Grade Progression

School Experiences 1st Grade: lived in Sacramento and attended dry creek elementary.

I didn’t have a care in the world except for the time that I got in trouble in class and had to put the yellow card which meant warning into my calendar that had to be signed weekly by my parents. I didn’t remember a lot from those early years, but on one day there was a lightning storm and when everyone wanted to stay inside and hide from the storm, I wanted to go out and watch the storm because I have always had a sort of curiosity for the weather. 2nd Grade:I moved from Sacramento to Chico which also meant that I had to change schools, so I went from Dry Creek Elementary to McManus Elementary. Chico was two hours away but moving because I was moving away from everything that I knew, I felt like I was going to a whole new country. We ended up moving into a house that was right down the street from my school and I became really good friends with William. We started to hangout a lot outside of school and we liked to play videogames.

3rd Grade: Even though I was still at a new school I didn’t really have any trouble making new friends, but that would change in the future. Third grade flew by and there was nothing that came to mind when I was going through my memory bank. 4th Grade: I got involved in my schools track program during the P.E. days that practiced once a week.

It wasn’t anything like high school track but it was still a lot of fun and I realized that it was something that I really wanted to do and I knew it was going to be a lot of fun. About halfway through the year when I was really comfortable at the school and with a lot of friends we moved across town to another new school because it was going to be closer to my brothers’ high school. It took me about a week or so to fit into the new setting and to make new friends, one that I was friends with for a long time was Duncan. On my first day at the new school I sat down and was immediately greeted. “Hey my name is Duncan, what’s yours” he asked.

“My name is Thomas, nice to meet you” I quickly responded I knew right away that Duncan and I would be great friends. But, a problem arose, from me switching schools a lot, I fell behind in some of the classes, especially math. On my first day at the new school, we had to do a multiplication chart and I didn’t know how to do that even though I knew how to do multiplication. After some after school practice and lessons with my teacher, I was soon able to understand. Flash Forward to 7th Grade: Going into 7th grade I was at a new school once again in a new city. I made the mistake of trying to make friends rather than focus on my school work which was detrimental to my grades.

Also to make matters worse, my mom was relocated for her job and we had to change schools again. After changing to the new school I missed out on some of the concepts, mainly math and because I wasn’t able to keep up with the curriculum I received my first F in a class. Upon getting that F I knew that I had to focus on school but it was hard because once you fall behind in a class there is really no going back from it and you just keep digging a hole until it gets too big. Flash Forward to 9th Grade: The stress of 9th grade hit me on the very first day. I was on foreign territory and I had no idea where my classes where. To make matters worse, the senior prank was to unscrew all of the door plaques and switch them around so when I thought I had found all of my classes I quickly learned that I was wrong and that I was on the wrong side of the school.

Freshman year my grades were getting a lot better but the publicity of high school took over and I don’t even think I got a 3.0 GPA. I got some help from my teachers at the end of the year and my grades started to pick up. 10th Grade: I started to turn my academics around this year and focused more on school rather than making friends. I soon realized that balancing these two things made school so much easier and I was able to get a 3.5 GPA which I was perfectly happy with.

In about mid-April I heard the dreaded news that once again I had to change schools at the beginning of junior year. I thought that it would be fun but I didn’t know that it was going to be so hard to adjust. 11th Grade: Once I started at the new school again not knowing anyone I decided from past experiences that I needed to focus more on school work rather than making new friends. This decision made my first week at school really hard because once again I was in foreign lands not knowing anyone. I was placed into some hard classes such as physics and algebra two with a first year teacher but luckily my decision made it easier to focus on the classes and I passed them easily.

Ever since moving to Cosumnes Oaks High School, I saw my grades rise drastically and I was even able to develop good habits about school that even when I made a lot of friends, my grades stayed the same. Future: I sit on my couch in my big home wondering if I could have done things differently or if I hadn’t moved around so much would I be in the same spot. I looked through my filing cabinets to see all of my old year books. Some people will get yearbooks from three different schools but in my hand I hold seven. Seven schools that have made me who I am today, an adventurer.