HS Sophomore on IEP Struggling with Algebra 2 -- To Drop with WF? or Not?

I’m new to this site but thought I’d join…could use advice. My daughter who is a HS Sophomore has ADD and Poor Working Memory/Dyscalculia. She has always struggled with math. She completed Algebra 1 (barely passed with D+) and Geometry (C grade) and is now failing Algebra 2. She does OK in her other classes, As and Bs with an occasional C.

We have discussed with her school counselor her options for Algebra 2. Withdrawing now would be a WF (withdraw/fail) but the positive is that the F grade would not count towards her GPA. Her school would allow her to take Computer Science as her additional math credit required to graduate; however I am wondering how bad it would look for college admissions to see the WF in Algebra 2 and not having completed the course at all.

The other option would be for her to continue and maybe come out with a barely passing grade of D or if she ends of getting an F to take summer school/credit recovery course.

I’m wondering if the lower tier universities (those with higher acceptance rates) would even look at a college application where the student did not take Algebra 2 in HS??

Should she WF and not take Algebra 2 at all? (better for her GPA)
Should she WF but retake Algebra 2, even though she still might get a C/D grade? (brings down her GPA)
Should she stay in Algebra 2 and if she does not get a passing grade, take summer school/credit recovery course. (negative affect on her GPA) - she would still take Computer Science for additional math credit, so transcript would show 4 yrs of math at least even though her GPA might suffer.

She will also be taking Early Childhood Education 1 and 2 (CTE courses) and plans to go into Liberal Arts.

Any advice is welcome. Thanks!

Is there a way to further adapt this math course so that she can be successful? Slowing the pace further, and thoroughly reviewing Alg I materials that she is weak on would make sense. Since she already is identified, it seems to me that an emergency IEP meeting could be called, and the math teacher could be asked to sit in. It is not that your daughter can’t learn this material, it is that she can’t master it the way it is currently being taught. There are good online math courses these days that would allow her to slow things down to her own pace. Some, like KhanAcademy, PatrickJMT, mathisfun, and others are completely free.

Instead of a WF and a restart later, what about staying in class, but working through things slowly, and planning to end the year with an Incomplete that can be finished over the summer or even sometime next year?

Happykid truly struggled with math in school, although her learning issues were never formally identified to include dyscalculia. She did math on the regular calendar, with Algebra in 9th, Geometry in 10th, and Alg 2 in 11th. Her senior year math class was Consumer Math which gave her terrific real-life math skills. No over-due bills on her watch! She was placed into remedial math when she enrolled in college, and took College Algebra for her math credit. Those classes were hybrid courses with lecture sections, and all of the homework completed online. She really liked the slower pace, and being able to see exactly where she went wrong in the homework.

I’m also a little surprised that this has allowed to get this far, the point of an IEP is to make sure the kids are setup not to fail like this. I would encourage her to stay in the course and for you and her to meet with the teacher and her IEP advocate (if the school has one) and revise her accommodations. If she doesn’t pass, then retaking in summer is fine, she would have to explain the grade if it’s a D or F. It would be her choice when she applies on whether to disclose her LD. If you do, the colleges would know why she got the failing grade. Colleges can’t reject based on a disability but they could say we don’t have the support services for her and reject her on that. Look for colleges that are supportive of LD students by asking them about LD applicants and go and see what kind of services they have for disabilities - most, if not all 4-year colleges, will have an office for students with disabilities. Good luck.

I had the same situation with S17. I am in NY and they changed the curriculum to common core the year he entered HS. On top of being dyslexic and dyscalculic, he had to learn a totally different way of math. In any event, although our school offered slower paced approaches to Algebra 2 in the form of a class which met 6 hours a week vs. the usual four (our school is on a block schedule) as well as a one year pre-class which didn’t count for the third credit but was supposed to prepare you for it, we opted to have my son take accounting for his third math credit. At least accounting principles can serve some useful purpose in a non-math person’s real life.

I will say that the HS special ed department was not particularly helpful with regard to math for my son. Due to the common core change, the teachers weren’t familiar with the new math. Most of the effort in training teachers was placed on the elementary schools and the regular math teachers, not the sped teachers. Also, most of the special ed kids with math problems were placed together in 6 hour algebra and geometry classes, while my son insisted on being in the 4 hour versions. There was a push in teacher, but she wasn’t familiar with the new materials (3 years earlier, my next up son had an amazing sped teacher who taught him real algebra). If he had been in 6, he couldn’t have taken honors bio or chem because those had extra hours as well. The resource room teachers were working with kids who had even less math ability than my son. He fell through the cracks and I wound up going with a private tutor, who I used for ACT prep as well. I need to say that I am NOT trashing sped teachers, my D has a masters in the subject and I think they do great work in many situations, but this was one for which they were not properly supported when the curriculum changed.

I have another son who went through AP Calc BC so I do understand about different math abilities.

