In a free, I overheard a conversation about someone’s neighbor, who was called weird because he went to a public school. As a previous public school student this comment got me thinking, how does going to a public school make someone weird? I believe there shouldn’t be any type of discrimination between whether you go to a public or private school.

As freshmen, we’d often ask each other, which middle schools we went to. I answer Academy Lafayette, a French immersion school that people often believe is private. In fact it’s a charter school, which is a school that receives public funding but is not under the public school system. Last year I remember a specific reaction.

“Wow, you went to a public school? I just can’t see you going to one.”

While my school isn’t fully part of the public system I just couldn’t understand what the difference would be between going to a public or private school. There is a specific barrier that seems to separate the two types of schools.

People tend to believe that public schools are filled with drugs, bad teachers and fighting. While there might be some cases in public schools, let’s be honest, these things can also be found in private schools as well.

Private schools can be seen by others to be snobby, rich and proper. As many of you know, these things aren’t true about every single person at STA. Don’t forget that not everyone in public schools does drugs, isn’t invested in their education or ends up in a fight once and awhile.

But there is a difference academically. There is a requirement for every high school to have certain standards that students need to graduate with. Greater percentages of private than public high school students attended schools with graduation requirements at or above the recommendations needed.

One way to stop generalization of a big group of people is to really get to know individuals and not put people in a big box. To stop the ideas of stereotypes is to first forget about the judgments that you already have and to really get to know people from public schools.

In the future, if we cannot let go of these stereotypes we will have a permanent prejudice of the different schools people have been to. But if we break out of these thoughts we won’t be plagued with the stereotypes of the different schools.