Parents of the HS Class of 2025 (Part 2)

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
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Crisis averted in AP Stats. The teacher has graciously allowed S25 to take the exam that he missed. I’m fairly certain he’ll get a 70 which is lowest possible passing grade. I haven’t done the math to see if he’ll wind up with a B or C, but there’s no danger of failing.

AP stats exam is on Thursday.

I’m pretty sure you can opt of the exam, but it must be done in the fall. If you don’t take it, you have to pay the school back for the exam fee.

May 2nd was the last day of classes for seniors. Graduation is May 19th. Lacrosse playoffs and graduation parties are in full swing. It’s such a busy time!

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S25 got the dorm he wanted! He and his roommate wanted the room number that matches our area code :rofl: but didn’t get it. I’m just happy they got an early time slot and got a dorm and room that they’re happy with. Apparently dorm selection is like the Hunger Games.

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Thanks, I plan to! I joined a couple of “unofficial” ones already, which have been helpful. Reading about it so far has definitely helped us in making plans. It sounds very different than drop of for my D22 at her school. We are going to fly in on Friday night and give us a day to do some shopping (or pick up orders we have shipped to an Amazon Locker or similar type of pick up spot) and sightseeing before the actual drop off on Sunday!

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I think maybe part of the reason that the test isn’t required here is that students/families have to pay to take the test? We paid I think $70/test. I would have been really unhappy to shell out $70/test for tests we knew ahead of time would not produce useful credits. It worked out for us that the Physics credit won’t be useful, but we really didn’t know until right down to the wire on that one, since he would have needed physics most likely at his 2nd choice school.

ETA: I do think most students take all their exams though at our school, from what my S tells me. I think S25 would have had 5 exams last year and 5 this year (counting his self study exams this year) had he taken all of them, which adds up to a fair chunk of change. I think other students probably have fewer exams.

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Yeah, you have to pay here, as well, $90 and change.

It’s particularly annoying that you have to pay in the fall, so you’re locked in even if you realize that the test is kind of pointless or that the kid won’t do well on it.

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At 25’s public school you have to take the exam, and pay the $$. It is annoying. I do believe there is a pot of $ set aside for kids who can’t pay easily. I think most schools around me don’t require kids to take the exam, though. I think they don’t want to deal with having separate big final assessments for the few kids who would chose not to take them? I think it is also, in their mind, a proxy for committment (I think this logic is flawed for a variety of reasons).

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S25 has four exams over three days. AP Chem and Gov today, AP Lit tomorrow, AP Stats on Thursday. No opting out where we live (and yes, the county pays for the exams). If you don’t take them, you don’t get the extra .5 added to that class for your GPA.

As you may recall from several months ago, we were debating what S25 should do re: the two exams today. Because of his learning challenges, he has extra time for AP exams. But with back to back exams, there’s no way to get the extra time and then do the second test. The reschedule date for AP Gov (the afternoon test) is for May 20th, after AP period is over and when students are supposed to be out of school working on their Senior Experience internships (all seniors find some project to do after APs and before graduation, generally it’s starting work early for a summer employer, but it can be with any mentor who is willing to provide a meaningful experience and do all the paperwork.) S25 doesn’t want to miss a day of the job, because when graduation got moved forward two weeks, senior experience got dropped to only two weeks, and of those 10 business days, one is a holiday. He didn’t want to lose a whole day to an AP exam that gives him no credits.

So he was thinking of just not doing the extended time for Chem and trying to manage both Chem and Gov today. This would’ve been particularly rough, given that he’s still not 100% healthy. Plus the fact that the AP Chem test is notoriously difficult, with one of the lowest score ranges of all the APs, it’s one that’s hard on anyone to get through.

But the AP coordinator basically called me and said look, I can’t put this in writing, but I have an issue with the fact that the school requires students sit for the exam to get the extra .5 and in cases like yours - where it’s a question of meeting all the hours requirements for senior experience or getting the extended time mandated under your IEP and provided by the college board, I don’t think it’s fair. If he doesn’t show up to the make-up day, I won’t be submitting the paperwork that would remove the .5 from his GPA.

So the plan for today is that S25 is sitting in the room for the kids who have extended time on Chem. If he finishes in time, he’ll go take AP Gov. We assume he won’t finish in time. Then he just won’t take it, and other than potentially missing some credits that could’ve advanced his standing at college, no harm no foul. (Hopefully.) It’s a shame, because of the four tests he could be taking, AP Gov is the one that he probably would have the highest score on. (But AP Stat and AP Lit actually get him something useful at college, so fingers crossed for the next two days.)

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she is right I think, I suspect you could fight this if had the time and inclination!

My kiddo only has 2 this week (Gov today, Lit tomorrow), but with another big test that happened Monday and project for Friday, I can’t wait for this week to be over - lol. My '27 also has a rough week this and next too, academically. Though '27 just got a leadership position they’d been hoping for in robotics for the coming year, so that bolstered spirits for alll!

