I find the variation in HS schedules fascinating. We have 8 credits per year (4x4 block) so students at our school graduate with upt to 8 more credits than kids on a 6 period day. That is insane to me! It also makes their workload harder as they are managing more classes. To make things more challenging, there are not study halls (seniors can have a free period but must go off campus). 22 credits are needed to graduate; my kid will graduate with 34 credits.
Judging a 6-period day transcript compared to an 8-period transcript must be challenging. The kid taking 8 classes a year must look very different. (And their GPA may be lower due to managing more classes!)
Agreed that the variation is crazy. No study halls at my Dâs school either and they had a longer school day and much longer class periods than the local public school, so much more depth.
At my high school, you had little choice 9th grade
English - assigned
World History - assigned
Science - assigned
Math - assigned based on placement test
Foreign language - studentâs choice of language; level based on placement test
Fine arts - choice of doing the art in the fall and music in the spring or vice versa, but order not guaranteed. There was a possibility of placing out of the intro course, but it had to be subbed by a higher level
Sophomore year: all core courses assigned as next-in-sequence. PE/health replaced art
In junior/senior years, FL would often drop if the student didnât start HS at level 1, which allows for electives / doubling up / misc graduation requirements
If the parent complained loudly enough, the following schedule adjustments were made: none.
Summer courses and online courses could not be used for credit.
Each course has a mix of 40 minute periods and 75 minute periods each week. Labs are held in one of the 75 minute blocks.
This is not necessarily true. Just because your high school allowed it, many donât. Our high school did not give credit for summer or online courses except for when a student was making up a class they failed and they needed for graduation.
Our private allows some summer but it is very restricted. Only one graduation requirement per discipline, and non-school courses for which you actually want credit require pre-approval by a Dean and Department Chair. The school courses are typically just a single Math and single Chemistry course, both designed to allow students who entered the HS from a different system to leap ahead onto our advanced sequences. I gather most people do not even try to get many other courses approved for credit.
I find it disturbing that at so many schools, classes have to be crammed into the summer, online, and before/after school in order for the students to take electives and arts. I donât get how students with jobs or other outside of school activities find the time.
I wonder if it would help if the school day or year were longer. Not advocating it, but the loss of electives seems sad to me. If you have 6 periods and one must go to PE, then there is little chance to try not just the arts but also off the beaten path electives like engineering, journalism, music theory, or even computer science in some cases. At the same time, more choice is not always better and students (with resources and $$$) can explore some of those topics outside of school. Just the idea of going from a regimented high school experience to a pre-professional path in college limits the opportunity to explore.
My kidsâ boarding schools arenât that relevant to this discussion because many courses are offered on a semester or trimester basis making it a bit easier to show that one has taken some core courses every year without necessarily taking them every semester or every trimester. Typical subjects that might be taken for shorter periods of time include advanced electives in FL, science, and social studies/history, but there are even math and English electives that are offered on the semester or trimester (or 2 trimesters out of 3) basis. That system helps make room for arts electives and project based work as well. I wonder if that is why both schools ended up dropping their AP courses since I imagine it is hard to teach AP syllabi in less than a year.
I definitely think trimesters helps make up for otherwise cramped schedules when it comes to interesting electives.
I feel like a lot of variations here basically were a form of extended day. Early periods, late periods, PE as an after school athletic requirement . . . .
At our school you just have to pick and choose. Kids sometimes have to drop an âacademic electiveâ to fit an art graduation requirement. It is what it is.
There is no PE requirement - all athletic requirement are fulfilled in the PM after classes. A couple of weeks ago the school moved âhealthâ to an off schedule lecture series type thing, that happens during non academic periods a few times a year.
In our school district, taking PE and Health online in the summer is so easy that it almost feels like cheating. A semester class is done in three weeks. Two hours of exercise five days/week, plus a short video or reading and comprehension questions. Our kids have been able to do it even while traveling. Sometimes theyâve been able to count their summer jobs as exercise (junior counselors at a nature camp that includes a lot of walking and hiking) â you just need to be able to log in and submit work by the deadline, which admittedly can be a little tricky with work and travel schedules, but itâs doable. Health class is similar, but more classwork and no required exercise. A bit of a hassle while youâre doing it, but then itâs over so quickly. Itâs a fairly common choice and a good trade-off for students who have electives that they really want to take in the school year.
The problem I have with the system is that the district is very stingy with PE exemptions. Even a four-year varsity athlete can only get a semester of PE exemption. Neither of my kids fell into that category (D23 didnât play; S26 is in marching band, and two seasons of MB gets a one-semester PE exemption), but I donât know why athletes canât be exempted from a semester of PE for every semester theyâre playing sports. They put in the time and the work!
District mandated. Our state (CO) has very few universal requirements for high school, so most graduation requirements are determined by districts.
Yeah, I agree that taking PE online is a little absurd and absolutely rife with opportunities to cheat the system (I will say that weâve always made sure our kids met the daily exercise requirement, though). But it allows students to have much more control over their schedules during the school year, so weâll take it.
It probably makes sense to have some required PE for things like knowing how to swim*, knowing how to ride a bicycle in traffic, and stuff that should be taught in conjunction with health. But that seems to be around a semester of content, so any additional PE requirements should be fulfillable with sports, marching band, or other physically active things.
*When I went to high school, a swimming test was required. If you could not swim, your first PE class was swimming.
Iâm pretty sure I had a required swimming test, too, but I grew up in California â Iâm assuming that swim safety requirements were more common there than elsewhere. Neither swimming nor bike safety is part of our districtâs PE/Health requirement (both would make a lot of sense, though).
