@awesomepolyglot, thank you for your insight! Apparently Honors Biology at my daughter’s high school is a much different class than the general science class for freshmen, and it’s the usual way the school starts students on the AP science track. I agree every school/and region in the country is probably very different.
Ask if your D can borrow a textbook from an older friend. That should give her some insight as to how understandable the readings are.
My DS16 was recommended for all 4 honors classes freshman year. I had him choose 2. He took honors for math and biology and loved it. He also played 3 sports freshman year so I insisted on a study hall. He moved on just fine increasing his number of honors and AP classes each year all the way to 5 APs and a required art class for senior year. He has done just fine with college admissions and did receive a “most rigorous” from the GC. If you are concerned about the GC, ask. Ours says taking honors/AP for what you are most interested in is recommended rather than taking all honors/AP.
My DD20 just signed up for her freshman classes. She is a more motivated student and has less patience with non-honors classes. Her only sport is in the fall so she has requested a study hall then but will not have one in the spring. She has decided to register for all 4 honors classes. She knows she can move down if need be.
My D16 had a choice between pre-AP (honors) Bio in 9th grade or regular Bio. She picked regular Bio and it was a huge mistake! That’s the class that the kids that can’t make it in pre-AP Bio take and the class taught by non-science teachers (coaches). It was a disaster! I had to fight but got changed to pre-AP bio mid term. They use the same text book for both classes but the quality of instruction and teacher expectation were worlds apart! Our state requires one Bio class for graduation and it’s usually taken in 9th grade, the only way to get out of 9th grade bio would be to take it on line which ds20 is doing this year so he doesn’t have to take it when he starts high school.
D was also recommended for some higher level classes and she was a little worried. I told her its easier to move down from an AP/higher level class than it is to move up. The pace of of the higher levels is usually faster and it would be a challenge to catch up once the semester starts. So, my advice would be to talk to a counselor about starting in the Honors Bio and seeing if she feels she fits in.
Thank you, everyone! I’m just learning how to navigate everything on this site and didn’t realize that you all replied to me. I promise to get up to speed soon, lol! I think we are going to keep her in Honors Bio and see how it goes. We will talk to her guidance counselor too, although I’ve already been given inconsistent information by the guidance counselor and am sort of wary as to how beneficial or helpful the guidance counselor will be for my daughter’s college journey. I’m so glad I have this forum for information and back-up:)
Very happy to find this thread. 
I’m mom to DS20, followed by another ds and dd, so add me to the list of parents with firstborns getting ready to graduate from 8th grade. DS20 took a little 3D printing summer class last summer, and it hooked him on Engineering. So he is a kid who has interest in STEM, but scores better on the reading/vocab portions of standardized tests, which will make things interesting.
We are also moving from private to very large public school, and we moved to a new town last summer, so for a lot of things, we are having to wing it (no local network of friends to get advice from) .
My philosophy has always been “when in Rome” so this town likes for kids to finish geometry by the end of 8th. Our DS20 took Alg 1 this year, so he’ll take the school districts’ own geometry class this summer so he can start on the adv math track with the kids from the feeder schools. They also like Eng I in 8th grade, so he did that, too.
So next year he’ll take Eng II H, Alg II/Pre-Calc (period and a half class), AP Human Geography, Engineering I H, Span II-Reg, Bio I H. His elective right now is PE, but I’m hoping he can change it to Art I H or Comp Sci I H. The school offers enough math and English electives that getting 4 years of the subjects is not an issue no matter where you start in 9th.
Our hope for him is that he always have opportunities to learn from good teachers and good classmates and that dh and I won’t make any decisions that would hold him back from that.
This April-May-June-July is just going to fly by! I hope everyone enjoys these last few days of middle school.
Welcome @TeamJet and I like your philosophy on taking geometry during summer but surprised that your DS can do English I in 8th grade.
My DD’20 will be doing Health (required for CA students) during summer and the following:
English I Honor
Bio Honor
Math 2 plus Honor or Math 2 ( I’m debating on this cause teacher wants advanced 8 math students taking the summer bridge course offered by district but she has basketball everyday and can’t take summer classes)
World History Honor
Chinese 2 Honor
PE- athletes basketball
Can’t believe our DC are going to high school after summer, time flies so fast!!
My DS20 is also taking Health (required in TX too) over the summer online to get it out of the way. It’s a one semester course and would really mess up his schedule if he didn’t take it during the summer.
@3scoutsmom, is this something specific to TX that incoming freshmen can take online courses? Our CA HS won’t accept anything, including online CTY classes for credit before the student is actually a 9-th grader (i.e. fall).
My daughter was considering studying Spanish over the summer so that she could skip Spanish 2 and go straight into Spanish 3, but I’m just not sure how realistic/advisable that it.
