School started last week for us, and there is already a case at the school. Two of my son’ s teachers are now virtual as they quarantine. Ugh. they are going every other day and have class sizes of 16-17 split in two so about 8 per class in person.
My kids went back to in person school today…they said lunch was boring and felt like prison so I’m taking that as good thing that proper distancing and protocols were followed lol
Virtual for my kid. Chorale was interesting as the director wandered away from the Zoom laptop and became completely unintelligible.
He came to me about an hour after school ended, babbling about how much work AP World is gonna be and how he’s thrilled by this, brandishing a full notebook sheet of densely packed writing.
Silly me, I thought he had been taking notes in class. No, he’d already done the homework for Thursday. lol
First day of virtual school for the twins. So far it’s better than the Spring, teachers are at least allowed to teach. They have switched to a 4 by 4 schedule, just for the year instead of 7 classes for the full year. Parents were told all the material of a year class would be covered in a semester of 4 classes a week 45 minutes each. First day already told that 4 books have been cut from English curriculum (not that they will get physical books).
On the bright side, one twin will be able to knock out his tech ed credit a year early and the other will be able to take both Calc A/B and Calc C this year. Virtual marching band camp went well last week, in that they were smiling at the end, but no actually playing together. Band direct is holding out hope for some kind of in person performances in the spring. All State band will be video auditions and no performance, but a certificate if selected.
Only one day in, but I think this semester will go well and no missing the bus until at least January.
S23 had to take the pre ACT yesterday (at school, mandated for all 9th and 10th students).
He tells me 30 minutes before he leaves that he doesn’t have a calculator. I don’t have a spare one in the house. He said there were only 3 problems or so where he felt he would have done better had he had a calculator.
Needless to say Im not having high hopes this test will be a true indicator of how well he could do on the math portion. (He’s in pre calc this year).
@2plustrio oy
I guess the good news is that if he does really well on it without a calculator, he’s in great shape for next year! ?
School starts on Monday-it’s a hybrid-they’re divided in half by the alphabet, and one cohort goes M/T, everyone home Weds, next cohort in school Th/F. School is A/B days. School - in person and online - is only half days, with teacher office hours and group project time in the afternoon. This morning we had a zoom orientation with her first period/homeroom teacher - he said that he has a pre-existing condition so will be teaching virtually. There will be a warm body/sub in the classroom to supervise but he’ll be 100% on the computer. I guess we’ll find out next week how many of her other teachers will be teaching virtually. We have the option of going all virtual at any point, I am feeling really dubious that there is any point to her being in the building but again, we will wait and see. Also-the teacher did not think there are any classes on Wednesdays, when everyone is home. I…am just so confused and I have read everything and listened to all the phone blasts. Maybe it will make more sense once they begin.
after 18 yrs at our local public schools with our kids, we switched our D23 to a small private school this year. It’s in person; with the option to zoom in (several kids do that). She’s enjoying it; she’s made a few new friends, and has hours of homework every night. Now, I KNOW homework doesn’t necessarily make you smarter, but I feel like it’s making up for how our public school basically quit teaching in March.
ACT Stuff: she’s taking the ACT on Sunday and PSAT in October. There are several thoughts on taking the ACT on this forum. Some say - “never take it unprepared; as some colleges require all scores>” and some say “take it for a baseline and figure out where a kid needs to focus.” We are in that second camp; we’ll see how it goes.
It turns out our D23’s school is holding the PSAT and allowing 10th grader digital students to come in for it. So D23 is taking it. Might do ~10 practice math problems in advance but nothing much -just to remind her what the test is like from last year.
She will likely take the ACT eventually as well but for now we’re just relying on the one ACT practice test she did at home right at the end of 9th grade (as we had no familiarity with the ACT as a family - nobody in our house had taken it before) in order to provide us with the sense that she isn’t vastly better at one vs. the other (at least for now). Her at-home practice ACT in May (9th Spring) came in at a 30 while her actual PSAT from last October (9th Fall) was a touch higher (would correlate with a 31 ACT). In both cases the verbal is her strength. And math speed is not. 
S23 takes the PSAT next month for practice. He will not study for it as he already knows a little about standardized test taking - has already taken the ACT twice (7th grade for Duke TIP and this past February halfway through Freshman year). He did pretty well considering no studying. We aren’t huge fans of the over prep/studying for the test. We feel like the test results will be more authentic if he just takes it blind this first time - I mean it he can’t get a 33+ on his own then will he really be able to hack a top tier university learning experience?! Our oldest D18 is at a T15 and never really studied for the tests.
I can’t believe my D23 got the ACT in today. in spite of all odds - she did it. 1) the school had just opened up a section to take it (first time since February); we had registered late and were standby unbeknownst to us. . . . and 2) she left her admittance paper at home. because we were standby we got there early; and had time to run home to get her ticket; and then there was amazingly enough room for her. Only around 30 kids were there. We know of other kids who’ve had to go to other states to take it.
