Walking onto campus for the first time, seventh grader Kavin Jayasuriya had a gut feeling he was where he was meant to be.
“I had a tour before I came here,” Jayasuriya said. “I have the picture I took at the front office as my home screen on my phone. It’s because when I got into West Shore, I was really excited, and it was a memorable moment for me since I took that picture with one of [the] friends I made.”
Out of the 185 students in his grade, Jayasuriya is the only one who came from Endeavour Elementary. Though he has a 45-minute commute to school, his mom, Umamaheswari Marudhupandian, said West Shore was the best school for her son.
“I heard one of my [friend’s] kids applied to West Shore, and the reason they’re not coming is [that] it’s a long drive,” Marudhupandian said. “They are coming from Cocoa, [which is a] one-hour drive for them to reach West Shore. They made up their mind, but we didn’t want to give up.”
West Shore, along with Edgewood Jr/Sr High School, is one of six choice schools in Brevard County, meaning students are admitted through a lottery system. The minimum requirements are being on grade level, and having no D’s or F’s on their sixth-grade report card.
“Being a random lottery, the only way to increase an individual’s chance is to apply or not,” Assistant Principal Glenn Webb said. “You [either] have no chance, or you have the same chance as everybody else. So the question would be, why do some schools not apply?”
Principal Burt Clark said the administration has worked to streamline the application process for families. Now, there is no longer a $30 application fee, and all choice school application deadlines are on the same day.
Since last year, the number of elementary schools represented by the seventh-grade class increased from 31 to 45.
“I would love to see as much diversity as possible,” Clark said. “We’re better when we’re surrounded by people who aren’t exactly like us and challenge our thoughts and views and our background experiences. Unfortunately, we lack the ability to drastically impact our diversity because of [a lack of ] transportation and access to the school.”
If the school could provide transportation, Clark said “we’d immediately see a shift in the types of students that are represented.”
“[The principal of Edgewood] and I talk regularly, and it kills her that there are kids at schools that would flourish in that environment, and it’s not an option for them because they can’t get there,” Clark said. “I feel the same way about that.”
While the school used to have a busing program, it was cut following the pandemic in 2020.
“I don’t think anybody’s questioning the merit of [busing] and how impactful it would be,” Clark said. “But in the end, where are the drivers? Where are the buses? Where is the money to pay for it? Unfortunately, it seems to be something that always gets brought up and then always gets blacklined. That money is the barrier to providing equity and opportunity.”
According to Webb, seventh-grade teachers have the hardest job on campus because they have “to get everybody on the same page as quickly as possible.”
“At the beginning of the school year, you’ll see the seventh-grade teachers [doing] a lot of team building [activities] and things that seem like they might not be content-related,” Webb said. “It’s all about building trust with the kids, so that we can support that kid in getting them ready to attack what we do here at school.”
After one semester at West Shore, Jayasuriya and Marudhupandian both said they don’t regret their choice.
“I [was] so stressed for five months [waiting for the lottery results],” Marudhupandian said. “Whenever I talked to my friends … [they] used to say, ‘Don’t worry about it. When the time comes, everything will be perfect.’ At the last minute, I lost my hope, and [I thought] ‘We’re done. We’re not going to get in.’ Then they called me. Now I feel like I’m in heaven. I don’t have to worry about anything.”
On the first day of school, seventh grader Vanessa Lopez went from having class sizes of three to more than 20. After being homeschooled for a year, she was happy to be back at a campus.
“I was really nervous,” Lopez said. “I remember asking a lot of the older kids, ‘Where’s this building? Where’s this class?’ It was kind of scary, but it gets better.”
Lopez said she was motivated to apply because her friends also applied to West Shore.
“It’s a lot going from homeschooling to West Shore, which is an advanced school, so there was a big speed bump in the way,” Lopez said. “[Going from] learning at my own
speed to learning a little bit higher, it was like, ‘Whoa, what’s happening?’ I had to stay up later, but I really have a lot of fun staying here.”
After feeling unsatisfied with her elementary school, Lopez said her mom utilized her teaching degree to homeschool her and her younger sisters, aged eight and 11.
“It was really fun homeschooling, but I prefer in-person school because I missed a lot of my friends,” Lopez said. “I miss hanging out with more parents and going out more often, but I prefer it here. I have more friends here, other than my two sisters.”
As one of 30 students coming from West Melbourne Elementary School for Science (WMSS), seventh grader Jacob Lockwood said it isn’t hard to find familiar faces around campus.
“I mainly [spent time with] people that I already knew, but I wanted to know more people, so then I just started hanging out with other people,” Jacob Lockwood said.
According to him, incoming students shouldn’t be worried on their first day.
“[Coming here] was very different because then you
had to be more social, and you had to remember your schedule, but [the community is] very social,” Jacob Lockwood said. “The people are very nice. If you just walk to the bathroom, they’ll say hi.”
Jacob Lockwood said his older brother, sophomore David Lockwood, convinced him to enroll and helped him navigate around campus.
“We’re like a couple,” Jacob Lockwood said. “Some days we’re angry at each other, and other days, we’re just playing Minecraft. He was telling me about how all the teachers were nice and the students would be nice. He was trying to get me in here a lot, and then we finally chose West Shore.”