@Debrina
Hi! Yes, my D22 is a musical theatre kid! She goes to a very large public high school with a fabulous theatre department. I’d love to connect with you!
So I see the FAFSA requirement as a good faith effort with some serious work to do to implement. I think they should have a streamline form like the 1040-EZ… for those who don’t qualify for aid, they can fill out the first few lines… and if income over a certain amount and not likely to be reduced elsewhere, they get to file that and an email is sent saying requirement is fulfilled… this is then uploaded to school file and once GC has seen it, box is checked.
For everyone else, they get to fill it out and go through the process… it still needs to be streamlined as I can see a lot of people not being able to complete it. The data retrieval tool helps (if you can use it), otherwise i m guessing a fall semester series of parent evenings are probably going to be necessary.
For students who college is not an option, they should be able to get a waiver and not have to fill it out.
Overall i see why these 3 states are doing this, implementation will be the issue.
@3scoutsmom , a FAFSA requirement to graduate seems a real invasion of privacy. I’m sure people mean well, but ugh.
I have not been on in a while. D22 followed up January’s concussion with flu in late February, but recovered quickly. This is the kid that has an inordinate number of illnesses and injuries, to the point that I can’t explain it and am pretty sure the docs think we have a Gypsy Rose situation at our house 
The good news is that she has kept her grades up, and nobody else here got the flu.
The ski season ended and she is thinking about soccer tryouts for spring. She would be a B or C team type player, so I think they will need to get adequate numbers to fill a couple teams before she knows if she will do that.
She was supposed to go on a band trip out of state last Wednesday, but the school district cancelled all school sponsored travel the day before the trip. Some of the parents who were going to chaperone decided to take their kids anyway (it was not school funded, and they were not going to get money back on many of the travel expenses, including plane tickets as the cancellation was not something covered by insurance.) Long story short, D22 is on vacation with friends and their parents. Hopefully washing her hands.
There is some college mail showing up here. She is not one that has had much interest in the topic, so the mail is a good thing. It’s gotten her attention and she is thinking a bit. She is smart, but not driven; social, but also anxious. Not really adventurous. I’m not sure what sort of school would be best for her.
This may be a bit off topic in this forum, my apologies if this is the case.
Our region has not yet experienced a massive COVID-19 outbreak but probably not for long.
When it starts, we intend to stop our S22 from in-person attendance due to medical issues, regardless if his HS decided to close down. So far our school district has sent out frequent but generic communications with no concrete details on how they plan to handle school closings or extended individual absences. Our inquiries were referred to the said generic communications.
S22 takes classes that are heavily classroom-based, so extended absence will be disastrous grade-wise. We don’t have the impression that the school has a clear plan on how to proceed in such cases.
I would be interested to know what districts in areas with outbreaks have decided to handle similar situations.
@CollegeFrog1 Our school did a half day yesterday so that they could plan for school closures or what to do with specific students that had to quarantine. We haven’t heard the results of that yet. We’re in northern NJ by the way, so not too far from a current outbreak in NY.
My son’s school (Archbishop Riordan) is closed through March 25. The San Francisco Archdiocese actually has all schools (90 total) under its authority closed through then. My son’s school was early to close though; one student actually contracted COVID-19. Once that was confirmed, they moved quickly to shut school down. The Diocese moved to shut all its schools a couple days later.
What is happening now: Classes continue via online instruction. The school already used an online assignment and engagement platform, called Schoology. Now that platform becomes a primary basis for instruction. S22 has a quiz in AP World History this morning that he will take via Schoology. The teachers are posting assignments and instruction via the platform, setting deadlines for things to be completed. It will be this way the next couple weeks.
We’re lucky because I work from home. So I’m here with S22 throughout the day.
D22’s school did a test run virtual learning day back in January, but the intention was to plan for weather related days off. I guess they are glad they did it, because we got an email yesterday outlining the potential plan if they have to close and sighted the success of the test run day.
I just found this forum— so glad it exists!
I have a d22 who is currently picking classes, so any advice/ guidance would be appreciated! She’s in a well known private in Seattle (school is currently online…)
School doesn’t do APs, doesn’t give A+s, no gpa
Current classes/grades:
Spanish 4 (honors, is self studying for the AP because why not): A
Honors Geometry (take algebra 2, geo, then precalc and calc): A-
Physics: A
English honors: A-
History honors: A
Drama II: A
Yoga: A
Proposed classes for next year:
Spanish 5 honors— doesn’t like Spanish but her advisor told her she should
Precalc honors— supposed to be hard but probably worth it
Chemistry honors— making the jump up to honors because she has almost 100% in physics
Physiology honors OR computer science 2/3— wants to take both but doesn’t have enough time. Thoughts??
English honors— should be fine
US history honors— should be fine
Dropping Drama because it takes too much time.
She is also a competitive rower, so has less time for homework than you’d expect.
Does anyone have any thoughts? CS or physiology?? Any help would be sincerely appreciated!!!
Welcome @yeehawqueen ! I don’t think a college admissions officer will care if she takes Physiology or CS. If she has no leanings in terms of interest, I think CS would be more valuable just bc it’s a good skill set to acquire. Hang tough in Seattle!
My S22 starts his online coursework tomorrow. I suspect it will be frustrating for him as the kinks are worked out. He likes order, so has devised a schedule for his days at home revolving around exercise and piano practice.
