May also want to put the bug in their ear about some National Merit full ride type scholarships. 
My kids are appreciating not feeling broke lol
*That is so funny! My son hated red brick buildings and refused to go to a college that mainly had them. He is about to finish veterinary school now and has been all 7 years at a school with limestone buildings!
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Hi. I didn’t expect to be posting so soon for dd27. She is my 3rd (s22,d24). The older 2 went to same high school. They both took honors freshman English. Dd27 is also in that with a teacher I haven’t encountered before. If I had, I would have had her removed immediately. Day 1 he told the class not to expect A’s since he rarely gives them.
Way to deflate their bubble before they even start. I had confidence in dd because she was one of only 16/250 in her MS with a 4.0 and that was also in all honors classes. She is the one I never have to nag about work. You know where this is going. She currently has an 88. There are 2 weeks left. On all of her assignments he has never given a 100%. She has worked harder than my other 2 combined for this teacher. She has missed dance because he assigns so much work. I have a friend w a dd in there and she has 89 and is having trouble with her ecs too. There is one other hon eng class that doesn’t have all the extra work he assigns and they are a whole book ahead of dd class because he assigns these time consuming assignments.
Dd already talked to her counselor a month ago and told him this and got switched to the other one for next semester. I am furious that this teacher is on such a power trip. She has done every assignment as requested and on time. She will have 0 chance of a 4.0 and with grades being so much more important than test scores now, there is no way to get back there. It also will make her class rank a constant game of catch up.
Would you talk to this teacher? The administration? I can’t do nothing. Since he hasn’t improved on the grading my hopes that she could catch up are almost dashed. There are 2 more big papers after winter break - he is also the only teacher we have had in nearly 8 years of this school who assigned an extra assignment over winter break. All the other teachers tell them to enjoy their Christmas. Unless she gets A+ on both remaining assignments (although he is now known to toss in extra assignments last minute, hence the missed dance classes), she won’t be able to get it to an A. And since that is unlikely for him to give he is kicking off her high school career in an unexpectedly down note.
Any advice?
I would not do anything. Your kid is working hard and doing their best. Things will be fine. Life is not always fair, and kids will have disappointing outcomes at times. I would encourage working hard and learning for the sake of learning, not for the sake of absolutely having to get the best grade in every class.
Hello! How is everyone? We were in San Diego over Christmas break and visited SDSU and UCSD. The Kid liked both campuses, especially UCSD. The SDSU campus seemed compact, considering the number of students, and the mission style architecture is beautiful. SDSU is the only Cal State with a stand-alone astronomy department, and UCSD is launching its astronomy & astrophysics major in the fall of 2024. The Sixth College dorm buildings at UCSD looked very nice, and there is no foreign language required in the GE’s for Sixth College, so that is another plus. Hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season.
I agree with the other poster who said not to do anything. Believe me, I get how frustrating it is to see your kid work hard and get a lower grade that you think they deserve, especially when it seems that straight As are a bare-minimum requirement for kids to get into college these days. But your kid will learn from this experience, and (one hopes) she’ll come out of this class with some valuable skills.
You could ask your kid to attend the teacher’s office hours to go over their assignments and get feedback about how they can do better on the semester’s remaining work. If the teacher rarely gives As and your kid has a high B, that indicates that she’s at least on the right track, and she may just need some advice to be able to raise her grade over the next two weeks. At the very least, she’ll get some practice in seeking out help (I don’t mean that in a snarky way – for my kids, this was a skill that didn’t come naturally to them and that we’ve basically forced them to develop.)
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Did anyone else sign up for classes for next year yet? My S had to do that online over break and it feels so early! Our high school is on a block schedule so my S hasn’t even had some classes - like his math - yet this year, and he had to pick next years class!
He’s requesting these classes for next year:
Honors English 10 ( could have tried for AP but decided to wait for junior year)
Honors World History
Honors Algebra II
Honors Chemistry
Orchestra
Spanish III
Economics (1/2 credit elective)
Intro to Business (1/2 credit elective that might include Running Start/college credit)
Intro to TV and Film Production
First semester wraps up on the 19th. Thanks to a pretty big effort on his part right before Winter Break, he’s all caught up with previously missing work in his classes and his grades are good. Hoping he can hang in there until the 19th. So far, he’s done a good job since returning from break of getting everything handed in. Fingers crossed for that to continue. Hope everyone else is having a good ending to the first high school semester!
It’s not time to register yet, but he’s planning on:
Jazz
Honors world history
Honors sophomore English
Pre-Calc
AP physics
German 2
On top of that, he’s trying to convince me to let him take Spanish 2 and I am trying to convince him get back into marching band. Or try out for a sport… Anything that gets him moving.
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S has a placement test next week for AP World. For the rest, they can generally move up to Honors/AP if they have an 88 and receive a teacher’s recommendation. He has thrown out wanting to do geometry in summer school, but I think that’s a long slog, and maybe taking some other requirements like computers and speech might be better. He took the required health class last summer to get his feet wet at the high school.
