This world is large enough for many types of schools. If the family and student choose a school that expels for poor academics, then everyone has a duty to perform. However, Urban Prep appears to not emphasize Academics in favor of what we used to call Civics.
Interesting how we write our own back story for this sort of thing. Mine has her frustrated because she had been prompting them to say Thank-You for a while and they still did not do it on their own.
http://www.urbanprep.org/sites/default/files/documents/Englewood%20Registration%20Packet.pdf
Got nothing on ME Pearl.