Thank You Allendale, from James Troost

My name is James Troost. I am a New Options student that came from a local high school. I came to New Options in early February of 2013. I have so far enjoyed my experience with New Options and I plan  on staying until I graduate.

Everyone comes to New Options for a reason. It is not just a school that a parent would enroll their kid into to get a regular high school experience. That being said, I am going to share the reason I have ended up at New Options. At my old school I was very stressed out. I have been going through a lot of personal life problems that caused me to go off the deep end. School became so stressful for me to the point where I could not concentrate in any class. At one point, I am not entirely sure when, I just gave up on myself and started to ruin my own potential.

Now with me not caring about myself as far as school goes, my quality of life drastically went downhill. My parents really had no way of motivating me because if I don’t care about myself no one is going to be able to get me to care about school. Not caring was what I saw as the only way to relieve the stress that was brought onto me.

After my parents ran out of ideas to try to help me, they suggested that I just drop out. If I wasn’t going to do anything in school, there really is no point in going. I really could not do that to myself. Just taking all of my potential and throwing it into the garbage. I was not going tolet that happen. So then my parents suggested the idea of enrolling me into New Options. This just seemed like the best of both worlds. I am going to be able to graduate from high school but on top of that I am not going to stress myself out to the point where I can’t function. This is what I saw to be the best solution to my problem.

New Options, I feel, was created to help those in difficult times to get as close as possible to reaching their full potential. I find that it is doing that for me. The reasons I enjoy this school are simple. New Options helps me complete all of my assignments within the school hours, that way I do not have the stress of bringing loads of work home with me. That was a huge problem at my old school.

Another reason I really enjoy this school is because everyone here has their own story, their own reason for being here. That helps me stay motivated because now I know I am not the only one dealing with these problems. All of the teachers here truly want to see you pass with flying colors, and they are willing to do anything they can do to help you achieve that. And nothing is more important in school than teachers that care.

New Options is a place that I am happy going to. I personally feel that it is the reason I started to care about my life again. If anyone ever goes through what I went through, I would strongly recommend that you enroll as soon as possible. When you feel there are no options left, there is always New Options.