Parents of the HS Class of 2015

[herandhisMom]

D.got a new clarinet today. Sounds so much better.

[SansSerif]

D15 has finals Monday and Tuesday and then she's done. Unfortunately she just can't figure out a way to study that's effective for her and I am very worried she could really score horribly on math and science. She's stubborn and doesn't want help. But she could trash a whole year's worth of effort in 2 days.

[IJustDrive]

OK, get this one. D is supposed to start Drivers Ed tomorrow. They need 3 semesters of grades to enroll her. But report cards for second semester won't be out for a couple of weeks and the on-line system is down (was supposed to be back up today -- graduation is tomorrow).

I'm wondering if I'll be able to bring them grades on Monday when the system should be back up, or if I should dig out a middle school report card. (This is a special Sunday class -- D has an internship M-F, so the weekday morning classes won't work.)

[PinotNoir]

IJustDrive - I sure hope they use some common sense and allow her to take today's class and bring in the final set of grades on Monday! S is eligible on Wednesday to start driver's ed - vroom vroom!

[IJustDrive]

It's a tad frustrating. Big sis waited until senior year for drivers ed. So I was going to make sure that little sis (cooler head, better eye-hand coordination, tons more common sense) had the ability to get her license on her 16th birthday. I don't understand why it's so difficult!

[Maxwellequations]

My daughter's school doesn't have finals. They have "bench mark exams" at the end of each marking period, and there're 4 marking periods in a year. Her friends in other areas are talking and stressed over finals. She feels lucky she is over with school and she thinks it's less stress to deal with bench marks.

How much do finals weigh grade-wise? Is it really possible to get a bad grade if you mess up the final exam, even if you do well in the whole year? Or vise versa - is it possible to bring up your grade if you do well in the final, while the other grades are not too great?

[momsings]

maxwellequations--at our school, how much finals weight towards the grade is up to each individual teacher. So theortically, the answer to your questions is "Yes". It just depends on the teacher. Is your school policy similar or is it based on a general school wide policy?

[Maxwellequations]

@momsings, The teachers told us the grading policy is made by the board of ed of the county. You're right - each teacher seems to be different.

[suzy100]

maxwell, at my D's school, each final = 20% of the grade, and the quarters are 40% each. If it's an AP class, then if they take the AP exam there is no final, and the grade is determined only by the grades in each quarter. I think it's not a bad system. My only beef is that grades are NOT rounded up. D has been .2 of a point off of an A+ twice now. Not a huge deal, but sort of frustrating.

[momsings]

suzy100--that would be a beef for me too. Since our grades are teacher based (not proscribed in terms of weight) they have been known to round-up (or not).

[momsings]

Tonight is S final jazz band concert for the year. He is in jazz 2 which is the less experienced jazz band. He is looking forward to being the bassist for jazz 1 next year, except for the time they rehearse--6:10 in the morning! ugh! The cool part is this though, usually once you are in, you are in for the rest of high school, so he will be the main bassist for the jazz band program for the next 3 years. He auditions for the bass position for our amazing jazz choir on Thursday, and again, the same applies--if he gets it he will have the position for the rest of high school. This is his Dream (with a capital "D" ).

It is an exciting time for him. He still has finals next week.

[suzy100]

momsings, the teacher discretion thing would probably bother me too, so maybe there's no pleasing me! Break a leg wishes to your S - that's very exciting!

[jmnva06]

I was urged by my buddies in the class of 12 list to come on over here.

I have a D12 and a D15. D15 is going to give us an interesting ride. Her homework style is entirely different from her sister, in largely good ways.

On driving, she is determined to get her license as soon as possible. She can get her permit at 15.5 and her license 9 months later.

She has finals starting tomorrow.

I will spend sometime reading this thread and catching up.

[SansSerif]

Okay, so D15 ended up with a 3.22 for the year (3.45 for the last marking period). Could have been better but also could have been a lot worse. What bothers me is that she got her grades because she did her homework, her projects, and some extra credit. If her grades were solely based on test scores, they would have been absymal.

Interesting to read about how schools grade. Each quarter at D's school is worth 20% and the mid- term and final are each worth 10%. And they never round up. An A+ is a 97.50. She got a 97.47 and it's a B+. An A- is 89.50. she got a 89.45 and it's a B+. i know you have to cut it off somewhere but it's maddening. A couple hundreths of a point really changed her average.

[PinotNoir]

Hi jmnva06! My kids are all very different too. And S'15 qualified for his permit today, and after weeks of anticipation...he opted to go to the pool with friends today and we didn't have time to get to the license branch. It'll be 18 months before he can get his license. In the meantime he's started learning how to drive a manual transmission just in the street in front of the house. grind grind stall...

SanSerif - all the schools vary so much in their grading system. It's interesting to hear about other schools, but don't drive yourself nuts trying to figure out how your D's grades will compare to every other school. Colleges all evaluate GPA's differently as well, so it really isn't worth getting too tense about it!

Since your curious though, I went and looked ours up. We don't have A+'s, but here's our chart:

93-100 A
90-92 A-
87-89 B+
83-86 B
80-82 B-
77-79 C+
73-76 C
70-72 C-
67-69 D+
63-66 D
60-62 D-
0-59 F

Each semester grade is 40% for each of two quarters, and 20% final. All courses have to give a written final (even AP's and performing arts classes), but I can say my son's choir final was a complete easy A.

Momsings - how was the concert? Good luck to you S tomorrow auditioning for the top jazz choir!