<p>@Collegefortwins, I laughed (with you) about you sending Google calendar invite to your twins to talk about LORs. I had done the same with meeting agendas covering ‘which teachers to ask for LOR’ to ‘what four schools to send free ACT reports’. With DS, DH, and myself running around so much, this is the only way I can get the key players to sit down uninterrupted for at least 10 minutes for a discussion.</p>
<p>I have weekly status meetings on our Google calendar! Ha ha ha</p>
<p>I am so glad I’m not the only one doing it! I liked the idea so much that I’ve now invited them to a few other college and home-related events. 
The one that they’re sure to be the most excited about is the one that involves cleaning out their closets that are trashed after a school year of tossing things in there when told to pick up their rooms, as well as cleaning up the piles of papers/notebooks/binders/books that that have accumulated in corners of their rooms…</p>
<p>I’ve been inviting my kids and husband to Google calendar events for years. No excuses for not knowing about an event. I even have a gadget on my kitchen counter that syncs with Google so it is visible at all times.</p>
<p>^ I love it!</p>
<p>@novamom
What kind of gadget do you have that syncs with Google calendar? Separate from your computer or phone? We could sure use one of them!</p>
<p>My kid is up to his eyeballs. I so feel for him. One AP test down, 3 to go. A sport’s meet every night this week and next since the weather has been so bad and everything had to be rescheduled. Two concerts. Even though, it’s AP testing time the teachers are loading on the homework. I was so mad that over prom weekend ( last weekend) , the chem teacher assigned a “group” project with assigned partners. THey had to do a project on water( yes, water) which had to include a skit, poster and song. Are you kidding me? Of course, his partners were MIA. One had to get a belly button ring and the other had to plan a romantic “alternative” prom night for his 14 year old freshman girlfriend since no freshmen are allowed to go to the junior prom. ( 14 year olds dating 17 year olds-ick) Anyway, guess who ended up doing the whole project? I really wish they could coordinate the work and tests at this school. Shouldn’t there be some consideration for the kids who challenge themselves by taking all of the APs by making the testing period less toxic and lay off of the busy work for a week and a half. Just had to vent to a friendly audience. At least he had a great time at prom :)</p>
<p>Lots of caffeine? Bus from district track meet got back at midnight last night. Yes, midnight. Woo hoo! Another night of little sleep. Prom was last weekend, right before the Monday AP Chem test. Ah, timing. And yes, homework is ramping up. </p>
<p>But what’s really ticking me off right now is the English teacher. The paper turned in last February has not been graded and returned. A second paper was due two weeks ago. Nice, turn in the next one before getting the first back. Very pedagocically sound. Teachers have to turn in grades on the 23rd. So help me, there’d better not be any mroe big English assignments.</p>
<p>I see lots of mention of proms. Curious to hear if all your juniors have cotillions or junior proms. My son’s school does not. He attends a small private school. Sort of glad since he probably would be too shy to ask anyone or know what to do. He has finally towards the end of this term come out of his shell and showing more interest in girls.</p>
<p>No junior prom, but d has a friend who is a senior, didn’t have a date, and so invited her. Next year will be her prom. It’s always the same weekend, right before AP testing!</p>
<p>My son goes to a large, single-sex private school. He had a Junior Ring Dance, the evening they got their class rings (last Friday). If a boy chooses to attend, he must come with a girl. No stag, even. His school has a semi-formal dance for each class and a formal Prom for seniors.
His girlfriend goes to a pretty large private co-ed school and they have a Junior-Senior Prom. Only juniors and seniors can go to the dance - one junior friend of my son has a sophomore girlfriend from another school and they could not attend. My son’s girlfriend’s school requires a paper be signed by the principal of the date’s school if they go to a different school. The paper verifies that the student is a good kid, basically. That seems to be a somewhat common practice around our area.</p>
<p>That is so not cool of the teacher to not grade and return the paper before the next one, ordinarylives. Ugh. I am just hoping that the AP teachers have prepared the kids for the exams. With all of the homework there really isn’t much extra time to prepare. Interestingly the kids around here that go to different high schools talk about how little homework they have. Just hoping that there is an upside i.e. they are so good at time management that college is not a shock. DS also has 3 SAT IIs and an ACT coming up. I am thinking the timing is all a mistake but this is what we were advised to do. He won’t have nay ACT prep time and I am just hoping the AP skills carry over to the SAT IIs because there will be little time for studying for those. Anyone taken the Chem SAT II? It looks tricky. Just wondering how those AP national scholars self- study and take 20+ AP exams on top of homework and ECs. There would just be no time with DS’s schedule.</p>
<p>Our school only has one formal dance:junior prom. The kids who aren’t “in a relationship” (ha) tend to pair up with friends for prom to buy flowers and have a dinner and picture date. I like that they do that since it helps some of the shy boys,i.e. if a group of guys and girls just gets together and pairs up for prom. Plus it lessens the romantic expectations that typically go along with the prom if the kids are going in groups. All of the kids meet at a local landmark to get class pictures taken before they head to dinner, which I love. All of the parents show up with cameras and then get to see all of the dresses and go snap happy. Then the juniors take a bus to dinner out of town with a teacher chaperone, which I also like because they can all be together. Then they are back to the dance and parents are allowed in briefly for the coronation. It is a great tradition.</p>