ASKMother - I get what you are saying. I am always impressed with the one-and-done kids for sure. . . . for my kid, the ACT helped us realize that our kid couldn’t get through some of the sections. he needed timing help. . . . . and once he figured that out he had some perfect scores! 
My S23 says he may not want to take the SAT or ACT. This is the kid that purposely tried to miss all of the questions on the State Assessments in 6th grade as a form of protest.
^^ dolemite - that’s crazy! those protests are OK in middle school. they are learning their voice. Your son might change his mind in a year or two. . .
made me think of my S15 who got tired of middle school career talks and told the counselors he wanted to be either a veterinarian . . . or a butcher.
School has been in session for a couple of weeks here. S23’s high school has split the student body in half by alphabet, the first half has M/T, the back half has TH/F and Wednesdays rotate every other week. Teachers give homework for the days a student is not in class. So far it is OK, we have had a few cases and some kids are quarantining due to close contact, but so far no “outbreaks”.
S23’s tennis season is already entering the 4 weeks. He’s had a chance to compete in a few varsity meets this year, and should be an alternate on the state team!! Captain’s practice for ice hockey are starting to crank up, which I guess means winter is around to corner.
S20 moved to college last week so S23 has now taken over the basement. I think he was moving clothes down as I was pulling out of the driveway with my eldest.
Sophomore’s typically take the pre-ACT in late fall, I know S23 is not excited, but tough. He has decided he wants to try to play baseball competitively (D1 he hopes) so we are going to start looking at programs and contacting coaching this winter. Should be an interesting ride!
Mine fell asleep in his pre-standardized testing in middle school. Yeah, he just did the pre ACT and forgot his calculator. He wants to go to school “far away from home” and I keep telling him the only way Im paying out of state is if he can get some scholarship money and that requires good scores.
It probably says something about me that I wish my kids were a bit more like that than they are.
Wow - S23 hasn’t done any testing just yet - he did do some sort of test that had him estimated to score around 1200-1300 on SAT - that was in 8th grade, I think? Guess we need to think about taking the ACT this year to get a baseline. On a different note, he got his rank and it’s not good. He is in the bottom of the top quarter - he was very upset about it - we will see if it will light a fire under his butt to do better. He is more than capable - just loses motivation from time to time. I just don’t know if he can climb high enough to make a difference (ie. top 10 % vs top 25%) - I mean I doubt that any extra effort on his part will make a difference from where he’s at now (meaning I don’t think he can do enough to break into the top 10%).
@JaceyK will your S have APs this year and didn’t last year ? Maybe that could be a source of climbing closer to the 10%? I’ve been told to expect the addition of APs in 10th grade to have a positive effect on rank. I’m not sure, though, in my D’s case.
Hers is between 5-6% after freshman year…they weren’t allowed to take APs in 9th grade (which I am glad about), so it’s possible her rank might go up a little this year if some of those with higher unweighted GPAs don’t take APs. Freshman year, unweighted and weighted GPAs are identical here (they don’t weight honors classes at all, and nobody had APs), but sophomore year, some kids will have higher weighted GPAs and others won’t be taking APs.
But I also think it’s possible her rank will go down this year because she’s taking 3 APs and I think a decent number of kids might be taking 4. She’s got AP Chem, AP Seminar, and AP World, but some kids also have AP Computer Science (which they’ve said is a pretty easy AP, so I’m guessing grades will be good in it). She just has zero interest in it so didn’t take it (and I wouldn’t want her to take it only to affect rank…she definitely knows we are of the mind that she should challenge herself but follow her own authentic path).
I actually think the going down seems more likely (it’s a STEM school, so I figure a lot of kids will be interested in AP Comp Sci).
I do hope she can stay in the top 10% as I know the kinds of colleges she’s interested in, and I think staying top 10% is going to be important for her (not the case for my S21). D23 is in a Title I school, and I think that in our area there is often a drop off in enrollment around junior year. The other high school in our town lost ~12% of the class size by the end of junior year, and that affects rank%, too.
D23 is happy with her classes, working hard, and hoping to be part of a new extracurricular at school this year that is a perfect match for her, so I’m thankful for that.
@nichols51 No, no APs this year. This school district doesn’t allow many APs for 9th or 10th graders - the only AP 10th graders can take is World HIstory, and S23 just doesn’t have the aptitude for any history classes (really just deep lack of interest or motivation for any social studies and english classes lol). He’s taking all PreAP and advanced classes (as he did last year). He will be in all AP and dual credit starting this summer and next year so we will see how much that ONE year will help (since he will need his rank summer between junior and senior year for college apps).
The only non elective AP my son can take this year was also history and he chose not too. However, they do have “accelerated” english and chemistry which is not quite AP but supposedly the harder class. It isnt weighted more but hoping it show academic rigor.