<p>Tonight is S final jazz band concert for the year. He is in jazz 2 which is the less experienced jazz band. He is looking forward to being the bassist for jazz 1 next year, except for the time they rehearse–6:10 in the morning! ugh! The cool part is this though, usually once you are in, you are in for the rest of high school, so he will be the main bassist for the jazz band program for the next 3 years. He auditions for the bass position for our amazing jazz choir on Thursday, and again, the same applies–if he gets it he will have the position for the rest of high school. This is his Dream (with a capital “D” ).</p>
<p>It is an exciting time for him. He still has finals next week.</p>
<p>momsings, the teacher discretion thing would probably bother me too, so maybe there’s no pleasing me! Break a leg wishes to your S - that’s very exciting!</p>
<p>I was urged by my buddies in the class of 12 list to come on over here.</p>
<p>I have a D12 and a D15. D15 is going to give us an interesting ride. Her homework style is entirely different from her sister, in largely good ways.</p>
<p>On driving, she is determined to get her license as soon as possible. She can get her permit at 15.5 and her license 9 months later.</p>
<p>She has finals starting tomorrow.</p>
<p>I will spend sometime reading this thread and catching up.</p>
<p>Okay, so D15 ended up with a 3.22 for the year (3.45 for the last marking period). Could have been better but also could have been a lot worse. What bothers me is that she got her grades because she did her homework, her projects, and some extra credit. If her grades were solely based on test scores, they would have been absymal.</p>
<p>Interesting to read about how schools grade. Each quarter at D’s school is worth 20% and the mid- term and final are each worth 10%. And they never round up. An A+ is a 97.50. She got a 97.47 and it’s a B+. An A- is 89.50. she got a 89.45 and it’s a B+. i know you have to cut it off somewhere but it’s maddening. A couple hundreths of a point really changed her average.</p>
<p>Hi jmnva06! My kids are all very different too. And S’15 qualified for his permit today, and after weeks of anticipation…he opted to go to the pool with friends today and we didn’t have time to get to the license branch. :rolleyes: It’ll be 18 months before he can get his license. In the meantime he’s started learning how to drive a manual transmission just in the street in front of the house. grind grind stall…</p>
<p>SanSerif - all the schools vary so much in their grading system. It’s interesting to hear about other schools, but don’t drive yourself nuts trying to figure out how your D’s grades will compare to every other school. Colleges all evaluate GPA’s differently as well, so it really isn’t worth getting too tense about it!</p>
<p>Since your curious though, I went and looked ours up. We don’t have A+'s, but here’s our chart:</p>
<p>Each semester grade is 40% for each of two quarters, and 20% final. All courses have to give a written final (even AP’s and performing arts classes), but I can say my son’s choir final was a complete easy A. </p>
<p>Momsings - how was the concert? Good luck to you S tomorrow auditioning for the top jazz choir!</p>
<p>Hey jmnva, so glad you have joined us on the 2015 thread. I really enjoy the fact that all of ours from this class are so different from their sibs in 2012.</p>
<p>PinoNoir–concert was fun last night. It was long but the kids looked happy. S is stressing about about this audtion for the jazz choir. The song the teacher gave him is very difficult–it is one they did towards the end of this school year and the bassist is an outgoing senior. I told S that I didn’t think they expect him to be perfect since he has never jammed with the rest of the rhythm section. He needs to do the best he can, act professional and go about it as a rehearsal. He is much encouraged after practicing more this afternoon. He will be relieved when all is said and done.</p>
<p>It takes 18 months from permit to license in your state? Wow!</p>
<p>Yes - in our state, you can get a driver’s permit when you turn 15 as long as you’re enrolled in driver’s ed, but you have to be 16 1/2 to get a license.</p>
<p>Sending good bass vibes to momsings’ S this morning. The advice you gave him is great - they aren’t looking for perfection after the kid practices a tough part on his own for a few days, they’re looking for , “oh, this kid has the voice and can learn this part.” </p>
<p>In the meantime, S had two main goals he wanted to accomplish this summer, and he’s not making great progress toward them. sigh. This puts me in the role of nag, which is a role I don’t like, am not good at, and resent. I think once his older brother starts his full time job on Monday, it will be just the two of us and we’ll be able to get into a good rhythm.</p>
<p>PinotNoir, it’s interesting you characterize the choir final as a complete easy A. A lot of people are surprised when I tell them D’s chorus class was really hard. They teach music theory, and it sounds like it’s fairly involved and a lot of the kids need extra help with it. D15 got a final grade of a B in Chorus, with a C in her final, and I’m relieved it wasn’t worse.</p>
<p>SanSerif - I didn’t say choir is an easy A everywhere! I said at our school, the final is an easy A. They hadn’t given finals in choir before, but the school started a new policy that every class has to give a written final. I think the kids just wrote an essay critiquing the spring concert or something like that. But that’s the perfect example of how different all the high schools are! </p>
<p>It’s a good thing your choir teaches music theory - our kids have to make that a separate course if they want to take music theory. In my mind, it’s part of being literate as a performer to know some theory. But I’ll also admit, it’s nice to have one class where he doesn’t have to knock himself out for an A. :)</p>
