By Abby Gross

Only nine miles away from our rivals in Solon, yet no one, other than transfer students, knows what both worlds are like.
Solon High School has a few obvious differences compared to Mount Vernon, and no I’m not talking about athletic records. The two schools also have an enormous amount of wonderful similarities.

Solon and Mount Vernon vary mainly with the academic process. The Spartans have a block schedule which is quite different than our eight periods. With half as many classes in a day this allows the students to focus on fewer classes at a time. With eighty-five minutes in a block they get a lot done and still have time left over.

The one thing I would not want to change to be more like Solon is their grading scale. Mount Vernon has letter grades that can be interpreted as percentages in a class. Solon has a four-point grading scale, which some students explained to me as basically pass or fail. The entire class has to get all fours (the highest score) before moving on to the next topic.
Interpersonal aspects are where our two rival schools might as well be one. From student relationships to student/faculty relationships, and what we do during the extra moments throughout the day, people treat one another exactly like we do. We goof around, play jokes on each other and have our tighter groups of friends while still having friends outside of those groups.

One thing both of our schools should take pride in is their student/faculty relationships. Not at every school teachers and students know what is going on in each other’s lives. I’m not saying that they hang out together outside of school but know just enough about each other to where they think of each other as friends not just as a teacher or student.
Throughout the day there are several occasions where the students have a few extra minutes to socialize. I was interested to see how it is in Solon, but to say they are exactly like us at Mount Vernon is an understatement. Right down to where we sit in the commons in the morning, it is the same.

At Mount Vernon we generally have tables for each grade, the ones closest to the walkways are for freshmen and the further you go in the tables it increases by grade level, which is what I observed at Solon.
Seniors at Mount Vernon get the tables closest to the windows and at Solon they claim the ones closest to the platform and phone charger stations.

During their off blocks they are usually in the commons or library, which is typical for students with free hours here. During both of our passing periods at both of our schools consist of talking with our friends, joking around, and switching our stuff for the next class.

I chose to go to Solon to see exactly how different they are from us with just being nine miles down the road but instead it showed me how similar we actually are. Everyone there were very welcoming and inviting me into their school. This was an amazing experience that led to some new friendships.