He did well, got all As first semester, which is remarkable given that at least one third of his grade had below a 75 in at least one core class right before finals, making attending a special review session mandatory. His school seems exceptionally grade deflationary.
They had one exam on a Friday in December, and that Saturday, one of the teachers at his school died of a heart attack. It was very sudden and sad, and the teacher was the same age as my husband, with kids the same age as ours.
They ultimately canceled Monday’s test made the rest of the final exams optional, so that you could take them if you needed to raise your grade, but skip them if you didn’t.
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There’s tons of stuff on this out there if you’re interested. Just google demographic cliff or enrollment cliff. It’s real and it’s big (-15% between now and 2029). Here’s one piece on it:
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Oh, I’m totally not surprised it’s a thing, I just hadn’t thought of it before. Makes sense, sadly.
The Kid wants to take 8 classes next year:
American Literary & Language Arts Honors
AP Precalculus (a new offering)
Chemistry in the Earth Honors
Principles of Engineering
American History Honors
Dance Technique 2
Guitar 2 or Technical Theater
Art Studio or Drawing & Painting
They plan to take more classes, including ASL, at our community college this summer.
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Registration isn’t until March here, but I think S27 is planning to take:
AP Gov
Honors Chem
Precalc (I think this is offered as an AP now?)
Eng 10 honors
Spanish 3 honors (maybe? She’s looking into taking this as a DE class over the summer, to make room for more arts electives)
Chorus (this takes two class spots if D makes it into the advanced choir; one slot if she doesn’t)
Art or theatre (both, if she doesn’t make it into the advanced choir)
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Our course registration doesn’t open until March but we have mapped out some options. I think my child is only taking 1 AP next year. We’ll see what recommendations are and go from there. We can’t take AP courses unless the teacher recommends students for AP. I can’t believe First year is halfway through.
Same for us - can’t take AP classes without a recommendation. S was going to ask his English teacher for one but decided to wait. AP English (both) are just about the only AP classes open to sophomores at our school. They only offer a few Ap classes overall -very jealous of those of you able to access the new AP pre-calc.
Ultimately, though, is probably for the best that he waits to try AP. He is still having issues turning in work. It is SO frustrating because when I finally convince him to do the work (after DAYS or WEEKS of back-and-forth), it only takes him 15-20 mins. Why oh why doesn’t he just do it when it’s assigned?? Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) we are a competency-based school, which means that late work isn’t supposed to be penalized. I keep reminding him though that his sister ran into a few teachers who did penalize late work and that I wasn’t going to fight that for him as there is no reason he can’t turn it in on time. I’m hoping he gets his act together soon.
Other than the homework issue, he is a great student. Our first semester ends next week and his lowest grade is a 94 (an A-)with no missing work (currently!). Because we are on a block schedule, he starts four new classes second semester so I’m hoping that the fresh start will motivate him to do a better job keeping up. We’ll see.
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Our schools are very similar, as we are on a block schedule also. I don’t know how the students not on a block schedule juggle more than 2 or more AP courses at a time. Sounds like your S27 is pretty typical for executive management skills. Keep in mind the class of 2027 was one of the worst effected by Covid. They missed the majority of middle school. By the time, things got back to normal, they were mostly developmentally ready for high school.
Best of luck as the semester comes to an end!
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Thanks! You are definitely right about executive management skills. I remember when my D23 was in 6th grade - they spent a lot of time teaching them how to organize their papers, keep a planner, and manage their work. My S27 missed all of that with COVID - when he started sixth grade they were focused on trying to manage both online and in-person classes and only going to school two days a week. Unfortunately he’s too stubborn to take any advice from us to get better organized now (even though I do that work professionally with college students). I’m hoping he figures it out before he graduates because I know how hard it is for college students who struggle with organizing and completing their work.
That’s a nice way of looking at the block schedule, and I’m glad you raised it. I have strongly disliked the block schedule for my kids, so I’ve been looking for bright sides.
On a broader note, I also find the different AP approaches schools take very interesting. There are no barriers or limits to taking AP classes at my kids’ school, but the counselors consistently discourage students from taking them or even honors-level classes. I fully admit that I am “that mom” – the one that expects my kids to take the most challenging classes available to them, and it’s been frustrating when the counselors provide the exact opposite advice.
D27 is wrapping up AP World History and is on track to get a B (unless she does either very well or very poorly on the final next week). I think it’s been good for her to have a class that she has to work really hard in, in a way she never had to in middle school. She’s learned how to talk to the teacher (not a skill that comes naturally to her), how to create and manage a study schedule and that sometimes even when she tries, she’s not going to do well. I don’t love the hit her GPA will take from getting that B, but I think the experience has been worth it.
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Here is another positive spin instead of the B hitting her GPA; think of all the skills she learned in the AP class. I would not expect a first year high school student to be receiving A’s in an AP course, which is supposed to be equivalent to a college level course, unless they were gifted.
My D27 has her course registration going on - any feedback on Physics I vs Chem H. She struggled with grades (couple of B’s) freshman year so trying to not go overboard. Honors though are weighted more. As far as grades go - what’s the way to augment the Bs with either courses or extra acads or activities?