The kids at our school have the same classes every day - six academic classes, lunch and gym. Each class is 50 minutes. I really wish we had the A/B block schedule instead. I think it’s better and less stress. S19 has homework every night in every class with his three AP classes having at least an hour each night and the other three aren’t much better. There’s no coordination between the teachers on test dates so it’s not uncommon for him to have three big tests in one day. Since he doesn’t get home until 6:00 each night from running, he’s really learned to manage his time. He’s really given no choice. It’s school, practice, shower, dinner, homework and bed!!
Our kids take 7 classes. 6 are on a block schedule with 100 minute classes every other day, and one class is held for 50 minutes every day. I have no idea why they do it this way. No study halls and they seem to actively discourage any sort of free period. If S19 ends up with too heavy of a workload next year, he can probably drop a class and take guitar, which is basically a free period.
His course selection sheet is kind of overwhelming. They’ve added yoga and “Combating Intolerance.” He decided he wants AP Gov so that would put him at 4 APs before he figures out what his last class will be - pretty sure it won’t be AP Chem! Guitar class here we come?
@eh1234 yes to guitar class!
Online PE: We have a one-year PE requirement, plus one semester of “lifetime personal fitness” (read: health). We have a number of very remote high school students up here (off the road system, even), and the only way they can take any high school courses, PE or not, is online, so they have to do it all that way—at least in some cases, there’s exercise logging and such involved. For those kids living in a more urbanized area, the only part of the requirement that can be taken online is the health semester—not everyone takes it online, but it seems to be the preferred method.
PE waivers: There is no waiver for the health class, but playing four years of a single sport waives the one-year PE requirement. There are very occasional problems with students who do three years of a spring sport but then get injured during fall semester, thus giving them not enough time to take enough PE to fulfill graduation requirements (since they can’t do the fourth year of their sport), but the word is that thankfully the school district works those out on a case by case basis.
Most rigorous: My kids’ counselor is pretty transparent about it—their school offers a total of 4 AP classes plus 1 DE one, so if they take 2 or more of those, they get the “most rigorous” checkbox.
@mom2twogirls I hope you didn’t take my post the wrong way regarding how difficult gym class was and think I was being a big meanie.
I dd not mean that it’s hard for the kids physically, I meant hard as in it’s hard to find a good time to schedule the class!!
I totally get that many kids don’t look forward to gym class for many reasons and it can be difficult on many levels.
I’ve just never had to worry about it because the class is kind of built into their schedule every term and I don’t think the kids can waive out of it. There is no getting credit for playing a varsity sport, no online classes etc. You just show up and find a way to get through it no matter what. At least that’s what I think, but I’m sure there are some kids on a case by case basis that need to opt out . I’ve just not encountered it.
I’m sorry that some of you all have to deal with that! That must be frustrating.
The only thing I don’t like about gym is that it can be kind of a madhouse. Back in eighth grade, S19 got a concussion playing basketball with some not so nice kids (not his choice, he was put in that group). The concussion was scary and cost him time in school as well as money since, at the time, he was playing tennis competitively and we were paying a small fortune in tennis lessons and he had to miss two weeks worth. D21 is constantly worried that she will twist an ankle playing football or something else and be injured for ballet.
I understand why Illinois has four years of gym. Many Chicago kids wouldn’t get any exercise without it. Our school does what it can to excuse kids, but it’s limited by the state’s rules. D21 gets to do the dreaded swim unit next. What teenage girl wants to don their bathing suit and swim in the middle of a school day?!
I was mocking Houston for closing a bunch of school because of 30 degree weather. But it seems to have been a good idea. It wasn’t just cold, it was freezing rain. Overpasses throughout the area are closed because they are frozen over. Because it almost never freezes here, they just don’t have the equipment to de-ice. So motorists were stranded for hours on some highways.
Most schools were closed yesterday and today.
And here is MA schools are open today despite a snow storm. There was about two inches on the ground when S left to drive to school this morning. The plow hadn’t been to our street yet so I Iet him take my car which has all wheel drive. Its been snowing steadily since he left, though the plows have now come around, but I’m not sure how much is down on the ground now. Despite my advice, he refused to wear gloves, boots, or a coat, so he will have fun clearing off the car to come home after school ends.
Same here, school itoday n MA. Still snowing. It’s all right though,it’s only a few inches. Id rather have them go to school than take another day off, especially because it’s not that treacherous out. Im not a fan of shutting everything down now because it snows. It’s like every storm becomes a “major storm warning”, when in reality we get some snow and just need to deal with it. People just need to learn to drive better and slow down, which is not easy for people in MA to do, ha.
@homerdog making the girls wear swimsuits in gym, ewwww. I can see why people get mad about gym, lol. I think our gym is less competitive than some of your’s. The kids do fun stuff like broom ball, pickle ball, obstacle courses, archery, learn tennis, hike, etc. It’s more about learning and getting outside than it is about mastering skills and being timed.
Maybe because I have semi sporty kids but they never complain about it. It’s probably fun for them, there is no pressure and no real competing. Just go outside with your friends and have fun. I don’t think it’s too hard to get an A in gym. Basically show up, try something, don’t whine and complain, be nice, have fun, get an A for effort.
@me29034 - Same here in NJ. My son left without a coat, boots or gloves…I had the same thought about cleaning off the car after school! 
Snow day again here in PA too. The kids are enjoying the extra, extra long weekend. It’s really not that bad out there. It just takes longer to clear out the rural parts of my area. So it might be okay where I am but not okay where a lot of my kids’ classmates are.
S19 and S21 will be doing parent-sponsored PE today. I hear shoveling snow is just as fun as broom ball. :))
@RightCoaster I’ve never thought you a meanie, lol.
