My daughter took a year off after her freshman year due to family situation. During that time, we lived abroad and she took several courses from online schools. Before we left, we met with the guidance counselor and were told that we won’t get any credit fro the work she does online. So we assumed she would be returning as a sophomore after a year.
This summer, when we returned and registered her, the school district placed her in the junior year. They advised my daughter can repeat the senior year if we like to take all the courses she wants to take for college.
It does not seem to be a fair situation that she appears to be taking no challenging courses as a junior because she’s stuck with all the 10th grade courses, some of which she already did during the gap year via reputable online schools such as Stanford Online and CTY. However, the school district says they have to place the students according to their “cohort” group of starting the freshman year together.
It sounds like the “junior” designation is just an indication of her age, and not an indication of the level of classes she is taking. Is that correct?
Stanford OHS and CTY are very reputable online schools. Your school district should accept those credits. I would push the issue all the way up the administrative ladder. If you are getting a “no” from the guidance counsellor, push it up to the academic assistant principal or principal, if they say “no”, push it up to the district level.
Could you show she was homeschooled for that sophomore year? Can you file the appropriate paperwork and have her get credit for the work she did, thus moving her to the correct classes for a junior?
Thanks for your comments. I am not sure how the designation in terms of age vs. the level of class she’s taking might make a difference in her transcript that would be reported to college. That is exactly my concern and question, I guess.
According to the roadmap the guidance counselor showed to us, she would be applying for colleges in her 2nd senior year. Then the transcript the school sends out to colleges will have grades from 9th, 11th, and 12th. I gather that many colleges pay attention to grades earned from 10th & 11th grades most, and wonder how colleges might think of my daughter’s transcript… We will of course report grades earned from Stanford and CTY in the other enhancements section, but she’d have repetitions of English and math from online and brick-N-mortar schools.
I am a bit hesitant to push this issue too hard if it is clear that my daughter won’t be adversely affected being a junior and taking 10th grade courses (i.e. very few AP level courses). The role of the guidance counselor will be very important in the application process, so I do not want to give an impression that we’re confronting her careful decisions from the start. The courses and credits were the decision of the guidance counselor whereas the placement of the year was the decision of the school district. So we might try going a level up for adjusting her year of class… but again the person in charge was firm on this decision, so I am not sure what the chances might be. I am trying to inquire about the state regulations about such a situation directly to the dept of education in the state but haven’t had luck in getting a response in email or phone yet.
My daughter has a specific program that she would like pursue, which is a dual program between an ivy league school and a highly reputable art school, so, as a parent, I am trying to understand what implications might the situations like this have on her application.
We tried to file paper work for homeschooling last year before we moved, but the school district said there is no need to do it if we are moving abroad since then we’re out of their jurisdiction. Regardless, however, the schools here won’t allow transfer of credits unless if they were earned at a brick-N-mortar school. Or at least that is the opinion of a typical guidance counselor in this school district.
My daughter took Spanish 2 via The Potter School, and the school won’t accept it for credit OR for placement. She even took the DELE exam to show her mastery of the subject but, regardless, she would either have to start from Spanish 1 (since she doesn’t have an official credit for it), or take Latin, the only language that they offer at a beginner’s level. I really don’t understand why they can’t give her a placement test and let her take the language at her level. Does it matter if she took Spanish3, 4, and AP vs. Spanish 1, 2, and 3 for the graduation requirement??? Obviously it does in my school district.
Online schooling has come a long way in the past few years. It’s likely that the district is working with a policy that was put into place before SOHS. Guidance counselors don’t make policy. Higher ups do. If you want those credits to count, you’ll have to go higher in the food chain. A decent guidance counselor should not hold it against you that you were able to get the policy changed. Otherwise, your daughter will be taking Spanish 1 when she’s ready for Spanish 3.
Your other options (besides accepting what the GC says or working to have it changed) are 1) have your daughter continue with online high school and earn her diploma online. Or 2) change school districts.
