@EarlVanDorn is it in your state school LAW that dual enrollment is allowed to the max? Or is it a state guideline?
Most states set a minimum HS grad requirement of courses, but allow districts to set their own criteria as to how this can be done. The minimum requirement is REQUIRED. The “how to do it” is left to each district.
We homeschooled for 9+ years to have complete and customized control of our son’s education . . . it is not an easy path and there were many hair-raising moments. Overall, though, it worked pretty well (he starts college in less than a month so I guess we will see LOL).
The flip side of responsibility is power.
The school is responsible for your child for a certain chunk of the day; therefore, they call some of the shots. That’s just how it is. The alternative is to homeschool and take on more of the responsibility.
There are positives and negatives to both choices.
Generally I think it’s great to take advantage of dual enrollment if the student is ready and the parents are capable of covering some of the extra driving, etc. But if the school district is not DE friendly, what can you do?
Is it possible that your district is trying to comply with athletic regulations issued by your state? FHSAA here in Florida regulates high school sports (iirc). It’s not a problem to jump through the hoops, but they are strict with their rules.
I’m really grateful to have educational choices in this country.
Is it a financial situation ? Does your school lose revenue if your child attends a CC for DE? Maybe they’ve determined 5 to be the limit because of the cost to the school .
Bringing lunches to school isn’t a metro Atlanta thing. Logistically it’d be a nightmare. However we do have an extensive DE here at the D’s public school. It’s never a good idea to paint the south with the same stereotypical paintbrush.
I think it’s one of those things where you either agree to the rules, or you choose something else for your kid. I don’t love all of the hoops I have to jump through for the kids’ school, or their policies, but it’s overall a positive. There were schools where this wasn’t the case, and we moved to be in school districts that more closely matched up with what we were looking for. In metro Atlanta, this is fairly easy to do (although the commute can be horrendous). It may not be that simple in Mississippi.
I have three kids who graduated from three different large suburban high schools in the South and have never heard of this either.
If the school policies are not compatible with what you want for your daughter and she is unhappy in school, then I recommend homeschooling. In Georgia, homeschool students can participate in dual enrollment at no cost. My D homeschooled beginning mid-way through her sophomore year, taking some classes via homeschool groups and others through dual enrollment at the community college. Other than making sure she was registered for the appropriate classes, I had no bigger role in her day to day schooling than I did for my kids who were attending traditional schools. Homeschooling a high school student is very different than a younger student, where the parent is probably taking an active teaching role. My D didn’t take any on-line classes, because many students (even hard working, motivated ones) find it difficult to really succeed on-line.
@EarlVanDorn is correct.
During the 2016 Regular Session, the Mississippi Legislature adopted SB 2064, which revises §37-15-38 effective July 1, 2016:
261 (15) Maximum dual credits allowed. It is the intent of the
262 dual enrollment program to make it possible for every eligible
263 student who desires to earn a semester’s worth of college credit
264 in high school to do so. A qualified dually enrolled high school
265 student must be allowed to earn an unlimited number of college or
266 university credits for dual credit.
What’s missing is the number of high school credits/courses a student must take. But elsewhere in the bill was stated that a dual enrolled/credit student is included in the daily average attendance which is what drives funding (if that’s the worry of the local school board).
But given the effective date, I’d give the high school / local school district the benefit of doubt. Print out the passage (http://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/documents/2016/pdf/SB/2001-2099/SB2064SG.pdf), hand it over to the school administration, stand back and see what happens.
There are pros and cons to dual enrollment expressed elsewhere on this site:
http://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/will-too-many-credits-torpedo-freshman-merit-aid/
OP if your D needs a lot of structure and external motivation right now, she may have a hard time with college courses at first because students spend fewer contact hours “in class” and are expected to study and structure their own time “out of class” effectively. Also, the instructors are not going to work with parents the way that high school teachers will. Just things to consider.
I have seen parents bringing lunches to elementary schools regularly. I’m in California, though, and the parents who do this are Asian. The one I asked said rice needs to be fresh. I don’t know if they continue into secondary school.
So, your daughter is miserable in high school and hates it to the extreme of refusing to go. Her grades also aren’t the best. Is the school so terrible? Or are there personal issues that she needs to work on? Is she getting a hugely negative vibe from you that isn’t helping her feelings about the school–the lunch bag thing is such a trivial issue really. She’s also not self-motivated enough to do online study as a homeschooler, even with some oversight from you? My kid did this in middle school. An honors high school student who is ready to attend college should be organized and self-motivated enough to enroll in an online course.
I’m just thinking that it’s probably not a good idea to push a kid who isn’t dealing too well with high school to graduate and attend college early. Will those academic, emotional, motivational and maturity issues magically disappear if she’s in college? College requires quite a bit of self-motivation. There isn’t going to be a teacher checking her attendance, checking that she did the homework, constantly giving quizzes and participation points. If she isn’t self motivated to keep up and prepare for the few exams, she is going to be in big trouble. If she can’t deal with attending when she hates something, what happens when she gets the inevitable bad professor?
