<p>I am looking for hints and tips on making a successful transition to a public HS for a gifted and slightly lazy child. What should we expect, and how to ensure the proper placement? This school is in the middle of the pack in the suburban district, we were interested in attending a better performing school, but were told “No” by the district, unless we want to move into their attendance area. Please share your experiences, thanks.</p>
<p>If your child likes to run–at all–have him/her join the cross country team. This sounds like a joke, but isn’t. Nice kids who are motivated students run cross country. It is a sport that starts in the summer, so your child will meet people before school starts (this is true of any sport). Also have your child join clubs or start one if there isn’t one of interest at the new school. Theater kids also tend to be more inclusive early in high school and there are lots of thenm. Music is a good way to meet nice kids too. Good luck in the transition.</p>
<p>You may want to be certain that your child is placed in his/her correct math and English level. This is probably the most important first step.</p>
<p>MD Mom …I agree and would also think about band if your child plays an instrument.</p>
<p>Oh–academics? I didn’t even think of that. Placement is really important.</p>
<p>It’s funny band and cross country were mentioned as great places to meet wholesome, hard-working and smart kids.</p>
<p>While there were, of course, exceptions, this was overwhelmingly the case at my public school, so I’d have to second that suggestion :)</p>
<p>Daughter made that K-8 private to public HS transition four years ago. She is a senior now. She has been in orchestra and sports team since freshman. That really helped her to make friends with motivated kids, as earlier posters mentioned.</p>
<p>We also had her 8th grade core subject teachers write recommendation letters of placing her in the appropriate class level.</p>
<p>I went from a Catholic k-8 with 250 students total to a public high school with over 6000 students. Honestly, for me, it was not a big transition at all and I was a VERY shy and reserved student. </p>
<p>All freshmen are in the same boat. They’re going to a new school they’ve never been to before. Now, a lot of them will hang on briefly to middle school friendships but that usually doesn’t last too long. My mum was a military brat who moved constantly and she gave me the best advice ever in high school: “Find someone in the period before lunch that doesn’t seem like they know anyone and ask them to eat with you. Trust me, you will both be grateful to not eat alone.” It worked remarkably well. There is nothing more socially crushing than eating alone at lunch on your first day of school- it really ruins the whole day. </p>
<p>Other than that, please don’t pressure him/her into any sports or clubs. He/she will eventually find the right niche and may be resentful if forced into anything. Push to get into something but please don’t choose that something. </p>
<p>Best of luck!</p>
<p>There will be a lot of other 9th graders doing the same thing; that will help.</p>
<p>“Oh–academics? I didn’t even think of that. Placement is really important.”</p>
<p>LOL</p>
<p>In Michigan you are supposed to be allowed to test out of any class (except for maybe PE), which means that you do not have to take it, and are excused from the requirement, or can move to the next level. If you/he thinks there’s something he knows and doesn’t need to take the class be sure to test out of it.</p>
<p>If he’s advanced enough I’ve heard of a number of kids starting at a community college at 13 or 14 getting an associates, and transferring to a University (I’ve met a couple of people at my University who did that) though if he’s not self-motivated that’s probably not a good idea. Maybe something to think about though if he’s very advanced?</p>
<p>I second the Cross Country idea. </p>
<p>Be realistic with your expectations. Start understanding now how your local high school works. Meet with a counselor soon – make sure your child is place correctly. In our school system, if your child is gifted, but has been in private school and never tested in public, the system is very inflexible, but the system next door isn’t. (that school system will work with you before school starts to get the child officially labeled.)</p>
<p>If your slightly lazy gifted child has been coddled during middle school, you can expect that to end. In other words, if the teachers call you to tell you that your child didn’t do their homework, etc, don’t count on that happening in a public high school (I don’t think it should happen in any high school, by the way.) </p>
<p>I find that parents often have more difficulty with the transition than their student. </p>
<p>As for your child, getting involved is key, but every freshman will be new at the school and while many may know each other, many are looking for new friends and fresh beginnings.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>When my twins had to go from a Catholic K-8 to public, it was hard, they (and others from private/parochial) schools had a hard time. It was a large, urban school and you had to be very pro-active to make sure your child was put in the right courses and track. I knew a GC who was very helpful. There was, in my area anyway, a bias from students that didn’t go through public, they didn’t take the same tests, so even if they were excellent students, they would not always put them in the right program. This school had it’s bad side, but also a good honors program and you could take classes free at colleges in your junior/senior year which they did.
