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<p>Hey, I don’t mind…add away. Thanks for the info too.</p>
<p>D’s h.s. offers only French and Spanish through the AP level, and Italian at lower levels. It would have been nice to have Chinese or Japanese as options. I’m not as big a fan of Latin, though I understand its usefulness.</p>
<p>Queen’s Mom - not really sure where a 10-year old can study languages. Maybe if you call the appropriate department at your local CC, they can point you in the right direction? I know someone who sent her middle school-aged D to CC to study either Chinese or Japanese (can’t remember which at the moment). But 10 is very young to go that route (though so is 12…lol).</p>
<p>jackief - in our district, 7th & 8th grade foreign language count as one year of h.s. foreign language. They average the grades together, and that’s the grade that appears on the student’s transcript.</p>
<p>don’t worry navarre, the elves will get rid of the spam soon.</p>
<p>I’ve seen in the town’s parks and rec brochure some foreign language classes before, I think the best way to study as a 10yo is what Kelowana is doing one on one with a native speaker. Maybe if the native speaker had bilingual kids they could have some kind of a play group. </p>
<p>I don’t think our HS level classes taken in MS appear on the transcript (it would be great if they did) I’ll probably find out the details sometime</p>
<p>Our HS offers AP Spanish and Lit, AP French (used to offer Lit as well) and AP Japanese. Spanish and Japanese will always have a presence in the MS and HS as long as the language immersion elementary school exists (Spanish, 30+ years, Japanese 15+.) Teachers of all three language have made grant requests to our local Ed Foundation so I’ll need to ponder each one before our meeting Tuesday.</p>
<p>The year my S started in K, the school district instituted a lottery because demand had exceeded seats at the language immersion elementary school. Demand has grown more since then. Best standardized test scores of any elementary school in the district by a wide margin and very involved, educated (usually parents who each have dual degrees) parent population.</p>
<p>I have a friend who’s an independent IB (investment banker) who would strongly recommend any student who has it available to take Chinese. It’s the wave of the future.</p>
<p>This discussion reminds me I’ll have to ask the GC how S’s math and language classes taken during MS will show on his transcript or her separate writing, since he took honors Algebra II and Spanish II in 8th grade (fortunately, same school district.)</p>
<p>Wow, 8th grade and MS seem light years away now!</p>
<p>Our MS foreign languages also count - 2 years at the MS = 1 year of the HS - but only if you take another year at the HS level. You don’t get a letter grade, just a CR (credit). Same way they deal with Algebra 1 and/or Geometry in 8th grade. As far as I know, those are the only classes where the credit travels up to the HS.</p>
<p>As for the thread yesterday about course loads, our HS requires 7 classes Freshman and Sophomore year and 6 Junior and Senior year. Sports and other after school activities can add credits - but don’t count as one of those classes. Two years of PE are required - Freshman year for everyone, a second year for those who do not play 3 seasons of a sport through their HS career.</p>
<p>Our school offers Spanish 1-4 + AP (5) and, up until next year French 1-4 + AP (5). Due to declining enrollment, they are canceling French 4 and 5 starting next year (you may have seen my other thread on my daughter dropping French in mid-year.) They recently added Chinese and American Sign Language to the course list - adding one level each year.</p>
<p>At S2’s school, one could take Spanish I at regular HS speed or spread it over two years. He took I & II for HS credit while in MS, then started in 9th with Honors III, and is taking AP/IB SL this year (Level V).</p>
<p>jackief,
Beware of what you wish for re: MS grades on a HS transcript. S2 took two full years each of HS math and Spanish in MS – got 7 Bs (all high Bs, but the school doesn’t give %ages or +/-) and 1 A. It has killed his HS GPA – both UW and W – because the only thing that was “honors” in MS was Geometry, even though he took HS classes as a 7th grader. Unfortunately, that is the GPA that will appear on his transcript. S and the GC will need to point out his 9-12 GPA is considerably higher. </p>
<p>For S1, the MS grades didn’t hurt his overall GPA because math is his strong suit. Mileage may vary depending on the kid involved!</p>
<p>My oldest gets to be a junior counselor at his favorite summer program this summer, which he is happy to hear.</p>
<p>FindAPlace Chinese is indeed the wave of the future. In NYC, many kids are learning Chinese. In the past, it used to be mostly kids of Chinese immigrants who attended “Chinese School”, now many Americans kids are in attendance. There is even a bilingual Chinese elementary school.
