<p>I feel like our counseling office is failing. Last year, they could not get my children in to needed courses, and again, filled them up on electives. Their schedules were about half and half. Out of 8 classes, my son had 4 required courses and my daughter had 5. So, they were required to be enrolled in 8, but my son got 4 that count toward graduation and the rest were electives and my daughter got 5 that count toward graduation with the rest being electives.</p>
<p>That happened the year before at a different school. My son was placed in to PE when he already had full filled the PE requirement for graduation. The year before though, they only required 7 credits at the school they were at then and both at least got 5 credits toward their diploma. </p>
<p>Anyway, we are 2 weeks to the beginning of the school year here. The school has let me know (only because I emailed the teachers directly, the counselors office never spoke to me) that there are scheduling conflicts. The administration let me know that classes are very full so it is hard to fit kids in to classes so my children might or might not get in to their classes they need. Meanwhile, they continue to enroll other students and work with other students. I don’t even know who they are working with or why my children are last priority. I am guessing my children are being pushed off because they are in-district transfers (meaning, they are actually zoned for a different school but have been allowed to enroll her). One of my children has an IEP so I tried to get ahold of the special ed office, only to be pushed off by them too. Apparently, the campus people who do that work, such as the diagnostician, will not be in until the 20th. School starts the 27th. In the meantime, again, classes are filling up.</p>
<p>I have offered to my children to just transfer to private schools. Even that option will go away as the private schools are all starting now and they cannot enroll after the first day. My children seem attached to this one high school. </p>
<p>Am I expecting too much? Maybe I am just getting anxious over nothing. But they have claimed they could not even get my oldest in to foreign language or speech so far. Now he will be a senior next year.</p>
<p>I think my kids have had at least one scheduling conflict every year they were in high school. But our school always made sure they took every course they needed to graduate. My younger son couldn’t take both AP Stats and AP Calc. My older son took regular instead of honors physics as a freshman. They were never in danger of missing out on anything critical. Interestingly my younger son’s main complaint was that they really tracked you into a set of courses and sometimes you had to insist you didn’t want to be in AP everything or they’d give you a free period instead of suggesting you look at what electives were offered that period. My son said there were some business courses for example that might have been fun to take as electives instead of sitting around doing nothing. </p>
<p>In your shoes I’d definitely try to get to the bottome of what is going on. You may need to be a squeakier wheel.</p>
<p>“In your shoes I’d definitely try to get to the bottom of what is going on.”</p>
<p>MathMom is right on the money, again. Every child needs an advocate to deal with these situations. lmkh70, I hear your name being called!</p>
<p>Obviously your child needs to be on-track to graduate next year. Outside courses … Online or Community College or Dual-enrollment with a University may be your S’s best options if there’s a problem. Unfortunately, GCs are generally much better at getting kids into classes at their HS than approving outside courses to fulfill graduation requirements. But we’re probably ahead of ourselves here. Step one is to request a meeting with the GC As Soon As Possible … next week at the latest. If the GC balks, you really need to get School Administrators involved.</p>
<p>Sorry you’re having trouble with this, and good luck.</p>
<p>lmkh70, you’re in Texas, right? What they’re doing to your kids isn’t right if they’re preventing them from graduating on time on the graduation plan they selected. (Sometimes, you do have to be flexible as to particular courses; but the overall plan requirements must be timely met.) I realize you’ve found it more effective to go around the counseling ofc and work directly with teachers, but for this one, you need to see a counselor ASAP–go now, before school starts–so you have established you are following the chain of command. If the counselor doesn’t satisfactorily resolve your issues, then you can go up the chain (whoever is next in line, whether head counselor, an asst principal or the principal–your ISD should have a published path). </p>
<p>I would suggest going into the office and talking to the scheduler personally with your children. They will have to tell you directly what the situation is, and maybe they can offer some alternatives with you there on the spot to make the decision. </p>
<p>There are usually a number of electives as part of each years schedule however. At my daughters public school she is on the honors track, and still has 3 electives each year.</p>
<p>Our kids never had much advice from the counselor either (private HS). The only “advice” provided was at a session for parents where we were told that kids should take a max of 1-2 APs/year. We cornered the counselor & asked her about this as it applied to our S & she laughed & said, leave our S alone & let him take whatever he wants. The other “advice” she gave was repeatedly asking S if he wanted to drop AP comp sci because he missed so many of the class days due to illness. He refused & got an A in the course as S had predicted.</p>
<p>At their private HS, they don’t have all that much space for electives & many take PE for summer school. Doesn’t sound like your kids are getting much help getting the courses they want/need. Would just double-check as to whether they’re on track to graduate on time & see whether anything can be done to help them get more of the courses they want/need.</p>
<p>Go to the head of guidance if you need to. You may even want to see about switching counselors if that makes a difference. The real motivation is to make sure your kids graduate on time.</p>
<p>Interms of college guidance, we received very little and what we did get was too late. Rely on cc for that and other sources. Forget getting it from the schools.</p>
<p>My side story that clued me into how unorganized public HS guidance dept are was was when my son received his first schedule in 8th grade. They neglected to give him lunch. Instead the computer gave him a study last period. </p>
<p>I contacted the school and asked how can a schedule go out with no lunch? Aren’t there people checking these schedules before they go out? Shrug on their part, I guess we missed it.</p>