I did know at least 5 parents that wrote to the school superintendent along with other teachers from their grade grade school, and got their child put in another district that they felt was better suited for their child, not everyone can do it, but I did see it get done.
My daughters weren’t coddled, per se, they had strict teachers in K-8th, but they missed the discipline, the order, at their high school, the kids were much more unruly and got away with so much more, the noise, etc. made learning more difficult that first year. They did adjust though, made friends, but always say, they would have loved to go to a Catholic high school if they could have.
Every child is different, some adjust better than others, but there isn’t a “wrong or right”. I respected their feelings, gave them ideas/options, but told them leaving was not going to be one of them, I just couldn’t afford it. I also resented having teachers tell me that the “fit” wasn’t right, sometimes “fit” can’t be tailor made, that’s the way life is. I think they are stronger now in some ways to take on college and did get a good education, it was just a bit of a bumpier ride.</p>
<p>S2 went to a small charter sch. 5th-8th grade. He then went to our almost 3000 student h.s. He was really happy to make the switch. S2 had played Pop Warner football all through m.s. so joining the JV football team at the high sch. the summer before freshman year was the best thing he could have done, gave him an automatic niche. He played all four years. It turned out to be the thing that sort of defined him in h.s.<br>
If not sports, try something else. A friend’s very shy D joined the yearbook staff. Two girls I know got very involved in the theater program. The Ultimate Frisbee club was very popular. Lots of guys stayed after sch. to play.<br>
S2 also had friends from our neighborhood/community that he had stayed in touch with even though he didn’t go to m.s. with them. Those few guys introduced him to lots of other kids in h.s.<br>
OP, does your S know any other kids who will be going to this h.s.
Will he be riding the bus to sch. with other kids from your area?
All freshmen are nervous. Just encourage him to be friendly and talk to people. </p>
<p>Oh, I did make S2 take his schedule and walk to every classroom on Open house night so he would not be completely lost in a sea of kids on the first day.</p>
<p>Become involved in the PTSA. Once involved, more is better than less.</p>
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<p>I disagree. Most of the other 9th graders will be coming from the public high school’s “feeder” middle schools, not from a different school that does not ordinarily send students to this high school. The experience of coming to a high school as a freshman from a feeder middle school is very different from the experience of starting high school after attending middle school somewhere else.</p>
<p>I think that 9th grade may be very difficult, socially, for the OP’s child.</p>
<p>When I was growing up, I moved during the summer before 7th grade – the first year of junior high in the school system of my new community. 7th grade was a very difficult year for me socially because nobody knew that I was new. Nobody noticed me, and I found it hard to break into social groups. Clusters of students from the junior high’s feeder elementary schools tended to cling to the friends they already knew, and everyone seemed to assume that I was simply part of one of the other clusters. It was very hard to make friends until people relaxed a bit in their new school and started to make friends outside those preexisting clusters – something that didn’t really happen until 8th grade. </p>
<p>I think that your child may face the same situation in 9th grade. His new public high school probably has two or three “feeder” middle schools, where most of the students come from. Kids may tend to cling to their middle school friends until they become comfortable in the high school – a process that could take as long as a year. </p>
<p>I think that the suggestions that others have made that your child get involved in a sport or other extracurricular activity are very good ones. These activities would give your child more chances to meet people. As others have mentioned, activities that start in the summer – such as marching band or a fall sport – are particularly good for this purpose. Also, if your family is still living in the community where you lived when your child attended the private school, I think it would be a good idea to encourage your child to maintain ties with friends from the private school. They are probably attending a variety of different high schools, and many of them may feel like outsiders in their new schools. They might welcome opportunities to get together on the weekends – something you can facilitate by providing transportation to wherever they want to go. These old friendships may die out – or at least diminish in intensity – as the kids become absorbed in their high schools, but in the early months, at least, they could be an important antidote to loneliness and isolation.</p>
<p>One more point: if you can possibly afford it, it could be helpful if you could respect your child’s wishes if he/she asks for new clothing before the old clothing has worn out or been outgrown. In public schools where uniforms are not worn, groups of kids often differentiate themselves from each other by their clothing. If your child wants to fit in with a particular social group, he or she may need to dress the way they do.</p>
<p>I agree with what Marian said about “feeders”. At my children’s school, cliques were formed from the schools, even private, that the students came from. Unfortunately, they didn’t have many from their past school. They were dismayed at the inability of some of the students to leave these havens or let anyone else in. They didn’t want to dress like them, liking want they liked, but that wasn’t as much of an issue at their public school. It seems the more suburban schools emphasize that more.
