Almost every high school in the Deer Valley District has a special program that sets them aside from every other high school out there. OHS adopted the Academy of American Studies to the OHS family.
The Academy of American Studies is a history-based program that allows students who want to take a career in a history-oriented job after high school to start learning the basics. This is only the third year the Academy has been at OHS but has received tons of attention from the students and staff.
Tiffany Ellis, an academy teacher, is a leader in the program and said they started out with only 35 students and now have over 130 kids.
Ellis said that anyone can join the Academy as long as they fill out an application and write a required essay. However, only freshman and sophomores can apply because by their junior year there has already been too much taught for them to try and catch up.
“You get to be so much closer with the people in there,” said Colton Flowers, a freshman in the academy program.
Elizabeth Hoover, a sophomore in the Academy, agrees that it’s like “A school within a school.”
Sophomore Academy students Paul Morrison, Sierra Wessels, Sage Williams, Landon Kuestereffen, and Megan Nichols sit together at lunch.
This tightly-knit class of kids is always open to new people and welcomes anyone that wants to be in the academy.
Even though the program requires honor classes along with the academy, Hoover said that it’s actually not as hard as you might think. In addition to classes, the program takes the kids on several trips within the nation to historic sites to broaden their learning abilities.
“It is a lot of studying but you’re doing what you are interested in,” said Emma Wood, a junior.
Some of the benefits to joining the Academy of American Studies are that it’s great for future knowledge as well as how impressive it looks to a boss interviewing you for a job.
Reece Andonov, a sophomore, although in her first year of the program, said that one of the reasons she joined was because, “It looks great on a resume.”
Many people have probably heard of the academy but don’t know exactly what it is. Some misconceptions can therefore be made of the program and the people in it.
“I think most people think we’re all a bunch of nerds,” said Kelsey Chancellor, a junior.
However, she said that these claims are actually not true and that there are a wide range of people in the Academy that all have different personalities.
“There are actually some athletic people on varsity teams in the academy,” Flowers said.
There are only two Academy of American studies programs in the entire nation according to Ellis. One being here at OHS and the other being in New York.
Being a part of a program that’s only in two states of fifty could sway a boss’s decision to hire you or not.
According to Ellis, the academy was first brought into OHS three years ago with a grant to the teachers to allow them to take trips to the areas they are now taking their students. She said that it’s so they could scout out where they wanted their students to learn.
In 2007 when the recession hit Ellis said that the government stopped funding them.
Ellis said she is not worried about the academy ever being cut from OHS because they have fundraisers and parents’ donations.
“[The academy] is pretty self-sustaining,” Ellis said.
