Did you know that we go to one of the best public schools possible? 

It’s easy to forget how lucky we are to live where we live and go to school where we do. It’s strange to think we live in a time in which going to school is taken for granted. It’s associated more with anxiety and depression than with the hope, opportunity, and gratitude of our grandparents, who viewed going to school as a shot at a better life. We’re lucky to have access to education at all, much less a good education at a school with a lot of resources. It’s easy to take for granted the fact that we go to school in one of the best school districts, in one of the best-educated states, in one of the best-educated countries in the world. In most other places in America, parents would be paying thousands of dollars out of pocket for their kids to receive the quality of education we do. 

Washington State is ranked 4th out of the 50 states for best educational quality. In Washington, there are 244 school districts, and out of those 244 school districts, Issaquah is ranked 4th best. That puts Issaquah School District in roughly the top 5th percentile for education quality in America. We’re so high up in the lucky minority of students it’s hard to comprehend. Everyone that goes to this school has access to some of the highest quality high school education in the world. 

We have access to the kind of education that wealthy parents would pay thousands of dollars worth of yearly dues for their kids to receive. We have access to the kind of education people in third world countries would kill for. We have access to the kind of education that would open up endless doors and opportunities for us, and we have it for free. 

We can complain as much as we want about the pressure of school and the workload involved, about teachers we don’t like and doing things we don’t want to do in a place most of us don’t want to be, five days a week. But in reality, we’ve been given an opportunity that very few people have. We are getting some of the best education in the world, now it’s just up to us what we make of it. Thank you, Issaquah School District.