I noticed Japanese is getting popular also.
Queen’s Mom, if you have a Japanese market in your area inquire there about Japanese lessons.</p>
<p>CountingDown- I made that comment about MS classes because they are in the past for both my kids with good grades. But it really doesn’t matter to me, esp since the lang classes are slower pace I don’t think it is fair to count an A in our MS languages equivalent to an A in HS level I class which moves much quicker.</p>
<p>tokenadult- good new topic 
D is going to finish a CIT program and then is very excited that she will be staff at camp. She also got her lifeguard certification for a higher wage.</p>
<p>Sorry jackief, now it looks like my coment is towards you. I should have known better.</p>
<p>jackief - I tend to agree with you about it not being fair to count MS language classes as equivalent to a h.s. class - the only thing is, pretty much the entire school has the same experience, so it all sort of balances out. In D’s case, counting MS grades for h.s. classes into the h.s. gpa worked to her benefit, but I don’t necessarily think it’s fair. A lot of growth goes on in those years.</p>
<p>jackief and tokenadult - so glad your kids are getting their summer job situations worked out. My D is hoping to return to her job from last summer too. She still has to fill out the paperwork. It’s only a pt job, so she’s hoping to get another pt job as well. If not, she has a few other ideas about what she’d like to do - nothing is set yet though.</p>
<p>In my DD case, the two years at MS were the best two years of language instruction. When it came time for French 2, the students who had taken French 1 at the HS level were behind those who had taken French 1 spread over two years at the MS level. My DD commented on this early in the year - and the teacher mentioned the challenge of teaching two different levels of student at back to school night.</p>
<p>I do think that a CR grade is the appropriate grade - but I do think that they should get credit.</p>
<p>D’s grades from middle school (French and Math) are on her HS transcript and counted toward her GPA. She only took one year of French in MS (she transferred in from another school) and it counts as a full year. I don’t know how 6th and 7th grade classes count.</p>
<p>ETA: forgot to add. D is going to do her summer theater camp as a volunteer counselor.</p>
<p>We’re working on trying to get our S hooked up as an assistant in a science lab over the summer. Also scheduled in will be some water polo practice, starting the multivariable calculus class before the school year starts, and getting a good running start as some of the basic stuff on college applications. Plus a vacation TBD.</p>
<p>Sounds fairly busy to me. Here’s crossing fingers that he passes the driving test next month.</p>
<p>We get credit, but no grade for one year of middle school language. They take language for two years, and theoretically cover the same material as the first year class in the high school. Algebra 1 and Biology which they also offer at the middle school is given not only credit, but grades, and those grades appear in the high school transcript and are used to calculate the GPA. They only recommend kids for bio and math if they think they are capable of getting at least a B.</p>
<p>Our counselor just sent this out for those looking for summer opportunites. Some of them, like the Dept. of Defense one, sound really great.</p>
<p>My son has “off season” football all summer though, so no dice for him. </p>
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<p>Our kids can get hs credit in junior high too - foriegn language, honors algebra, honors geometry, speech, health, maybe more.</p>
<p>The grade shows up on the transcript, but is not calculated into the GPA. But, starting with the class of 2011, it will be. Lucky for my son! He got a B in 8th grade Spanish!!</p>
<p>As a military family, I’m not happy to see the hs credits from junior high getting factored in. It’s hard enough to get a military kid to a high school by sophomore year, junior high is out of the question. </p>
<p>Good news! We met with S’s guidance counselor today and she was wonderful. She had a lot of information. Most of it was Texas specific but that makes sense because most of the kids who do go to college out of S’s school stay here in Texas. They have also started a duel-credit program, which S is excited about. Between AP and Duel Credit, S will wind up with 21 college credits by graudation. I know they may not transfer but he’s proud and so am I.</p>
<p>Thanks ag54 for posting the Info. about summer programs.</p>
<p>ag54 - thanks for posting that information. Some of those programs sound pretty great.</p>
<p>pugmadkate - congrats to your son - that’s so great! I know you’re S is hoping to get out of TX for college, but it’s still nice to know that the credits are there if he changes his mind.</p>