Maybe a school to school thing. Here it’s very common that kids take health on line (at parents expense) between 8th and 9th grade. Our high school does limit the amount of on line credit that can be earned in high school but does not count high school credit earn before 9th grade against that.
@typiCAmom in CA if a an eighth grader takes algebra or geometry in middle school they won’t give them credit?
Here we have credit by exam and if you pass the test you get the credit no matter if the class was taken on line or homeschooled. We have certain on line programs that are pre approved for credit by the state UT-K16 and TTU are the most popular. I don’t think they’d give credit for CTY classes here but you could try the credit by exam test for that subject.
My DS20 will be entering 9th grade with credit for 8th grade BIO and Health from TTU, Geometry by credit by exam and Algebra 1 form Alex.com Intro to College Algrbra credit by ACE.
@3scoutsmom, classes taken in middle school will certainly be credited. I am talking about out of school online programs. We don’t have health class requirement in our HS, but the first year of HS all kids take World History, which has a sub-section of Life Skills or something along the lines during the first semester.
I wish our HS had more honors classes options for 9th graders to help challenge ore advanced kids. Ours only has advanced English along with regular English in the 9th grade, and I’m not sure it’s considered an honors class or not. Wish they had advanced bio as a choice, but our only bio choices are regular bio and bio for biotech track, which is not more advanced, just more lab-intensive.
@typiCAmom
looks like in CA it leaves it up to the individual school district
http://www.accelerationinstitute.org/Resources/Policy/By_State/Show_Policy.aspx?StateID=6
I’d contact your school and ask to see their written policy about accepting on line credit. I can’t tell you how much “word of mouth” stuff I’ve found that was not reflected in our school’s official hand book.
Individual school districts have a lot of say about how the on-line classes and credit by exam are handled here. For instance our home zone school (which my kids do not attend) will factor in the the credit by exam grade into the GPA but their out of district school does not. My kids our homeschooled until 9th grade. I wonder what your school does with homeschoolers that have taken advanced classes on line prior to 9th grade? I can’t see them allowing one and not the other. It might be something to look into.
BTW, DS isn’t taking on line bio to get on an advanced bio track, he hates bio and just wants to get the required class out of the way so he never has to take bio again! He’ll go straight into pre-ap chem in 9th grade. Our school offers pre ap and AP classes to anyone that has the prerequisites. He’ll have the math required for AP Comp Sci and and pre-AP Chem so as long as he actually gets into the the high school we are applying for their shouldn’t be an issue.
@3scoutsmom, I was told by GC at my daughter’s HS that they won’t accept any online or college courses credit, so I guess we are one of those districts. Maybe rules are different for home-schooled kids, GC didn’t mention it since we already established daughter’s middle school.
Frankly, I don’t know if she likes bio or not, and neither does she - she described all MS science classes as boring, and frankly I wasn’t impressed by her teachers, either. She might fall in love with bio if it is taught right, but isn’t interested in biotech track - they take special “English for biotech” classes which are not very rigorous and at least at the moment D loves humanities
Sounds like we’re all on the same page! My task this week was to find an online health class since we will be vacationing most of June/July. @typiCAmom, Our district will allow online courses and we’re here in CA, as well.
So, the plan is for D to take this class and an algebra refresher course. now, i have to make sure there will be reliable wifi where we will be traveling!
@lilmom, I’ll pm you privately
We are in CA as well and our district’s 9th grade health class is more of a life skills class. The district “requires” the life skills class, but you can sign a waiver and opt your child out of it (based on personal or religious reasons). We opted our daughter out of the class. She will use the extra class to add on another band class - jazz band. @typiCAmom, maybe your school district has a waiver system, as well? I would have never known that the waiver was available if another parent hadn’t told me about it.
Our school district is also allowing our daughter to take Spanish 1 at the local junior college this summer. She will get high school class credit for a year of Spanish for just 5-6 weeks of work. She is a very strong student, so I’m sure she will be able to keep up with an accelerated learning pace. She plans on taking Spanish 2 in the Fall and Spanish 3 in the Spring (evening classes). She’s hoping to have her “3 years” of language classes (recommended by the UCs) completed by the end of her freshman year.
@khmamma, unfortunately, since for us life skills is essentially a sub-part of another (required) class, I don’t think there is an option to opt out. I’d love to substitute it with something like human geography AP that I know some freshmen take - according to their parents postings - but our HS simply doesn’t have it. Again, no chance to take Junior college classes until HS for us. But next summer our daughter plans to take chemistry, PE, and possibly psychology to get extra space for classes she wants - art and psychology AP
When did health become a required CA high school course. In my district it is part of if the 7th grade curriculum.
I was frustrated by the inflexible stance of our curriculum on Health in the 9th grade until my DS16 took the course. It was very much about risky behavior and information that he absolutely needed to hear from someone other than DH and I at that age. He needed to hear the science about why certain things were bad choices and see evidence of what really could happen. I totally understand now why it is required.