<p>My children have now had two weeks in their new out of state schools and things are working out fairly well. The hardest part has been the tremendous difference in what some classes have covered; at home, for instance, U.S. history was on the American Revolution, but here they are already at the Civil War!!! A few missing years there.
The girls have always worried about LA schools, since they always seem to be near the bottom of every ranking, but they have not felt like total dummies, and they feel much better about their prior schools.
The other very difficult part has been leaving all their friends behind. My senior daughter's friends are literally scattered all over the country from Michigan to California to Virginia. It makes her so sad to think that she will never see many of them again--just four weeks ago they were planning graduation parties.<br>
If you have Katrina refugees in your school, it would be really nice if you take a minute to say hello to them; each of these kids is carrying his or her own special burden, and you never know what one kind word will do to help.</p>
<p>I'm glad your kids are adjusting as well as could be expected. I'm going to guess that you're in TX now, right? Our US History curriculum is really annoyingly divided between 8th and 11th grades. You learn the first half of US history in middle school and don't get the rest until three years later! Who actually thinks that is a good idea? The only way to get the whole sequence in one year is to take the AP class.</p>