Vertus students return to school on Monday with variety of elective classes

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Most students go back to school in a little over a month. But not the kids who attend Vertus High School. Nope, their alarm clocks went off on Monday.

Most of the students are used to it, the school has been year round since it opened 10 years ago. Students went back for their first day on Monday after a month-long summer break.

There’s more than just the school calendar and the uniforms that make Vertus different. It’s also how the first few weeks of this semester are set up.

“For these months we offer quite a few more electives, so it’s more elective driven for these early months. So students can participate in electives like construction, eports, barbershop, robotics, we have a movie class, music production and so forth,” Senior Recruiter Michael James said.

This first month focuses on getting students back into a routine. The teachers help them to do that by gearing curriculum to students’ interests.

“My favorite part about this school is the music and the different electives, and the stuff that they have available that other schools don’t have,” Sophomore Onyx Santiago said.

Music production teacher Terrence McCadney helps students like Onyx find their passion and use that to continue to push them forward.

“For me, it’s just having the next generation of musicians and song writers and music producers that you can actually pour a wealth of knowledge into and just see what happens with that blank canvas,” McCadney said.

This year, enrollment has been the highest it’s ever been at Vertus, which has grades ninth through twelfth.

“It’s actually boosted enrollment. We have a lot of parents who actually changed schools for various reasons. Either they were unhappy or didn’t feel safe where they had their student at their prior schools,” James said.

Vertus High does have a couple more spots open for underclassmen, but 11th and 12th grades are at capacity.

Overall, students at Vertus High will be in school for 205 days, and the minimum in New York is 180.

Most other schools in our region will have their first day of classes after Labor Day.