<p>I did not do high school in this country. My husband says hes too old to remember high school, so we are puzzled by someone we are encountering; if we could get some help from CC itd be greatly appreciated </p>
<p>Our daughter is entering HS in the fall. She wanted to take an online course during the summer, for reasons too hard to explain in a short paragraph here, so Ill skip the reason. The course is algebra II (she will be finishing algebra I in 8th grade.) We put in request, but it was denied and we were told that that will put her in advantage over others. That violates equal opportunity that seems to be so important in this country or in our county at least. </p>
<p>My question is, why does that put her in advantage? Does one more credit, regardless of what shell get, put her in advantage? It certainly wont in terms of GPA. Lets say her GPA is a 4.0 un-weighted without this course, then if she gets an A, then it will still be 4.0. If she gets a B, it will be lower, so its to her disadvantage. Will that extra credit put her in advantage somehow, even if she gets a grade lower than what she normally gets? (She is so far a straight A person in her life, not saying she is a genius, just the standard is not very high.) Unless I'm missing something, I think all she does is putting more challenge on herself and actually puting her GPA at risk. Whether or not it's a good idea for her is a different issue, but I don't see any "equal opportunity" problem here. Am I wrong?</p>
<p>(BTW, In addtition to this, what is strange to us is that the board allows student take Health in the summer, but not algebra. )</p>
<p>hisandhermom: The school obviously cannot stop your daughter from taking an on-line course over the summer. I think the question is more one of whether they will accept the credits (our local school does not) and whether they will honor the course and allow her to move on to the next math course. One girl I know took the course over the summer, then approached the head of the math dept with her grade and offered to take the final exam for the course. Re giving credit for the course, some schools simply attach the course info and grade to the transcript.</p>
<p>In most schools, the sequence is algebra 1, geometry, then algebra II.
Online classes are often much much less rigorous thatn high school classes. Of course it depends on the high school. High schools may refuse to 1)count the class for high school credit 2) put the on the hs transcript because they don’t think it is equivalent in rigor to their classes.</p>
<p>Sometimes the issue is actually money paid out for dual enrollment later. In schools with tight budgets that can be an issue. If taking Algebra II now causes your D to exhaust the school’s math offerings early, they may not want to pay for that extra math class she would need in her senior year. You could offer to pay and see if that makes a difference.</p>
<p>milkweed, I think that is true in general. Stanford offers very rigorous summer courses and summer on-line courses. Kids have to take a test to qualify for some/?all of them.</p>
<p>Some schools don’t want kids taking summer classes elsewhere because they fear that enough students then won’t be signing up for their teachers’ classes. </p>
<p>My kids’ private school was firm about this. They feared that if students wanted to avoid a “less-popular” teacher, they would all sign up for a summer class elsewhere and there would be no one in Ms Uncongeniality’s class.</p>
<p>Our public HS will allow students to take on-line courses for credit from Northweatern U’s Center for Talent Development program in order to move ahead in the course sequence if parents pay for it (w/ a price tag of ($800+ per class!). Once you have exhausted the school’s course offerings, students can apply for FYO (?) and then the district pays for enrollment in college courses. It seems that more and more students are doing this in our district.</p>
<p>DD is taking Honors Chem this way because the school doesn’t have enough sections to allow all qualified students to take it during the year - ends up being a kind of self-recommmended lottery to get a slot. There is such a difference between regular and honors chem curriculums that success in AP Chem hinges on taking honors. I am NOT happy about having to pay the tuition for this class, but we really have no other option.</p>
<p>FWIW, about half of the high schools in the U.S. arrange their math sequence Algebra I -> Algebra II -> Geometry, and about half teach Geometry before Algebra II. It just depends where you are (and where you wish to cover baby Trig. functions). There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches.</p>
<p>There could be a lot of reasons why a high school won’t accept credit for an online course. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>It’s been mentioned that online courses sometimes aren’t as rigorous. Even if they may be, the school may not want to put itself in a position to evaluate any online course for everybody who wants to take one. Too much time and they’ve got to pay somebody to do it. So, they just say “no”.</p></li>
<li><p>A student starting Alg I in 8th grade can still get to Calc by senior year. If that’s as high a math as the school offers, they don’t want to be put in the position of running out of classes for any student, especially if the state has a 4 year math requirement. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>My own district is facing this one. A few years ago they started offering Alg I to a handful a 7th graders. Well, now those kids are juniors, in calc, and they’re at the top of the math food chain. What do they do next year? The district has decided to eliminate that math track. Alg I in 8th will now be the top track.</p>
<p>And then there’s the question of why students need to be get past calc before leavning high school. </p>
<ol>
<li> Cost. If the district will need to pay for your d to attend a math class elsewhere senior year, that could be an issue. Budget cuts are really hurting schools. And while one kid may not matter in the grand scheme of the district budget, 10 might. And when one kid starts, others will follow. You offering to pay may not help as letting one kid do it opens the door. And others, who may not be willing to pay, could still demand the option.</li>
</ol>
<p>As for taking the online class being an unfair advantage? I don’t see how. But, I might be missing something. This would be a question not for other parents for high school teachers who may have better insights.</p>
<p>I could be wrong, but the only way I can see it giving her an advantage over others is because she would have that credit behind her and be able to take more advanced classes (such as AP’s) later in her high school career sooner than her classmates who have not taken the summer class thus giving her a higher GPA(uw/w, i can’t remember which is which). Like another poster says on here, I think it is more a question of whether your school will give her credit and if you aren’t worried about her getting credit, then they can’t keep you from signing her up. If its through your state’s virtual school, then you may have to find another place online for her to take it. I do know our state requires the school’s permission for a student to take classes through the virtual school.</p>
<p>I think Cayuga is right that the issue is credit, not the actual taking of the class.
