Western Harnett High School

"I have a grandson that goes to this place I’m not going to school because schools actually teach,at any rate he goes to the cafeteria for breakfast,lunch or whatever and I realize that there’s a lot of people here but when a lunch person would rather throw away food in the trash rather than give it to my grandson your a pathetic excuse for a human and you shouldn’t be around children.He isn’t poor he has his own debit card and he’s nice enough to wait until he sees everyone has food and then tries to get more to eat because he’s hungry and because he’s on the bus at 6:30 every morning and doesn’t get home until late. So if this Hispanic lunch person has kids I hope no one EVER tells YOUR child they can’t have more food because for me to know that YOU have said that to my child you’re a sorry excuse for a human and you don’t deserve and will never be respected"

"It is the best school in the Western Hemisphere despite the threats of school shootings and possible diabetic teachers. In the end, I suppose we can sometimes crawl home from the glorious utopia in one piece, but sometimes we come home in more than one piece. More the merrier, I´d say. The teachers here go out of their way to make people laugh, and sometimes share the glorious experience of laying on the ground and synthesizing with the children by crying with them. The students band together in the great fights against teachers, showing we´re all a grand community. Maybe. It is the best school in the Western Hemisphere despite the threats of school shootings and possible diabetic teachers. In the end, I suppose we can sometimes crawl home from the glorious utopia in one piece, but sometimes we come home in more than one piece. More the merrier, I´d say. The teachers here go out of their way to make people laugh, and sometimes share the glorious experience of laying on the ground and synthesizing with the children by crying with them. The students band together in the great fights against teachers, showing we´re all a grand community. Maybe."

"the school is ok.... i attend there now but, from what ive heared from alumni the school has went down. Most of the kids who play sports at western play for rec because our sports teams suck except for swimming and track."

"As a student who recently graduated (class of 2017) I have the most recent experience. This school might have been better a while ago, but its really gone downhill. I attended for three years, and I was so behind my junior year, because of the lack of help, that I dropped out and pursued a GED ( that I received in July of 2016). The classes are so large, usually 23-31 students from when I attended, that its hard to get help when there's so many other students. Not to mention the lack of fair discipline amongst all the students. In one of my history classes, there was a white male who acted up every single day in class, often yelling, walking around the room, trying to talk to other students while working, and just generally being loud and disruptive. I knew him every single year I attended, and never saw him get suspended or severely reprimanded for being a very disruptive student. But whenever I saw a non-white student acting up, they were yelled at, and reprimanded much more severely than the white students. They often got suspended longer and more often for the same offense. Mind you this is just what I have seen, so I'm sure it's not 100% accurate, but there is definitely a racial bias when reprimanding students. This bias also extends to the police in the building. There are usually one or two officers patrolling during the day, and just from the fights and arrests that I've seen while I attended, they are more likely to taze and physically harm non-white students. One of the other very appalling things that I have seen, or rather not seen, is medically accurate and inclusive sexual education. I did not receive any formal sexual education at all while I attended. I was fine, because I have received some at a previous school overseas, but some of the kids that attended had never been given sex ed in their life. I understand that as a Southern state, usually the protocol for sexual education is abstinence only. Which I don't understand because I've seen numerous girls get pregnant, one of them in the eighth grade when she was only 13. They keep the kids in the dark about sex because they think it will protect them, and they won't have as much sex. But I know so many people who got STDs, got pregnant, or thought they had gotten pregnant, that its depressing. They need to introduce medically accurate sex ed, that covers pregnancy, STDs, different sexualities/genders, consent laws, personal consent, your options if you have an unintended pregnancy, the adoption process, the abortion process, and how to seek birth control if your parents will not let you go on it. But if it's not medically accurate, why does it even matter? Many schools use scare tactics, like inflating STD statistics, and making up abortion side effects, to scare kids away from having sex. Obviously it's not working though, because teen pregnancy is just on the rise. And they should teach the same subject to both men and women. Just because you have a penis, doesn't mean you shouldn't know how the vagina works, how women get pregnant, the abortion process, and other 'girl only' problems. We should not keep our young men in the dark because these subjects may make them uncomfortable. I would also like to mention that I saw many people smoking weed ( which I personally have no problem with it, but should not be on school ground) all around the school. I've seen people sell prescription drugs behind my bus. And two people in the same week brought guns into the campus. It might have been a better school a long time ago, or maybe none of you really saw what was going on. But this has gone way downhill. Their test scores are abysmal in their dropout rate is high. If you can, please try to get your child into a better school district."

"I have a daughter that goes here. I'm going to give it 3 stars. Not a bad high school, not a great high school. There seems to be a lot of disciplinary problems with the children. I know that in no way reflects on the staff, I'm only rating as a parent, sending my kid to that particular learning environment."