This year’s PE has been better, actually. In 9th and 10th, they take a General PE class. In 11th and 12th they have elective options and that sort of sorts them a bit more in a way that works better. A lot less complaining from my d19 anyway.
@homerdog my d19 doesn’t mind swimming when it’s the end of the day. Her hair is thick and long (almost to her waist) and takes soooo long to dry that it’s a pain when she actually has to get it wet for swim class and then sit with drippy hair all day.
Overall though, the grading for our high school PE is way more generous than middle school PE. My kids always got all points for preparedness and effort but lost points for skills. My younger one especially has awful hand/eye coordination which makes a lot of sports extra hard.
The only confrontation I have ever had with a teacher was with my kid’s elementary school PE coach. He was a young guy. He gave my kid a poor grade. When I asked the kid about it, I was told ‘the teacher just hates me’. So I arranged a conference, and he said that kiddo wasn’t very good in class. I grilled him on his rubric, asked if he graded on ability or on effort, gave points for following directions, what grades he gave for sportsmanship, whether he docked points for being a sore loser or a gloating winner. I asked whether kiddo was trying in class, and asked whether it was fair to grade all kids on a basis of athletic ability. I pointed out that a number of kids in his class had problematic behavior when they won a physical contest and asked what he was doing to nip that in the bud.
Kiddo had great PE grades after that. I don’t know whether coach just didn’t want to deal with me again. I hope he changed up his grading methodology. I think the skill of being a gracious winner can take someone far in life, and schools don’t pay enough attention to teaching it.
So we have a new situation to deal with for D19. She had been having back pain for a long time now, said it kind of felt tight and she always felt like she needed to crack her back. I went to her pediatrician and she said it was probably a mature of stress and bad posture (sitting hunched over in bed doing her homework and playing on her phone) and told D to do stretches every day. I also bought her a new mattress because I noticed her old one was sagging.
This past month she said it had been getting worse. Last night I finally brought her to the walk in clinic that has does x rays - her spine is a crooked mess, she has scoliosis! Her back has two curves where it should be straight and her neck is straight where it should be curved. I am not too happy with our doctors office, they check her back every year and even after we told them of the back pain they did not notice this. Now I have to find a good orthopedic doctor and see what we do next. Really hoping to avoid surgery. 
Of course we find this out the day after she and I were discussing her summer plans, if she has to have surgery everything will change and we won’t be able to plan anything for her just yet.
On another note, our school has the same schedule every day, 7 periods (no study hall) and only one time for all 3,600 kids to eat lunch. #-o By junior year some kids only take 6 classes and leave early. D is taking one online class so she also leaves early. Seniors can take just 5 classes (if they are on track) and leave extra early. D wants to do that next year but I said no way, she has to at least take 6!
My younger sister grew four inches between junior and senior year. She developed very bad scoliosis, my parents were quite worried and talking surgery, then the snapped back to straight and she shot up those four inches and they had to buy her a whole new wardrobe. So I will hope that your kid is just having an odd stage of growing pains and will soon be supermodel tall. Note that this is the same sister who has ash blonde hair and a fantastic job and I’m not jealous one little bit no nope nope nope.
It’s been interesting reading all the different schedules and approaches to PE. We live in NJ, and gym is mandatory for all four years of high school. Well at least in our school district. This also includes health and driver’s ed. In a way it’s good because without it S19 would not have any physical exercise. But it is very restrictive on the classes they can take. Our district also makes the kids do honors classes before taking AP classes, so my kids (S14 and S19) didn’t have any APs before junior year. S14 ended up with about 7 APs, and S19 has 3 this year and 3-4 next year. He has a rotating schedule where they have 8 out of 9 enrolled classes every day.
Re: AP CS, S14 took it senior year and it will be the same with S19. It will go towards the technology requirement that NJ has for graduation. S14 didn’t really like it because it is mainly paper based with very little computer time. He didn’t even bother taking the AP exam because he already knew where he was going to college and it wouldn’t have helped him in any way.
In our school district in So. TX, kids have to take one year of PE/sports. D19 played volleyball for two years, so she’s done. It’s D22 I’m worried about, because she quit volleyball and now has no sport. I don’t know much about regular PE classes.
D19 said they haven’t started to talk about next year’s class selections yet, which seem surprising. Since we had an “ice day” yesterday I did some online work and pulled up some options for her, and printed them out of the district list. Of course those papers are cast aside and she never even looked at them. :-?
D19 was diagnosed w/ some scoliosis back at her age 13 well check. I was so worried because she was short (still is) and she was playing volleyball. Every inch matters! Seems that scoliosis is pretty common among volleyball girls, so we had several referrals for orthopedic specialists. We went to see this doctor twice a year for a few years, then since she stopped growing, it’s not really an issue anymore. Her curvature seems improved, but every chance I get when she’s in a bikini or something, I look at her spine and she doesn’t like it. She says she feels like she’s at the doctor’s office. Well, I’m just a curious mom and I don’t know where this scoliosis came from. @momtogkc I hope your D grows out of it too.
@momtogkc in terms of scoliosis , they may take a more conservative approach of bracing at night to correct the scoliosis depending on how many degrees deviation there is
@carolinamom2boys That’s what I am hoping. I did go online today to try to figure out who to measure the angle today but then had to get S23 to the orthodontist so never got very far!
@ninakatarina Another mom just told us her D has the surgery for scoliosis and grew 3 inches. D19 was not happy about that - she said she likes being short and doesn’t want to grow! :)) Teenagers are so weird!
My D’s school requires 2.5 years of PE. I think it’s OK to make the kids exercise.