I think a lot of it depends on what your child wants to do. When S17 entered junior year of HS, he had no clue. Then, he decided on psych and I was thinking about having him do stats senior year for the research components. Midway through junior year, he decided on theater tech, so stats was not necessary. Neither was algebra 2.

Another consideration is what the colleges want. My son’s school says it wants through Algebra 2, but he was accepted into a BFA program without it. The only problem is that he needs one semester of math credit in college. He is planning to take it either over the summer at a local CC since he would only need a C to get credit and it wouldn’t go into his GPA. None of the classes at his school is appropriate as they all presume algebra 2 knowledge. Ironically, he was registered by the school for an honors seminar in math (another positive of dropping math in HS was that his GPA stopped being destroyed and he got into the honors program at his college) and it was an awful job getting him out of it and into a science class instead.

I do echo what someone above said. My son is registered with the disabilities services office at his school and it has been a help. He gets copies of class notes and gets extra time on tests.

For your D, OP, do what feels right for her. There are colleges for everybody. S17 also dropped physics when it became clear that he couldn’t do the math. There is a non math version offered at our HS, which my D took and loved, but S17 opted to take marine science instead, which led to him taking APES senior year and ending up with 3 college credits.

Do ask for an IEP team meeting with the math teacher asap. Something is not right, the whole point of the IEP is to adapt the class and tests to the student’s needs.
Don’t take the WF until other options have been explored. Most 4-year colleges, even the least selective, want algebra2, but a few may work around a Difference since she has dyscalculia. So, the IEP team needs to figure out how to get her to a D. I agree that consumer math would be a great senior year choice. Alternatively spreading algebra2 over junior and Senior year could help a bit.

Thanks everyone for all your comments/advice. I’d like to add that we have met with the IEP team and my daughter has received all available accommodations…extra time, equations sheet for tests, etc. and she is in a team taught class. Problem is she passed Algebra 1 with a D+. So she began already with a disadvantage. I had her take condensed online Geometry over the summer last year in which she achieved a C-. Both Algebra 1 and Geometry were taken along with weekly (sometimes 2x/wk) private tutors and accommodations. We also had weekly (sometimes 2x/wk) private tutors and accommodations for Algebra 2. But it is just not working.

After much discussion with her counselor and IEP case manager we decided that it would be best for her to WF the Algebra 2. This means an F (or even a D) would NOT go against her GPA, which currently has As, Bs and a few Cs. The hope is that now that she does not have stress of Algebra 2 class, that she can concentrate on her C grades to bring them up to a B.

She is taking Active Physics this year because the IEP team noted that taking Algebra 2 and Chemistry at the same time would be extremely difficult. She will have to take Chemistry next year, her Junior year.

The plan is to repeat Algebra 2 before Senior year so at least it shows on her transcript; unfortunately summer school will not work this summer for her and we don’t want her to take it while taking Chemistry. So plan is for her to take Computer Science next year (which in our school will count as required math credit for graduation since she is also taking Early Childhood Education 1 & 2). Then she will take Algebra 2 summer of her Junior year (which she understands and is willing to do).

I’ve been doing research regarding these options and it looks as though the WF will be fine so long as she does repeat Algebra 2.

We live in Virginia and are lucky to have many universities/community colleges with Gauranteed Admission programs. She also knows that it is not where you start but where you end. I myself started a local university then transferred to the school I really wanted to go to. She has options even with a not so impressive GPA and we have not even taken the SAT/ACTs yet (but that’s another topic ;-)…so I’m not that worried.

Make sure you start early on your accommodations for SAT/ACT. S17’s ACT accommodations were denied initially and he did really poorly. I called ACT and found out why they were denied and had the school resubmit. His score went up 6 points with accommodations and he might have done better had he actually done the practice tests.

Techmom99 – thanks. So – when to start SAT/ACT prep? Due to her difficulty in math we are thinking she might score higher in the ACT, but we really have not touched on the topic at all.

We started ACT prep after getting S17’s PSAT score. ACT was definitely the better test for him. After his disastrous first outing, we devised a study plan with the tutor. They worked on shoring up the concepts in both algebra and geometry that he understood best, then moved to those he was shakier on and then worked on the concepts he didn’t get. A little bit of time was spent on alg 2 but ONLY those topics that were likely to show up on the test. Very little effort was made to get him to internalize the math, just to learn enough to answer the questions or at least make a reasonable guess. He went from a 19 to a 24 in math and, as I said, he now admits that if he had done the practice work the tutor assigned, he would have scored higher. One thing I should note is that the ACT used what I call “real” algebra and geometry, not the common core garbage he was taught in school - the real stuff was easier for him. One of the saddest math experiences of my life was when he came home after his first geometry tutoring session (for real geo) and said: “I enjoyed this. I really wish that this could have been what I learned all year.”

As I said before, don’t sweat this. My son wasn’t looking at Ivy League ilk schools and I wasted so much of his HS career obsessing and screaming and yelling about grades. I wish I had lightened up on him.

Thanks techmom99!!