My kid is 12, soon to be 13. He does well in school, doesn’t ever have homework that takes him any time to do, which frees up time for him. He is enrolled in every honors class that he can take this year, along with any of the afterschool stuff that being a GATE kid provides. His last foray was something he didn’t really want to take–Slam Poetry–but it was fun and got him to try something that wasn’t really in his comfort zone.
Today was a late start and there was data. Teachers found out that somewhere around one in every three freshmen received a D or F at the semester in English. Keep in mind that we have four sections of Honors English, so if you take out those numbers, it’s even worse.
On the sophomore side, about one in every four students received a D or F in English.
Obviously, when you receive an F, you need to make that up into a passing grade. The option that we’re thinking about is having the failing student repeat the entire class with a different teacher. It’s my 18th year at North High and I’m not sure this was ever an option. 90 more days in a seat in a class with younger students for a failed English class. And how fun are those classes going to be, with older kids being spoilers for the ones who haven’t taken the class yet?
Summer school and Hamilton (the adult school that uses Odysseyware, which is supposedly hard) were the two other options.
There was no Opportunities for Learning mentioned. They are one of those complete-the-packet schools that students can attend online and in-person. Many classes are offered–some of them are even AP and Honors. Kids are starting to figure out that this option exists and have taken advantage of the free tuition for high school students.
Pacific Coast High School wasn’t mentioned either. It offers online classes. Some of the other schools in our district tell their students about it, which is how I have heard of it. Our school does not mention it.
There’s El Camino College, but I’m not sure how they deal with F grades, if they transfer or count for high school credit in a remediation sense.
But here’s my problem–I have a kid who’s 12, soon to be 13. He’ll be going into 8th grade next year. After that, two high school teachers have no idea what to do with their kid. Do we home school, supplement with El Camino, and see what goes from there? One kid we know who went down that path is now at Cal Tech, a school that no one from North High has attended out of high school.
There’s going to high school and supplementing at the above options. We had a student years ago who graduated as a junior and entered college as a junior because she had accrued so many JC credits. She was nothing more than an average student, but entering college as a junior while graduating high school as a junior is anything less than average.
There’s early entry programs into college.
There’s always the CHSPE, the California High School Proficiency Exam. Any tenth-grader and above can take the test, pass it, and be a high school graduate. College can start right after that, though at the JC level.
Do I want my kid in classes where a third or quarter of the class is getting a D or F? Is that the way it is at all schools? He certainly doesn’t have much work now, which suggests that the rigor is less than tough. Are we dumbing it down to meet in the middle and letting kids get A’s for only doing above average work?
It’s going to be a hard decision, but I think we have a year. Options.