This school rocks...at least from 1995-1999 it did!
The whole idea was to bus the "rich" kids to the "poor" side of town to help get more funding to the school. How did they do it, you ask? Well, duh, put the magnet program out there. Little did they know, they did us a HUGE favor!! We learned how to use BASIC programming (totally outdated) AND how to hide under your desk because of a bike-by shooting...yup, I said it, a BIKE-BY SHOOTING!
I went to Manchester, Computech and Edison and wouldn't trade it for the world! I was a HUGE nerd. Those of us in the magnet program (I'll use Compu-nerds from here on out), were only required to take 2 years of PE because we were also required to take 1 year of computer programming. We also had more AP classes than anyone else. I only took a few tests and only passed English. All thanks to Mr. Torrence but I fear that Ms. Griffith got the credit. Mr. Torrence was one of the greatest teachers ever to, well, teach. He made the Wasteland by TS Elliot interesting...that's hard to do for 16 year olds!
Anyway, the compu-nerds intereacted nicely with the neighborhood kids but let me just say this. Despite a few compu-nerds being baseball "stars" the neighborhood kids totally wiped the floor with us. Luckily we were all on the same team so they made us look ALMOST as good as them.
Why else do I love this school...for one, at lunch, you might see loads of people randomly start running in one direction. Most people think "FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT." Nope, it was a cipher. (For those of you not in the know, a cipher is a group of kids rapping or "freestyling" in a circle)
For two, we had open campus lunches. Often we would start our lunch early and head down the street for the LARGEST SODA you could ever buy for 79 cents. Seriously dudes, 72 OUNCES of yummy, sugary goodness for 79 cents!!! That's madness. Also, the woman who worked here was an 85 year old black woman who treated everybody like they were her grandkids. Therefore we called her "grandma" and never knew her real name. I refuse to go back to that store for fear that shes not there.
Man, just thinking about all my memories makes me miss high school just a little. read more