On covid-19, lots of speculation about when we’ll need to close schools but no changes so far. There’s a big district-wide music competition a week from Saturday and I think there’s a good chance that gets cancelled/postponed. The same weekend, I’m supposed to take S21 to Virginia Tech’s Spring Open House, which hasn’t been cancelled yet but I’ve been checking their site daily.
Kids with average stats…lots of kids in that boat and they can all find the right place to flourish in college with a bit more maturity and the ability to find subjects that they connect with. But, also, don’t assume freshman year is the story of all of high school. My S21 was at best a B+ student in 9th grade, not especially inclined to challenge himself outside of his favorite subject (math). But he found his footing and some inspiration and is now a junior getting straight-As with 3 AP classes, planning on a senior year schedule with 4 AP + 2 DE classes and a 1490 SAT. Now looking at colleges we are in a completely different place than I expected freshman year. On the flip side, D23 was a straight-A student in MS, took on a very challenging schedule this year and has struggled and now has a mix of As, Bs + a C in one class and had to drop down a level in one class after failing a couple tests. She’s actually handling it surprisingly well – I was concerned that she’d freak out at no longer being a straight-A student since she was really invested in that in MS. Like her brother, I expect she’ll find her footing and IME at our school 10th grade is a lot easier than 9th. So much growth happens in high school, it’s really mind boggling how different my 16 yr old junior is from the 14 yr old freshman he was.
Sometimes being a straight-A student in HS can make it more difficult to accept difficulties at the college level. Over the years I have seen many students who had As in top tier high schools get completely stressed over Bs in college. They show up in my office demanding to know why they earned a B or C on an essay, and they are genuinely shocked and upset. They put so much pressure on themselves to be academically perfect that they have difficulty accepting anything less. They have always been at the top. Meanwhile, I have students that cheer over a B+!
@Momof3B A lot can happen between now and senior year. Kids are still getting used to high school and all that entails, socially and academically. You child still has time to reach his full potential. Don’t give the opinion of the test center director any power in your child’s life. Her goal is to sell you 24k in test prep services. Frankly, it’s irresponsible and rude that she felt the need to denigrate your child to meet her goal.
On Covid-19, a State of Emergency has been declared in our state as the number of confirmed cases swelled to seventeen. Our school district is assessing its ability to offer online classes and has relaxed the unexcused absence policy to allow parents to keep their students home for up to two weeks without a doctor’s note. No cancellations of state playoffs or musical performances yet and I hope the FIRST Robotics tournament continues as planned; the team has worked so hard this year.
Oh, I think that is normal, especially when it seems like there are lots of kids who are accelerated in their courses and have more rigor and…actual goals at fourteen. My best friend has two boys who are tremendously gifted academically. She’s supportive of my daughter’s different experience at school, but I have really appreciated everyone’s posts and advice on this board, there’s a good range of high achieving kids as well as kids & parents dealing with 504’s and IEP’s and executive functioning that needs improvement.
That said-I was despairing upthread about her grades in Algebra 1. Not honors, not AP. Just regular old Algebra 1 and she has a new tutor and just brought her grade up to an 80. Which is the best we’ve seen all year long so I am thrilled and feeling hopeful.
@Momof3B - I I literally just had the same experience at a testing/tutoring center, guessing it is the same nation-wide company - looking for algebra tutor for D. She went in for assessment and they brought me in (alone thank goodness) and hit me up for $12K for six months of tutoring. I was like…Or I could send her to private school? What made me angry was that it was so not in line with what they had told me when I inquired on the phone, and also that they really preyed on my fears as the parent of a kid with a learning disability. I was furious.
No cancellations up here (we’re amidst spring break), but an article in the paper here today about how the district is implementing the more thorough spring break cleaning program that they developed after an influenza outbreak took out more than half the staff and students of one of the elementary schools last spring. (The strain that circulated most widely up here last year was a very, very bad match for the vaccine.)
And that brings up something that’s worth keeping in mind: Colleges and school districts already have epidemic plans in place to cover any outbreak, not just a newly emerged zoonotic virus—and if they don’t, well, they’ve just learned the necessity of having them in the future.
My D21’s school extended Spring Break two more days to allow for professors and staff to prepare for online classes should the university go in that direction. No word from my S23’s school…
No confirmed cases in our state (Alaska) yet, but there’s also a recognition that the distribution of the population up here makes catching the virus’s spread early nearly impossible. We’re on spring break right now, and our school district is scheduled to make an announcement about course delivery plans tomorrow; the conventional wisdom is that they’ll go forward as planned but reserve the right to move classes to distance learning at a moment’s notice.