Our school requires all students to be enrolled in at least three high school classes per semester (out of a block of 8). The dual/concurrent classes do not count as any of the three. I have not checked why but I assume it has to do with our state funding formula.
There were many SAHMs who took lunches to school in elementary and middle school. Usually fast food of some type. My kids have it mentioned it in high school but I assume it still goes on to some degree because on state testing days, the school still sends out a note saying no lunches can be brought on those days. This is in Texas.
Your daughter is still eligible to enter the NMF competition if she takes the PSAT in what will be her last year of high school due to leaving early.
http://www.nationalmerit.org/s/1758/interior.aspx?sid=1758&gid=2&pgid=398
(Under the section “students who plan to leave high school early”)
By the way there are all kinds of “homeschooling”. Many homeschooled students never actually take classes at home but are full time dual enrollment students, which often just requires registering them with the school distinct as homeschooled students. No real extra work needed on the part of the parents but all the freedom for you and your child to decide how they will be educated and which and how many classes they will take. (Obviously check the rules of your state/district).
Of course, your daughter has to be able to handle the self motivation and discipline required in a faster paced college class with little handholding. Those college grades are forever.
The highschool environment is not for everyone and I agree with you about online classes. Son tried one, hated it. He much prefers the interaction and discussion in a class with a professor and fellow students.
I’m no fan of online classes either but if the in-school classes are so unbearable, it would be my choice. I just can’t see putting a kid with so many issues into college classes. As you say, those college grades are forever, and if this experiment is unsuccessful and the issues don’t magically disappear, now you’ve trashed her college GPA. How much experience does this student have with college level work or expectations? Has she already been successful at this level?
Lots of good comments.
We parents need to understand when the issue is the particular school and when it’s something else we can- and should- help our kids with, so they grow properly and are ready for real college.
Just changing things up isn’t always what’s “best.”
We did move our kids out of one school because of teacher issues for D1. But we were very rational about it, verified the issue was not our kid and made sure the move was the right one, academically and socially- not based on emotions (theirs or ours.) And it was lower school.
Never heard “a college class is equal to two high school classes.” It may be at a higher level or faster pace but the convention is one-for-one. You take that class at the hs or the local college.
When kids take all classes DE, toward the hs diploma, it’s not college gpa. They aren’t matriculated as college students.
Attending the private school you mentioned would give your child the structure she needs as well as a shift to a smaller school with a new dynamic with teachers and peers. It sounds like you don’t think it’s as academically challenging as the public school, but that doesn’t seem to be the biggest issue at the moment. After a year at the private school, she may be ready for online learning or college classes, returning to the public school–or staying at the private school. I agree that “sticking it out” at a school that is causing daily misery is not in the child’s (or the family’s) best interest. I hope you can find a solution that allows your child to experience the joys of school once again.
When I took dual-enrollment classes, the statewide conversion formula was 5 college credit hours = 1 Carnegie unit. So my three-credit hour classes were all worth 0.8 credits at my high school. In the last couple of years they changed it to 3 credit hours = 1 Carnegie unit.
The problem is when you mix and match calendars you are substituting a semester based dual enrollment class for a year based high school class. If you say that a dual enrollment semester based class is not double pace and just swap them one for one with high school classes on a year based schedule, you come up with an expectation that the dual enrolled high school student will complete 12-16 college courses in one year, which is way over a typical college student’s courseload.
It’s twice the pace but also half the time, so doesn’t it even out? Eight high school classes per year = eight college classes per year = four college classes per semester for two semesters.
We don’t want to make this too complicated. One one hand, there’s how the hs will calculate for grad requirements. On the other, there’s how adcoms will see the record.
I think some here are suggesting OP set aside the anger at the hs or district and determine what’s best for his daughter. All of us can only work withing the constraints we face.
@EarlVanDorn, If you’re in Mississippi, that’s a good thing for you. It looks like the only thing homeschoolers in your state are required to do is fill out a notification form for their district and list the subjects they’re taking. There are no quarterly reports or standardized tests.
One option is to report your daughter as a homeschooler and enroll her in the local cc. She’ll likely need to show high school equivalency for 4-year colleges, but there are several ways Mississippi students can do that. (See http://www.sbcjc.cc.ms.us/adulted/hsed.aspx for details). I’d also make sure she meets the minimum course requirements as the public school students in your state (4 credits each of Eng, math, soc. studies, & science; 1 of art; 1/2 ea. of PE & health; 1 of business; and 5 electives). It might be a good idea to make 4 of the electives foreign language credits.
If you don’t want to homeschool, I think your only other options are working with your district or paying for private school. If she hates public school, I’d explore other options.