D is actually in plain old physics. The AP courses are getting the existing teachers; the lowly regular physics gets stuck with the newbie. Which I kind of get…but kind of don’t. I get AP is important, but I tend to think those in AP have a better grasp of the subject, hence they are in AP. The kids like D who take regular could use a good teacher!
It will work out. D is at a very good, competitive school but science teachers are tough to come by (I’m married to one, I know!!). At least I have a built in tutor…although high school Physics is a bit beyond his realm…he teaches 6th grade physical science!
Well, I’ll jump in and complain. Today, the kids got their Earth Science Honors finals back. Kids with 95/96s in the class scored in the low 80s and some of them dropped to a B+. In what universe does that make sense? He gave everyone back three points because he admitted there were three questions on the test that they never covered in class. D was hanging onto a thread for an A and is lucky to get a B after her test.
And these kids studied a LOT and, dare I say, effectively. D thought she was very prepared.
The school likes to say that they run the honors science classes like a college would. Hardly any lectures, labs in class. Kids have to read on their own, learn the material and do the homework and then they can ask questions. If they want the final to be so hard like “college” then you curve the stupid test. The kids in this class are all sharing their grades with each other and they have yet to find anyone who scored over an 82 on the final and lots of kids in the 50s and 60s.
S19 had a different teacher for this class and was able to pull out an A when he took it. This year, though, it’s a new teacher and he’s been pulled out once or twice a week to attend district meetings because our school is re-writing it’s science program and he’s on that committee. (The school is planning on moving Physics to freshman year instead of having kids take Bio.) So, not only is the teacher new but he’s AWOL a lot of time and unapologetic about it. Thinks kids who deserve an A should be able to figure it out on their own.
I’ve explained to him and the science chair ad nauseam that college doesn’t work this way. That, at least at a smaller school, kids get lectured by their professor multiple times per week and have break outs with him once a week. They aren’t thrown to the wolves and told to just figure it out.
Whatever. I’m over it. D is lucky she got a B. Too bad she gets to repeat this nonsense next semester.
@homerdog Sorry to hear about your D and earth science. I hate that kids with high As can drop to a B based on one final. Most of our finals count for 10-15% of total grade so it’s not too common that happens. Our finals are after break…once back, there are 2 more full weeks of classes and then finals.
We do have a level of classes called High Honors (same weighting as AP classes which most students can’t take until junior year) where quizzes/tests routinely include questions on material and/or problem types never covered in class.
At our school most kids that take geometry (or higher) as a freshman (around 40% of the class) typically take a science progression that is physics-chem-bio. Kids that take algebra 1 freshman year take bio-chem-physics.
No APs in any science until a student has taken the one year intro class (which can be at the college prep, honors or high honors level).
@curiosa Can’t believe the discontinuity that must be happening in the physics class that has had 4 teachers. Hope the current one is the last!
@Mwfan1921 Same here with APs. Can’t take an AP science until you’ve taken the equivalent honors course first. Basically means kids only take one AP science senior year unless they double up on science and drop foreign lang or an elective to make a spot for a second AP science.
I like the way your school gives options for freshman science. Sounds like we are moving to physics for most freshman. Super high scoring math students will have the option to start with chem honors. I’m not paying much attention since it won’t affect my kids!
And I’m ok with some of the questions not being covered in class. I’m mostly angry that the teacher has missed so much class and then holds last minute morning-of-the-test study sessions to teach what he would have taught if he had been in class!
I think it would be difficult for a student who hasn’t completed algebra 1 to take physics, even concurrently with algebra 1. Hopefully the school gets it right.
And yes, it sounds like that science teacher should not be getting teacher of the year award!
@AndreaLynn We have a few English teachers like that too. D doesn’t even know where she stands in AP Lang because their big paper is 25% of the semester grade and none of the kids got them back yet. I guess it doesn’t really matter because it is what it is but it’s kind of nice to know your current grade going into a final.
When S was a sophomore his English teacher also had outstanding papers to grade. She did not let the kids write first drafts for her to review before the final paper was due but they had a rubric. Lots of kids were surprised to get a very low grade on their paper come January when they saw their semester grades. She handed out a bunch of Cs. Kids really complained and said that her rubric wasn’t super clear and swarms of kids went to her to fight for a higher grade showing her how they believed they did what was asked. It was a big mess…and, presto, that teacher was moved in the middle of the year to join the yearbook class and these kids got another teacher for second semester. I think the principal was on the side of the kids on that one.
One more final to go for D21 this morning. AP physics kicked her butt this past grading cycle but she squeaked out an A on the final for an A for the semester. I think she’ll go home this afternoon and go to sleep until tomorrow! She and her friends usually go to lunch after the last final at a local shopping village, but she said nobody’s doing it this year - I think they’re all exhausted with the junior year courseload. I’m ready to get my kid back!