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We do not pay here. Public school. I am not sure where the funding comes from, probably my tax bill. We all had to sign some contract for each AP and there may have been something in there about paying a fee if he didn’t take exams, but I am not sure. These large fees make it such an inequitable process. But I guess education as a whole is not equitable to begin with.
It does seem like our school gatekeeps quite a bit for AP classes. There are several levels for subjects, so alot of kids take honors instead of AP. My son’s AP classes are very small and he will have taken 5 total. The kids do not seem to be pushed as much in the AP direction by guidance even when they are recommended for them. My husband is a teacher in a different district. The entrance into AP classes is much less regulated with more parent or guidance overrides so the classes can be bigger and level and abilities of kids variable. Some other districts in our area level less and have no honors, making AP the only upper level option. My kid has taken a small amount of APs compared to them, which is fine in the end although when he was trying to get into his reach schools, I had wished we had known more and pushed him to take more APs. Oh well, we will never know if it would have made a difference and we are super excited about where he landed. So interesting how APs are approached differently across schools. My school had no APs where I grew up, and probably still doesn’t offer so I was clueless with all of this.

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Our public makes us pay for APs (with exceptions if need $) and intentionally allows anyone to sign up for anything (more or less) as gatekeeping introduces a large bias - if a teacher needs to approve, you can see how that can play to stereotypes. Also, certain families (richer, more educated) push harder for exceptions, etc etc.

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On a different note, one of my younger employees just walked out at work. Because of all the changes happening and mandated reductions and reorganizations we’re moving a bunch of personnel around to organize teams differently. This guy likes his current boss, but doesn’t like his new boss. He claims she “doesn’t respect him.” Yes, new boss is not a great people person, but there is no lack of respect, it’s just that she is a precise boss who wants things done her way. Employee is a special snowflake. He’s been challenging to manage and, for several reasons, we’ve been willing to deal with his emotional outbursts and put in the work to try to help him grow and mature as a worker.

Well, today he threw a fit about moving to the new supervisor. Basically he said “if you make me move then I’ll quit.”

I think it surprised him when I said ok.

I’m not interested in being held hostage to his temper tantrums. I’ve been willing to deal with his challenges and to try and manage him past there and to get him where he should be, but don’t threaten to leave and think I won’t call that bluff.

At a time when I am struggling to not lay off workers who are trying hard and doing their best, I’m also not going to bend over backwards for him.

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Reading all these posts about AP exams, I’ve been feeling grateful my D25’s tiny high school doesn’t even offer AP courses. She finished her huge senior project and presentation/defense this week and is just doing regular classes/homework until the end of the year (no real traditional finals at this school either). Seems positively blissful in terms of stress levels compared to what your kids are dealing with, but it will be interesting to see how things go once she takes on a true college workload! :smiley:

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Agree on bias. I actually think there is bias whether there is teacher gatekeeping or not because even when available to all, there are many families who may not know how important they are so it is left to guidance to recommend or not and that is not without bias. My mom (low SES, did not complete high school) had no clue what classes I took and would not have gotten involved because she would not have known how to. I know more so would have pushed some but did not know enough to push my kid to take more APs. I was not meaning to say one way is better than another, just interesting how variable these things are. Leveling is complicated.

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That sounds glorious. I personally think the whole AP is a bit of a money-making racket, but sucked into playing the game a little over here. Enjoy!!

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Our HS doesn’t weight GPAs at all. So, if a kid wants to take the AP class, but not pay for and take the AP exam, the school doesn’t mind. (Although, if the class is over-enrolled, they might ask kids not planning to take the exam to take a different class, I suppose, but that hasn’t really come up.)

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And our school district weights for the class, so AP (and IB) class weighting is completely independent of whether the test is taken or not.

(That also lets them deal cleanly with mismatches, like my C23 who took the IB German class but then took the AP German exam.)

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Honestly I think this all worked out fine. I wouldn’t think twice about it in your shoes. The employee had boundaries and needs from the job that they now they now found wouldn’t be met, and told you that..sounds like in a bratty / unprofessional way though - and that is that. You don’t owe them a switch to meet their needs if not in interest of org, but at same time they don’t have to put up with a micromanage-y boss if they don’t want to do so.

I am not young and I almost quit when a supervisor proposed switching my supervisor to someone else. I told them the new person was inappropriate to be my boss for a number of reasons and that a switch would impact my ability to do my job AND my happiness at the company. It may have been snowflaky of me (the proposed supervisor is a friend, and a colleague, but would have been an awful boss for me), but I do think we are all better off. I realized they might switch my supervisor anyway, and I would have likely quit.

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oh I agree there still is TONS of bias…

Our school actually did pull data, and with some changes the number of URM in honors went up when there was no gatekeeping and some other process tweaks. (Grades didn’t drop on average). This may or may not work in other communities. I live in a somewhat unusual town (in terms of US) higher income and far higher education levels, on average.

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Yeah, no one should work for a boss that is untenable. The problem, and I didn’t explain it well, was that this particular employee is convinced that he knows best and everyone who disagrees isn’t showing him enough respect. It’s not a respect issue, it’s a “you are still learning both the job and the people skills to work in an environment like this, sometimes you aren’t right.” What is making this harder for me is that he is completely unwilling to try to name the problem so I can try to fix it. I acknowledged that she (the manager) has some work to do too and that she needs to work on things and I’d be addressing that with her, and I asked him (the worker) for areas that he felt were problems that I could focus on. And I asked him to give me a chance to try to mediate and work on the relationship and communication. But all I got back was “don’t move me or I quit”.

Sigh. Since he’s been our problem child, losing his temper and causing emotional drama for a long time, it’s probably better if he goes. But he’s so young and has a family and a fair bit of debt. This isn’t the time to just walk away from a job.

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yeah, that is very bad.

I think you should be happy he is gone! My guess is he will be easily replaced and will, at some point, realize he is in the wrong.

That said, I do realize this is a lot of turmoil as a manager and group.