<p>I know it isn’t an easy A everywhere … but it’s interesting how many people have been surprised that music theory is part of her class. And I have gotten the impression that in a lot of schools, 9th grade chorus is considered easy. I wish it would have been - it would have been nice for her to have an easy A! lol</p>
<p>Finals start today for D. She doesn’t have an afternoon final and was just going to skip out of school. She rethought this idea this morning , and asked me for a note to leave school early. I reluctantly agreed since she has a final tomorrow and we are going to see Memphis tonight.</p>
<p>SansSerif - I get that impression too (that 9th grade choir is easy most places). </p>
<p>I have a friend who is a middle school band director, and he says he makes it tough to get an A. He said a lot of parents aren’t happy about that. I didn’t tell him I’d be unhappy about it too if my kid had him for band! My kids don’t get straight A’s anyway, but for those who do, who have their eyes constantly on their weghted GPA and who are already sacrificing their GPA’s but taking an unweighted music performance class, it probably just makes it harder for them to decide to keep the class if it’s hard to even get an A, unweighted or not. And music is so important! It just makes the world a better place, and is food for the soul for so many people, our highschoolers included.</p>
<p>I love choir at our school. They are getting music theory that I didn’t get until college. </p>
<p>My bass player seemed confident and ready to go for the audition. It is so interesting how much weight he has put on getting this “job” in the rhythm section–I guess there is an aura of prestige to it. </p>
<p>If he gets into this ensemble he is going to be one very busy musician next year (even busier than this year!). He will be in choir and orchestra as part of the regular school day, Jazz band early in the morning, the Jazz choir after school if he gets the bass job, and Youth symphony on Monday nights, plus classical and jazz bass lessons weekly. I have to keep telling him “no more!” as he keeps finding more musical activities he thinks he wants to do. There has to be time to rest, and oh, there is that homework thing too.</p>
<p>I guess it’s not too good if colleges have the impression that 9th grade chorus is an easy class and then it doesn’t look so good that she has a B. But she has bigger things to worry about than her chorus grade. Let’s not talk about algebra …</p>
<p>Music at our HS is a fair bit of busy-work – the kids have to attend performances and writeup critiques, and file weekly practice logs. But if you follow-through on everything, dot your Is and cross your Ts, you’ll get an A.</p>
<p>My D2012 kept adding more and more extracurricular music. In Jr.HS she played in school orchestra and a beginning-level outside orchestra. Freshman year she played in school orchestra, an intermediate outside orchestra, and a chamber group. Sophomore year she played in 5 orchestras (school + 4 outside) and a chamber group. Junior year she had to really pare back as the academic load ramped up. Senior year, when the academics relaxed a bit, she stretched and auditioned for a higher-level extracurricular orchestra and chamber group, and also volunteered as string coach for the beginners at her HS.</p>
<p>I expect D2015 to follow more-or-less the same trajectory, except that her attention is spread across piano, drama and the visual arts rather than focused on orchestral music.</p>
<p>Haha! momsings - is your son in a school with a focus on performing arts? I love our school’s choir program too, because it’s exactly what S wants from it - great teachers, lots of fun, hard work, a high quality level in what they do (which is mostly show choir type stuff), and tons of camaraderie. His strongest group of friends is all kids from choir & theater. </p>
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<p>SanSerif - I think you have hit the nail on the head!</p>
<p>PN–we are just at a regular high school. What is nice is that the school is very supportive of the music programs and gives the kids a break from their PE requirements and the other few odd requirements when they take music classes. The music kids are tight–especially the Jazz kids. He is an academic kid so he is more worried than I am about “fitting it all in”. He is just going to have to make choices, and I support his music since he already knows it his is passion and what he wants to do with himself. </p>
<p>It sounds like you have a terrrific music program too. It is nice to know that music isn’t being cut everywhere and that it is valued.</p>
<p>So just here to report this week’s summer PE activities: along with running/walking half an hour each morning, they have played sand volleyball, gone to the driving range and the batting cages and had a mini track meet where they all did something they’ve never done before. She admits that she is actually kind of having fun. :)</p>
<p>momsings, let us know how the audition goes!</p>
<p>Choir at D’s school can be competitive (there are 4-5 different groups I believe) but it’s fairly easy to get an A in the class if you attend all of the rehearsals, events, etc. and do the homework. They get extra credit for outside voice lessons too. Orchestra, on the other hand, is rough and that A can be hard to get.</p>
<p>So many parents with musically-talented kids on this thread. Very cool!</p>
<p>Hard to believe many kids are still in school, or have school just ending. We’ve been out since late May & I’m ready to ship all my kids off to camp! Except I didn’t actually enroll them in camp - but I might…</p>
).</p>