@3kids2dogs Our school has the same calendar, so kids have their midterms now. The only midterms during test days are math, science, and history/social sciences. All foreign language was switched to orals and a writing a couple years ago and English was switched to a final paper.
Neither twin has any idea how they are doing in AP Spanish (hardly any tests and, even with different teachers, neither seems to know how they’re being graded). And, both their English teachers are unpredictable graders. S got a B on a paper because it was too violent, not because he didn’t follow the prompt or his writing. (He did write in a horror genre, so maybe that’s not appropriate for H.S., who knows!)
Our science program used to go physics1/chem 1, then kid choice (switched to bio first after all our kids). Both kids took chem 2 over the summer after freshman yr to take AP chem last year. One is in AP phys C - teacher is great and gave them lots of old AP tests to study - the other is in AP bio - the school says the best prep for AP bio is AP chem. But, I don’t know if any of you with AP bio kids have heard complaints about the new AP bio curriculum being confusing. S18 thought it was easy (got an A and a 5), but D21 and her classmates are all complaining how hard it is. D said she doesn’t even remember learning about one of the FRQ on the test and was practically in tears bc she needed an 87 to get an A. Oh well.
They won’t get grades until sometime after school starts. I know they’re just happy to be done (S21 is actually in his AP history final right now but thought it would be easy, but D21 is done (took history over the summer to fit in an elective)).
I’m happy for (hopefully) less stress during this break, though 1 of the kids needs to use some of the time to study for the Feb ACT, ugh.
Our science progression For honors is Envirommental (Earth Science) in 8th, Bio as a Freshman, Chem as a sophomore and then some kids go into physics or an AP. After Chem they have the science requirements to graduate high school, so some stop there. D21 is in college Chem now and Regular Physics.
It’s crazy to me how the requirements for graduation and courses offered is so different across the states and yet when the college AO look at the applications it is hard to tell who went to a harder (more rigorous) school vs an “easier” (less rigorous) school.
@AndreaLynn I think colleges depend on the school profile and on the history of the students they’ve accepted in the past from that high school. Our profile has a ton of info. Shows what all deciles of GPA unweighted are down to the 50th percentile. Same for weighted. Breaks out ACT and SAT scores (like how many kids got 35-36, 33-34 etc). Lists all of the AP classes available and shows the regular and honors series for each subject. Also lists all of the state championship teams and the number of clubs and ECs available.
Fortunately or unfortunately, one can see that there are a lot of high achievers here with a lot of opportunities to be involved at school. To be competitive for elite schools, you have to run with the big boys for both classes and ECs. You do not have to have a perfect GPA but had better show a lot of rigor. And scores are high so I’m sure colleges assume the money is there for tutors so having a lower score out of this high school is a problem unless you are an athlete.
Quite often I’m telling posters on CC that the best way to figure out how to define a student’s reaches/matches, etc is to look to their own school. I have a friend whose kids go to a private high school in Chicago and I was talking to her about her daughter’s list last year. She liked a school that she was certainly competitive for but the mom said that the high school “has no relationship” with that college and so she knew her D would not get in. I think there’s a lot of that going on even if the GCs don’t share that or are clueless. AOs have high schools that they know and like. And why bother taking kids from a school down the street when they have a dozen options from the school they already know?
People here like to say that Naviance isn’t perfect. Of course it’s not. It’s only crazy parents like me who know a lot of the kids and drill the GCs for specifics you can’t see on Naviance who have a better grip on the details. In this round two for D, we have a little more info. S19 was going it alone applying to schools no one applied to except recruited athletes.
@AndreaLynn I agree! And as @homerdog mentioned, sometimes it’s even different in the town next door!
Our HS progression is Bio, Chem, then whatever you want (most take Physics, D took AP Chem). The only AP Science you can take without taking Honors first is Bio. Some Freshman take AP Bio, most take honors or regular. I thought taking an AP Science course freshman year sounded crazy. The kid is just starting HS and you are effectively telling them to skip that content and go straight to college content? No thanks.
I think our finals are just like @homerdog - except the Science and Math courses have been known to curve a bit. For AP Chem, they pull old AP questions where the content was covered first semester. But D says they are really hard because they are the first time they’ve seen “blended questions” where the content of the question spans multiple units. That kind of pisses me off because I think the mid term from the class should be content from the class - not from College Board. The AP test is one thing, but why does the semester final have to come from College Board instead of their particular class?
@inthegarden as a former Lafayette student downtown Easton has some a long way since I went there. Lots of good restaurants, bars and even a brewery. Not to mention the Crayola Factory…
So D’s earth science teacher decided to curve the final 5 percent. That way, three kids out of 18 got an A for the semester. Otherwise only one kid would have gotten an A. I have no words.
