Parents of the HS Class of 2013 - Page 2

RobD · 08-11-2009, 09:26 PM

DD2 hasn't had to walk in too much of DD1's shadow; we did a relo 6 years ago and are now in a pretty big district. She only had 1 teacher in MS that her sister did and this year it looks like she'll only have one repeat teacher (and quite frankly, she's close to senile, so I'm sure she won't remember DD1

Last day of vacation is tomorrow. 1st day of Freshman year (and Senior Year for my oldest) is Thursday.

momlove · 08-11-2009, 10:47 PM

Going through this together will be so much fun. I'm a little in denial that my baby is starting high school next week

I also have a S in the class of 2010 and even one in the class of 2009 headed off to college next week. They are all 3 so different from each other; might as well throw out the playbook after each one gets through the process

Kelowna · 08-11-2009, 11:14 PM

Our HS does not start till the 24th.
For my DS it will be a huge change. Always driven to school, now will take public transit on most days. His schools so far have been small private/charter kind. New HS is public and huge - close to 2500.

momlove · 08-12-2009, 01:03 AM

Rachacha, so we both have kids about the same ages apart: my oldest S is about 4-1/2 years older than my freshman D. Thrown in the mix is a "surprise" S who will graduate in 2010.

My D is dreading the day my 2nd S goes off to college. She claims it will be so incredibly boring at home with him gone. I secretly believe she is right

. He's the comedian of the family and dotes on his younger S. Probably she'll be so busy she won't notice much.

And, she will get the car to herself for 2 whole years while the brothers are off at college. What a prize in this family

cocoa'smom · 08-12-2009, 04:33 PM

Hi there. My DS started school on Monday. So far, so good. My DD is starting her junior year in college. I was on this site quite a lot during her college application time. I didn't post much, but I followed the discussions quite a bit and got a LOT of great information. I hope to be more active this time around. While my DS is a very good student, he isn't as self-motivated as his sister was. I've tried to stress that everything he does from now on in school counts (no pressure, lol!) Middle school really doesn't matter in the big scheme of things, but everything these kids do as freshman will affect what they do when it comes to applying for college (GPA's, activities, etc.) Kelowna....is your son really taking AP Calculus BC???? As a freshman?? My daughter took it as a senior. If he's taking it as a freshman, what math classes will he take the rest of high school? As for the SAT II Biology test...I would love some more information about that. My DD took it as a senior after AP Biology. Does freshman biology really cover the material on the SAT II?

Youdon'tsay · 08-13-2009, 08:01 PM

Ds2 had his freshman orientation today. Said it was more fun than he thought it would be. His older brother will be a senior this year. I think they'll have lots of fun.

c'smom, I know a couple of kids taking BC cal as freshman, After that, they can take multivariable calculus, linear algebra, AP stats, number theory. Not sure what else.

RobD · 08-14-2009, 08:51 AM

First day of Freshman year is complete

DD2 said she had a little bit of a hard time finding some classes, but the only time she got "lost" was when she was trying to find the gym. Not too bad. Classes & teachers all seem acceptable and she has at least one friend in each class. Our middle school is the biggest feeder school for this HS, so there's a lot of familiarity there.

Spent a good amount of time last night writing checks, signing papers, registering emails and (for the first time ever) giving out my cell number for text message updates from a teacher. Happy that it's Friday!

reeinaz · 08-14-2009, 06:08 PM

I'm happy to see this thread has been started. My only child will be starting hs in a few weeks. I discovered CC pretty recently and while I appreciate all I have learned so far, I'm trying really hard not to freak out. Man, where did the time go??

mamabear1234 · 08-15-2009, 04:45 PM

I've got a D in this grade. I'm not thinking much about college for her yet, as I have a junior S to focus on. She is the only athlete in the family, which may offer a new set of college challenges. At this point, she is not sure she wants to play either of her sports in college. Our classes don't start for a week and a half, but field hockey preseason starts Monday!

Kelowna · 08-24-2009, 08:22 PM

Soooo...
How has it been for kids that already started a few days ago?
Kid is starting tomorrow, already thinking about making it to each class on time and not being tardy. The building is huge...

RobD · 08-24-2009, 10:08 PM

So far so good. Last week was the first full week, so Friday's arrival was very welcome. DD has the same math teacher that my oldest did and she's very sweet, but, um, well, shall we say forgetful with age

I think the class that has riled her up the most is her history class. It's the 1st year this teacher is in our system, and she has experience at the college level, so she's told the kids she's expecting college level writing. But they're Freshman in HS. I'm pretty sure there's going to be a march of annoyed parents soon, but I figure it's good to toughen them up early

Open House was last Thursday; I think she's settled into a routine. Definitely no where near as much homework as in 8th grade, which I had expected, so that's good.

Hope everyone else's year started off well too.

Columbia_Student · 08-25-2009, 12:10 AM

I also have a rising freshman. Her high school does not start until 2 more weeks. She just finished her volunteering work this week. Here is hoping for a good freshman year, it's a new school for her, ie all her middleschool friends don't go here. We petitioned to move to this high school so she can walk to school easily.

Proxima · 08-25-2009, 02:03 AM

Just joined CC, and I'm coming on-board this thread! Thanks for starting it! My spouse thought me strange for thinking of college for our youngest son, but given the range of possibilities and the "high technology" of the process, I better get on the learning curve now. Oldest son's college planning process was, well, ad hoc, though it worked out well for him; he's graduating (fingers crossed!) in 2010. Our grade 9 boy will be more of a challenge to find a good fit for. He's in a brand new high school with just one year level of 24 students. Great for him since he's ADHD and needs the individualized attention. But we'll need lots of information on how to work out a long-term (as in to 2013) plan. So I'm glad to be here and I hope to learn a lot from the discussion.

Kelowna · 09-02-2009, 11:00 AM

Our family is slowly getting used to the wake up call at 5 A.M.
I am probably the one that has the most trouble with it, since I am a night owl and it is very, very difficult for me to go to bed early. Our freshman has no problems with it at all, although he reported yesterday that he felt like falling asleep during math

Homework is managable, I have to say that he utilizes his time on the bus quite well.
A lot of writing in his LA class, but we have been warned about it, it is a pre-IB program.
Thankfully the teacher wants everything submitted electronically and kid loves this!
He absolutely loves his Physics teacher - it is an older gentelman that reminds him of the mad scientist from Fringe.
I am pleasantly surprised that some of the classes are quite small, 10-15 kids.
Overall a fine start, althought getting used to being in the school of 2,500 from a school of 350 is proving to be challenging...for me

Oh, almost forgot...son got his first recruitment letter the other day! Can you believe this?!
I promptly shredded the thing after he barely glanced at it.

reeinaz · 09-02-2009, 04:41 PM

I'm glad to hear that those who have started have had a pretty good 1st week. My son doesn't start until Tuesday. He did have a week long orientation that makes things seem very promising. After traveling with him on public transportation the first day, he was fine the rest of the week on his own. That was the biggest fear for both of us. And he actually came home excited about what he was doing. This is a kid who I had to play 20 questions with just to find out he got an A on a test. I'm just curious about what his roster will look like. I'm hoping he did well enough on their placement test to skip Alg1 and go straight into Geometry.