<p>The gadget is a Sony Dash. Has other widgets too, like weather, news, SAT word of the day (ha!) but it’s kept on the calendar page by default. I also considered mounting one of our ipads to the fridge but decided that would be impractical since the ipad is more likely to be in use than mounted. </p>
<p>No junior prom here. Our school allows anyone of high school age to attend so some underclassmen get to go if they have been asked by a senior. Kids from other schools can go too, so long as they have the requisite principal sign offs from both schools. My son’s homecoming date was a girl who used to go to his school but moved out of district. </p>
<p>Speaking of proms, one of the prom askings from DS’s school has gone mildly viral. It was on guyhumor and a couple of other sites. It involved a reenactment of a birth, with the punchline being “I was born to take you to prom.”</p>
<p>That sounds really neat, Mrspepper! I bet the kids have a great time!</p>
<p>My son’s school is a large public school, and they only have regular Prom, which is next weekend. His girlfriend is a senior, so he’s excited that he’ll get to go two years in a row. Tonight is the Band Banquet - “Band Prom” as they call it, lol. </p>
<p>2014novamom – I’m amazed at how creative some of these kids are in their prom askings! :-)</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing all your experiences loved reading about the different ways of celebrating.</p>
<p>Mrs Pepper, that sounds like a great junior prom experience. </p>
<p>crazy4disney, your son must be a catch, LOL! Luckily he is a guy so need to worry about buying two pieces of clothing two years in a row! </p>
<p>fog, thinking about lil’ Ben. Hope things are going well with him.</p>
<p>HAPPY MOTHERS’ DAY ALL!</p>
<p>Just popping in…so much going on! Good luck to everyone on tests, projects, athletic events, etc., also wishing lots of fun to prom-goers, ring-dancers, etc.</p>
<p>A little unexpected “crisis” at Cheergirl’s school: A classmate not only knowingly brought her cell phone into the AP Psych exam on Monday, she took some Vine videos (I don’t totally understand these, sort of a 5-7 second video?), and then if that wasn’t bad enough, she posted them on Twitter. She was questioned by the school administrators and lied about having her phone. When proof turned up, she recanted that part of the story. Then she deleted the tweets, but some had already been re-tweeted. OY VEY! When did life get so complicated. Social media is a blessing and a curse.</p>
<p>The school had no choice but to report the incident to College Board and now we are awaiting a decision about whether the entire test will be invalidated for all the students.
</p>
<p>Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend and a Happy Mother’s Day! XOXO~</p>
<p>Ugh - that’s a bummer Cheermom! I sometimes proctor tests and it’s always a bear with electronic devices. We warn kids excessively, but they often assume it doesn’t apply to them.</p>
<p>On a sad note here… our school was unable to raise the 22K needed to keep our college counselor (sigh). I guess that’s what happens when one lives in a rural area where few see the need. I’m bummed. He was doing a great job assisting kids and encouraging them to look at more than the “traditional” local schools as well as helping them be prepared for them.</p>
<p>I’ll echo the Happy Mother’s Day wishes for Sunday! We’ll be off to see middle son since he won’t be coming home from college (2 lab jobs at the school for the summer) and Mother’s Day is also his birthday this year. It’s worth taking a couple of days off school (for me - youngest is staying here since it’s May).</p>
<p>The big, elaborate, prom invites are referred to here as “promposals”. Some get really into it, but it’s not so overwhelming that everyone does it. There is a separate Jr and Sr Prom. If you are brining someone from another school a form must be filled out, information and signatures from their school, then faxed directly to our front office. It is kind of convoluted. Kids often go in groups, with, and without dates. S2 had a very tight friend group that went to all dances together as a group (homecoming & proms). If you had a date you brought them, if not nobody thought of not going. It was pretty evenly split between girls and guys. Jr year he had a gf so in the middle of APs and SATs they had two proms (different schools). That was a crazy spring. Sr year he asked a gal who was a friend since they were 5yo. He’d been to many of her dances throughout hs when she needed a date (she’s at a local private). She knows everyone in his friend group so it was very comfortable. </p>
<p>I think I shared that S3 was asked to Sr prom last year by a Sr. who is in his main EC. He thought she was joking (as did everyone else in the room). She was not. He’s never lived that down!! So far he hasn’t really been interested in homecoming or Jr prom this year. Part of this is that his friends in the neighborhood he socializes with on the weekends and summer are zoned to a different school. I did tell him he should try to get some buddies and ask some friends (girls) to Sr. prom next year. No girl wants to feel like she didn’t have a group to go with or wasn’t asked to her Sr. prom IMO, and if the guys are sleeping on the job (like my son) that doesn’t help. So I am preemptively nudging. ;)</p>
<p>cheermom - Keeping my fingers crossed for a good outcome on the AP exam. That is nerve-wracking. When someone chooses to do something like that they indeed are compromising the entire room. Hopefully they will see that she was the only one involved and effected and act accordingly.</p>
<p>DS’14 just ended his 3rd killer week: 2 music concerts, community service trip, Prom, 2 SAT Subject Matter tests; Physics project; 2 APs done ( 1 more next week). He is not sleeping enough. Only one more week to go and this one should be easier than the last 3.</p>