teachers and the teachers wouldn't really work with me as well. So I actually got a couple different people that recommended that I go to Valley. So I decided why not give it a shot? And so I came and I love it here. I was really scared at first, because Valley has like a lot of bad stereotypes, but I found like none of those to be true.

Anthony Godfrey:
You talked about some of the stereotypes about Valley High School. I'm sure that you've both heard those. What are some of the misconceptions about Valley?

Axinia:
That like it's only a school for like delinquent or drug addicts or like drug dealers. And it's like, there's those at every school, not just Valley. Valley is just a school where they still don't put up with it, but they just want you to get your work done so you can graduate. They want you to graduate. They're not gonna tell you no, or put you down or anything. They're gonna let you know that that's probably not the best choice, but they're gonna continue to push you to do good.

Anthony Godfrey:
So the expectations remain high, but there's an approach that helps you overcome maybe the things that you're dealing with.

Axinia:
Like they also make it seem like it's all the students and it's not. A lot of the students here don't even associate with that.

Kylee:
I think the major thing that I got before coming to Valley is like, that's the school for the bad kids. What's wrong with you? Why are you going to Valley? Kind of thing. So that kind of freaked me out a little bit that I was gonna be put in that stereotype. But after being at Valley, I found that like, none of the kids are bad kids. Like everyone here is really genuine.

Anthony Godfrey:
How do you feel students