I talked with the guidance counselor and she convinced me that her application won’t be adversely affected by skipping a year – the school will report her GPA from 9, 11, 12, and the first half of the second senior year, and we’ll just have to explain the situation to the colleges that we apply to. Like bouder pointed out, however, I think the state’s regulations need to be updated to reflect he changing environment in education. Thanks to those who pitched in.
Will your daughter be able to fulfill your state HS graduation requirements…as well as requirements for admission to many colleges…in just two academic years? THAT is a more imoortant question than any other.
I don’t know your state…or the colleges to which she might apply. But I know that the colleges my kids applied to required minimally 4 years of HS English, at least 3 years of foreign language, 4 years of some kind of math, 3 years of lab science, at least three years of some kind of social studies/history…and our state required 4 years of health and PE, and arts courses of some kind.
My kids never would have been able to complete the minimum graduation requirements in three years…which is what your daughter will be doing. Is this possible at your school??
You have 2 different issues going on; cohort and grade based on credit accumulation.
You belong to the cohort based on the year that you started 9th grade anywhere in the world. Her cohort year cannot be changed.
Your daughter is part of the junior cohort. However, she is a sophomore based on credit accumulation. Believe me the school probably is not happy about your situation because right now your daughter may have a negative impact on the cohort graduation rate, especially if she cannot graduate with her class in June 2018.
I don’t understand how this can be true. You stated that her high school will not take the on-line courses. Is there a plan in place that she can take the courses required for graduation?
The question that you need to ask is:
Is anyway that she can be programmed with the cohort; programmed for 11th grade classes this year and 12th grade classes in her senior year.
Then ask
What plan can the school make to help your daughter make up the credits from sophomore year that she missed.
Sorry…but the BIGGER question is…will your daughter be able to satisfy the state high school graduation requirements in the remaining two years? Get the answer to that.
Around here…it would be very hard to shoehorn a full year of required courses for HS graduation into two years of school already having their share of required courses.
I see one additional issue…course prerequisites. In Math, in particular…if your daughter took Algebra 1 in grade 9, will she be taking whatever is not in the math sequence…or will she be taking what other 11t graders are taking? She could be out of sequence…and also not have the retired info to do well in that higher level math.
Foreign language…presumably she took this in grade 9. Will she be placed in an 11th grade class…with the exoectation she will be able to fill in the blanks taught in the 10th grade year?
@sybbie719 I agree most schools and states don’t require four years of anything but English…and maybe PE.
But…what will happen with course sequences? And my point also was…how does the school expect this student to complete three years of HS work in two years? This needs to be answered.
Wow more answers while I went to a college tour with my daughter!
@sybbie719
Believe me the school probably is not happy about your situation because right now your daughter may have a negative impact on the cohort graduation rate, especially if she cannot graduate with her class in 2018
You’re exactly on the point! This is why the school district won’t be changing her class to sophomore because they do not want to appear as if they cover things up to make the graduate rate higher. That said, I am not sure why people worry about whether or not my daughter could finish the requirements in 2 years. The agreed roadmap is that she will do additional three years, i.e. junior, senior, and another senior year so that she can take all the advanced courses that she would like to take before applying for college. She already did her 9th grade, so she WILL have taken courses for 4 years at her high school. She can deliberately leave a required course without taking it in the “senior” year so she can repeat the second year. I asked the admission director of the college that I met today on our tour, and she said there’s a section to explain about these stuff on the application so there won’t be any problem
Thank you for the clarification. Until your last post, I (and others) thought that your daughter would only be doing 2 more years of HS at this school. Taking an additional year will likely work.
Two of my kids took online classes in high school. Not only did our high school give credit for the online classes (we showed them the syllabi) but soon after, our high school “joined” the online program so that 25 students could take an online class each semester. This greatly broadened the offerings of our small school.
This is really strange. Lots of students come into high school with knowledge of a non-English language (particularly Spanish) that means that the best placement is a course higher than the beginner course. Something is wrong with your high school if it does not allow for suitable placement in such a case.