I am wondering if anyone has found any on-line summer programs of interest? My S22 had a great summer lined up before the coronavirus. His trip to tour Europe with a band was cancelled several weeks ago, and we are expecting the normal band camp for June to be cancelled any day now. He also had planned to go to a math/science program for a few weeks at a university. There is a chance that some of those classes may be offered in an online format, but we don’t know for sure. His high school has done nothing so far (rural area so online is not easy for all), so it’s been weeks without much structure or a sense of purpose. He may go crazy if his school doesn’t step it up soon, and if we can’t find something to keep him busy over summer. Thanks for any ideas!
Check out Khan Academy. Lots of online offerings. He can even take courses right now which are designed to follow a HS curriculum for those whose schools do not offer online coursework.
My son was going to play summer baseball and try to find a job. Both of those are still up in the air.
His district gave everyone a device and offered free internet to anyone who needed it. Online school is going well for him. Honestly, he’s completely working on his own and doing very well with it, it’s making me think independence in college won’t be an issue.
How are your teens handling distance learning? My S22 has found it challenging. Without the discipline of a daily schedule, he kind of slides along during the day. School is a series of assignments, readings, videos, and teacher Zoom office hours. It’s all there via his school’s classes portal.
But he does seem to miss the structure. Assignments do slip past due dates, or are missed entirely. It sounds like this is happening for his classmates, his school is planning a makeup period for things that have been missed during the period of distance learning. I guess this could be considered a valuable experience in what a telecommuting job would be like for them.
Our D22 has been completing all of her assignments well ahead of schedule. Jogging in the AM, walking in the evening with parents, weekly zoom meetings with her soccer team. Prepping for the online version of AP Bio test. Other than that, a lot of Animal Crossing on Nintendo Switch. Watching Home Before Dark on AppleTV.
D22 is unusually busy. Her school didn’t eased the curriculum nor lowered the hw load. Tests are cancelled, but quizzes and essays remained. All the classes are live online and attendance is taken at every class, so the school schedule remained very similar to what it was pre-COVID.
Kids are getting lonely from the absence of social interaction and terribly miss the friends.
My kid’s school has gone to Credit/No credit, so she still has to complete assignments but no motivation to do well. Some teachers are giving a ton of assignments, others are more reasonable. The AP Bio teacher seems particularly lost and clueless. She insists on taking the two AP exams she signed up for, we will see how they go.
She is still taking her private piano, bassoon, and group dance lessons via zoom. Her piano exam was postponed until end of May and will happen virtually.
The only positive for her is that she can stay up late chatting with friends and get up late. She hates everything else and feels very lonely overall.
She can’t wait to leave the house for college in two years, even though she also claims not to want to go to college. Please, send help!
We are also looking for something over the summer. He had applied to 2 camps and both are cancelled and he didn’t even find out if he was accepted, which is a bummer too. He didn’t take the PSAT 10 of course, so all I have for ideas is maybe an online prep class for the SAT/ACT/PSAT in the fall.
He is doing well with the online. It’s not a lot - 1 or 2 graded assignments per week per class, with AP classes doing more. But most of the AP isn’t graded either, but is given feedback. He has always done well with being self motivated. My other kids are struggling more for sure.
My kid’s school is also now credit/ no credit. In addition, they did nothing for 5 weeks , before our governor made the decision that school had to shift to online. It has been harder than expected for our S22 to shift back to school after so much time off. We are in a rural area, so there has been a lot/too much? consideration of the students that lack reliable internet and/or technology. He has one AP exam he will take; we’ll see how it goes. I wrote earlier that I was looking for alternative summer plans after many of our son’s plans were cancelled. We were very happy to see one of his summer programs at UMich has made the pivot to online, so at least he will be engaged for June. i am thinking he should prep for early Fall SAT with the rest of summer. It’s tough going, indeed - lots of missing seeing friends, and band-related activities.
We were very pleased with how D22’s school moved swiftly to live Zoom classes. There was a 4 day lapse between being in the classroom and teachers posting lectures and assignments online. All counted towards grades. A week later, they were in live Zoom classes following their normal ‘daily’ class schedule. They go live everyday from 12-3:15 with 5-10 minute breaks between classes.
They still have lectures, quizzes, tests, projects and homework. The only thing they have taken away is final exams. Everything else counts as usual. I also appreciate that most projects have been assigned as group projects so the kids are having to FaceTime with others to have more peer interactions.
They have both a Live Zoom homeroom meeting and a grade wide meeting once a week. Obviously very different, but a great effort on their part to keep things running as smoothly as they can given the situation.
Last week D submitted her course info sheet for next year. Fingers crossed that school in the fall is a GO!
We ended 3.14 and that was it. Teachers were not allowed to give any new content, only “suggested review materials.” Grades were done, with the exception of formative work that could be re-done to improve the existing grades in the grade book. My DD had all A’s except for a B+ in honors Spanish 4, but all her formative grades (non quiz/test) were As, so there was nothing she could do to bring it up. So there was no need or motivation to re-do any review busy work that had no bearing on grades that were already closed. Teachers had “office hours” on zoom, but she doesn’t know anyone who ever participated in one. After about 6 weeks, it was determined that instead of a quarter system, the 4th quarter would be done away with and the first two quarters now called the first two trimesters. The third quarter became the final trimester. It would be worth 30% of the final grade and the first half of the year would be 70%. We were supposed to end late June, but final grades were turned in last week. Kids can take a “Pass” for the third trimester, or take the grade. My daughter has closed the chapter on sophomore year.