Well, now I have two sad kiddos. The FIRST Robotics Competition has been cancelled in our state and all spring sports are suspended until April. D19 is sad too after her college decided to close the dorms and move to online instruction for the remainder of the semester. I hope this passes quickly. Sending good vibes to you all.
Yeah, I have a sad D23 as well - first the All-County band was canceled (concert was supposed to be this weekend) and now her HS is closing Monday and Tuesday for “deep cleaning” and might move to online for a bit after that.
D17 has postponed her spring break travel plans and is coming straight home instead. Hamilton is going to a minimum of 2 weeks distance learning after spring break is over and will re-evaluate in mid-April whether they can resume classes on campus. D17 is basically bringing everything home just in case.
S20’s high school will begin implementing their Pandemic Preparedness Plan starting tomorrow (half-day only tomorrow to get instructions for home learning and then no in-person schooling until further notice). Other districts near us are also following suit with closing for extended period. And because D23’s school is a county school that draws students from a few of these towns, they have just announced their planning day (the day that they were going to get teachers to plan out the lessons for extended closing) from Monday to tomorrow. It sounds like they may be closing indefinitely soon too. This will be interesting. Hoping home bandwidth can take it, but I am happy for being able to keep my kids home (especially D23, who has asthma and at risk for pneumonia).
Schools closed for 2 weeks starting Monday. Spring break canceled and school system still doesn’t have a plan for distant learning. FIRST Robotics competitions all canceled including Worlds. In addition to losing All States, twins have been doing a GT Repertory Orchestra and the last concert was a side by side with BSO (Baltimore), gone. Their busy month has suddenly become very slow. And Economics Challenge looks like it’s gone.
Spring break up here was set to end today, it’ll be extended another week, at least. There’s still a solid foot and a half of snow on the ground (it won’t all melt off til mid-April or so) and their isn’t a lot of infrastructure for bored teens, and even less what with public events being cancelled all over the place, so this isn’t likely to be a pleasant few days.
Someone in your school administration likes their alliteration! Catchy. (No pun intended.) My district in NJ is sending out 3 robocalls/emails per day about making sure the kids are are ready to move to online classroom at any point, having their laptop and any needed materials brought home each day. I kind of wish they’d just do it-my husband and I are both working from home for the foreseeable future and I didn’t feel great about sending her off to the germ factory/high school this morning.
The coronavirus is in our county, other schools in our county are closed, but our town/school district hasn’t been affected yet.
Our schools are closed from now through the end of the month. S23 was doing math homework last night when the robocall came in and immediately stopped working. The challenge now will be keeping a bored teenage boy from distracting/annoying D19 while she continues with classes remotely.
My 22 year old son was supposed to come home from Grad School for Spring Break. He has decided to stay in his apartment in Ohio to avoid any risk to my husband. The rest of his classes this semester will be on line, his 1st convention in his field cancelled. He was already going to drive home. This was a very hard decision because he had to weigh this possibly being his last chance to see his Dad versus risking bringing the virus home. I am sad, but think he made the right decision. Oldest son 24 was already staying away. His boss just got back from a long trip to India, son has recently spent a weekend in Boston. Thank you very much to all of you charging your daily activities those at high risk or family members at high risk are very grateful.
@mom24boys - I’m so sorry to hear about what you are going through. Are you able to skype or facetime with your boys that are out of the house? Your older sons sound very sensitive and responsible. Wishing you the best.
Our school is closed and will be doing “online learning” through Spring Break, so for at least three weeks. DD had just made the breakthrough with algebra, that was my first thought…who knows how she will fare with everything online. Part of me wonders if she might do better? We’ll find out…
My S19 is still at his in state tech school with no cancellations. The basketball tournament for his school was allowed to finish but no spectators were allowed but it was live streamed.
My other 2 kids (S23 and D25) have online courses next week. The following week is spring break. As its a governor forced 3 week school closure Im sure the school will come out with more information by then.
Middle school musical cancelled (cue sobbing children who have prepared for months, I admitted I cried too and I dont even have any kids in it but my son did it all 4 years there). Indoor track meets are all cancelled and kids are being sent individual training modules for practice. As my son is a freshman on track and was to try new events, hes very sad but understanding its a small blip in the big picture. I do feel for the junior and seniors who were using this year to finalize college recruiting offers.
Middle school kids being sent assignments from each class that has to be completed by 3pm. They need to complete 4-5 hours of school work each day. Similar for the high school kids.
I officially got called off of work at the university for the rest of the semester and will be working to set up some online modules to make up for it. Im excited actually! Im debating whether I go in and pick up hours at my second healthcare job and increase my exposure but I know my coworkers will need help.