Maintaining ties with former students was a great idea and helped a lot with the transition for my children.
They found in their experience, some students were more friendly in the first year (scared too I guess) but then later drifted away, others became more friendly later when they met in clubs, etc. They weren’t looking for a group, just a couple of friends to talk too and do things with.</p>
<p>Cross country at our school is sort of bi-polar a good portion of more academically inclined kids, but also serious athletes who give their all to their sport and are okay students, but nothing special. I agree band and orchestra provide good outlets and tend to be a little less time consuming than sports. Both my kids also really enjoyed being part of Science Olympiad and my younger son has a bunch of friends on the literary magazine. As a freshman I think the main thing is to try a smorgasboard of activities that you think might interest you and drop the ones that you don’t like.</p>
<p>As for academics, make sure that your child is placed in honors level courses if they are available (and appropriate for his abilities). Some schools have secret honors courses - these are a lot harder to suss out. We theoretically have no grouping in 9th grade - but this is a blatant lie - when 2/3 of the kids in your kid’s 9th grade history class were in the gifted program in elementary school, you know something fishy is going on.</p>
<p>My kids have never had clothes issues.</p>
<p>It’s a good point about the clothes. My son doesn’t care what he wears now, since he’s in uniform, and I don’t really know what’s “in” for his age. I should remember to consult with other moms in the summer! As for social life, I am not really worried much about that, he does know some kids at the new school and is quite likable and friendly kid. I’m more concerned about the placement, and getting him into the challenging classes where he will learn something new.</p>
<p>It really depends on the structure and size of the high school. Our district has 12 k-8 public schools, all with their different curricula; they feed into a single high school which is divided into four “mini-schools,” each with its own dean and GCs. The k-8 students are dispersed throughout the 4 “mini-schools”; as well, many students across these mini-schools take classes together (especially for APs or foreign languages) and the ECs are school-wide.
My S was very advanced in some subjects, at grade-level in others. He made friends across the high school through the EC he joined, and also through some of the classes he took. I did not get the feeling that his former schoolmates formed cliques, although it seemed clear that some of the k-8 schools were better than others and their students were more likely to be in the more advanced (Honors and APs) classes than students from lower performing k-8.
S never cared about clothes; he’s been wearing cargo pants throughout high school, college and now grad school.</p>
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<p>You and your son need to meet with the GC at the new school to discuss this. You may find that there is no problem at all – in fact, because the public school is probably larger than most private high schools, the choice of challenging and interesting courses may be much broader. </p>
<p>On the other hand, you may get a lot of grief, especially when it comes to getting into honors sections.</p>
<p>We moved to from one state to another when my son was near the end of 6th grade and my daughter was near the end of 3rd grade. Daughter had no problems at all; the school system tested her for GT (gifted/talented) status the next fall, and she was placed in top sections for all subjects (which was appropriate for her) then and forever after. An understanding teacher helped her to catch up in math (her preparation did not meet the expectations of the top math group in the new school system) in her first year and did it so subtly that she didn’t even realize it was happening (although I did). From that point on, it was smooth sailing.</p>
<p>Son, on the other hand, had huge problems. He was too old to take the test that the school system uses to evaluate kids for GT (it is not valid after 5th grade), and he had not been considered GT in his previous school system (which had a much narrower definition of GT – only 2% qualified, as opposed to about 30% in the new system). Therefore he was considered “regular,” and the school system refused to budge on his status, despite his A minus average and scores in about the 95th percentile on various standardized tests. He was placed in “regular” classes in all subjects and had to fight his way out, subject by subject, with one petition after another (and in some cases, with support from various teachers), over a period of several years. Most irritatingly, it took three years before he was allowed into an honors section in what was very obviously his best subject (English). </p>
<p>If your son finds himself in the same kind of situation my son encountered, you may want to pick your battles carefully. The school may not allow him to petition his way into honors courses in all subjects at the same time, and it is more important to be in top sections in sequential subjects (math and foreign language) than in non-sequential ones (science and social studies). A student who is in non-honors Algebra 1 or Spanish 1 may not be prepared to handle honors Algebra 2 or Spanish 2 later on. But a student who is in non-honors Government or Biology is less likely to encounter problems if he successfully petitions his way into honors World History or honors Chemistry later.</p>