Don’t do physical science. Waste of time for honors kid. Can sshe do independent study and go to class on lab days (miss band once a week or so?)
@SculptorDad thank you for your perspective. I sort of hesitate to put her in Honors Chem during her first semester of high school, for those reasons…it would be a very challenging class for her, although I am sure she could do well in it. I’m just not sure if I should stress her out academically during her first months of high school. She will also have a demanding band schedule (if she keeps the class) and will be on the golf team, not to mention the time demands of her leadership class. Also, she will be taking Sign Language 2 at our local junior college 2 nights a week.
@VickiSoCal I agree that physical science would be a waste of her time. I have left a message for the school counselor to see if she could just opt out of high school science classes altogether for her freshman year. She could then take Biology at our local junior college in the spring semester, when she’s more acclimated to high school life.
If she is mature enough to handle a challenging and time consuming class now, taking Hon Chem now can be blessing in 10th & 11th grades when things get even more busy challenging.
I am curious though on her motivation of taking the language class. Is Sign Language her main foreign language? Mine took Spanish 1 at our local junior (community) college last year, and even though she had already learned that level through 3 years of daily tutoring, it was very time consuming with learning many new vocabulary and writings. My guess is that the Sign Language 2 will probably can be twice time consuming than a foreign language at her high school.
@SculptorDad - DD is taking American Sign Language (ASL) 2 in the fall because she took American Sign Language 1 over the summer and wants to continue learning the language while everything she learned in ASL 1 while it is all “fresh” in her mind. ASL is her main foreign language and is also becoming somewhat of an extracurricular and volunteering interest for her, as well. Her summer ASL course didn’t seem too demanding of her time, but since it was the summer, I didn’t keep really good tabs on how long it was taking her to finish her assignments. It may turn out that ASL 2 this fall will be too much work. In that case, I will make sure that she drops the class within the prescribed timetables of the junior college. Academically, she is a very mature kid, so I think she would probably be able to handle the Hon Chem…I just don’t want to push too far and have her burn out at such an early stage of high school. Thanks for your feedback!
If she did ASL 1 over the summer then I am sure it will be fine to do ALS 2 in a full length regular semester! If that’s her “thing,” as well as her main foreign language, I would even look for even more advanced courses in the future as well. Or just continue it with EC and volunteering. Sounds very promising.
@SculptorDad - yes, D is looking at even more advanced ASL courses, and is even thinking about college majors in ASL.
D’s school schedule is still messed up due to the Honors Bio/Freshman Band mix-up. I have talked to her counselor many times and her band director many times, and we still can’t come up with a viable schedule. I am starting to wonder if maybe she could do an online AP Bio class with a distance learning provider. Does anyone have experience with this? I have no idea where to start with online classes.
@khmama yes I have had experience. We had an issue with geometry when my S16 ran out if classes at the middle school. After a lot of fighting the district finally offered an online option. There are many providers that offer their services to districts, so don’t let them tell you they cannot. There is APEX, Edgenuity, FuelED, etc. Out district offered APEX, and now that we homeschool through a charter, we are trying Edgenuity for a few classes for S20.
Also in my state, CA, there are online options for credit recovery. You might check that out.
Thank you @LKnomad! I actually just got off the phone with a local private school that provides online classes through APEX and UC Scout. They sent me paperwork showing the Honors Bio class that they can provide for my daughter. She will have to attend labs with a teacher once a week after her regular school; it’s like a hybrid online/traditional class. I also spoke with her public high school’s head counselor, and they will accept the Honors Bio from this private school. The only drawback to this is that the class will be rather expensive from the private school. But at this point, we are grateful to have at least one option for our kiddo and will go ahead and pay for the course.
@khmama we spent awhile fighting to get the school to pay for APEX. It might be worth trying.
@LKnomad I will definitely look into that. Thanks!
@khmama remind of which state you are in.
We are in California, too.
Oh you might have more options! I will pm you a bit later. We are with a homeschool charter and they do credit recovery. They are public. Not sure how that works but you might have other free options.
Also make sure the private school class is A-G.
ETA:. Just realized UC scout and APEX are both A-G. Also just looked at credit recovery for one of the online schools and it is not for classes that have not been taken.
I would try to insist the school pay. Mine did. PM me for more details.
@LKnomad Thanks! I had actually checked with public online options and was told that a student cannot attend two Calif. public schools at once. 
Luckily, the head counselor at my daughter’s public high school is excellent, and he has already checked on the A-G requirement, and the private school meets it.
@LKnomad but feel free to PM me. I may very well be missing something with all of this. It’s all so new to me!
“a student cannot attend two Calif. public schools at once.”
Sorry but this is accurate. Clearly defined in Calif. education code
Registration is done, only one problem with her schedule, she’s in regular PE instead of cross country. Lines at counseling station were too long, so they said leave a note and send him an email.
Academic classes are what we were expecting
Japanese 2H
Biology H
Language Arts 1 H
Human Geography AP
Pre-Calculus H
DD’20 just registered this morning and got her schedule
Math II plus Honor
Chinese II Honor
English 9 Honor
World History / Geography Honor
Biology H
PE/ Athlete - basketball
@VickiSoCal, I heard from other parents about AP Human Geography class, lots homework and vocabularies to memorize, it’s normally a sophomore or junior class for our high school. Good luck to your DD, let us know how she handles this class, as my DD’20 plan to take this class. thanks in advance.
Quizlet is an excellent resource for APHG vocabulary.
My D17 took APHUG as a fresman. I am hoping this one has the same teacher. It was a very hard class, lots of writing I think she got a D on the first test. First D of her life she was traumatized. She ended up with a B in both semesters. But her teacher had a policy that if you got a 5 on the AP test he would go back and change your grade to an A and she did get a 5. He prepared them so well.