Many kids in our area take summer math or science classes, and then take the same class during the year, where they set the curve. They don’t want any credit for the summer class, because their real goal is the A grade in the class on the school transcript.
Is your daughter’s goal acceleration of the math sequence?</p>
<p>Is this an issue of them not accepting the credit? Or not paying for the online course? Or not allowing her to go into the more advanced math class in the fall?</p>
<p>Our kids private high school does not accept any outside credit except for transfer students that I have heard of (although if a kid really maxed out the resources there, I wonder if they might occasionally quietly take a math or science credit from the state university). That does not stop our kids from taking outside courses in the summer. If, for example, our kid took a summer credit foreign language course, they would not accept the credit. BUT, they would allow the student placement in a higher level language course in the fall if the teacher approved it (thought the student had learned enough to be successful in the higher level class) AND scheduling worked out for it. But there would be no guarantees that the student could move up in the fall just because they took the class; it would be up to the teacher. If you want to do this in math, I would make sure you have the syllabus for the high school course so your D can study up on her own for any components not taught in her online course so she is ready to move ahead in the fall.</p>
<p>Just FYI, you can attach information on outside courses to your kid’s college application. One of my D’s had two classes of credit in a foreign language not offered at her school, and the other one will have 4 college courses of credit when she applies. So you can tell the colleges about it, even if it does not factor into her GPA.</p>
<p>Hi All, Thanks very much! Very helpful comments and info.</p>
<p>The problem is not who’s paying. They’re not paying for it. We are. We are okay with that and they know. The problem is we are trying to get credit for it and she can move to trig in sophomore year. (Algebra II is a prerequisite for trig.) If they don’t accept the credit, then she has to retake it, which would make online course a kind of waste. </p>
<p>Yes it is true that the school can’t stop her from taking online class. In fact over the years she’s done many with CTY, never got credit for it. That’s in middle school. Now with high school, pre requisites, and all that, we would like to get credit for the online course. We think she is ready and she is certainly willing to meet the challenge. Math has always been the easiest course for her. We just got her SAT score back, which is very high for a 12 year old. </p>
<p>
That’s a good point. However, our schools are so easy, she gets easy A anyway. I wish there were a nice private school in the area but we only have catholic schools. We don’t really want to send her to a catholic school for religious reason. </p>
<p>
It’s good to know this! Thank you!
She will like to take humanity courses, which are her real love. (It’s interesting how sometimes a person’s strength seems not to be her passion.) This information certainly will help, esp. if she wants to take something from CTY that her school does not offer, and when the courses don’t go in sequence.</p>
<p>I suggest that you separate out the issue of <em>credit</em> from the issue of <em>placement</em>. I’m guessing that you don’t actually care if she receives high school credit for the course, but you’d like her to be placed appropriately, i.e., in Trig next year. There are all sorts of ways she can show mastery of the material to help with placement, even if they don’t want to give her credit for the course. Lots of schools only want to give credit for their own courses, and not for any others, particularly in academic courses. But who cares? If she’s interested in math, and thus taking more math outside of school, she’ll keep taking more math. What you have to do is find out how to get her appropriate placement for fall. Most likely, she’ll be asked to take a test, and if she gets a high enough score, she’ll be able to take the next math class. You aren’t trying to get her <em>out</em> of taking math classes generally (i.e., finish up and be done with it early) but rather to place her in the <em>right</em> class (so she can learn more math in high school).</p>
<p>Of course, if the goal is to be “done with math” by the end of AP Calc as a sophomore and never take math again, you should revisit that goal . . . Just saying.</p>
<p>One thing to consider is what being placed into Trig would do to the rest of her course schedule. At some smaller high schools, taking Trig in 9th grade might mean that a student can’t be in 9th grade English because they meet at the same time. Also, some 9th graders may be fine with the level of math required for Trig, but they might have social issues with their 11th and 12th grade classmates. You know your daughter best, so you know whether or not there could be social issues. What I would be more concerned about is messing up the rest of her course schedule. If taking Trig in 9th grade means that she has to double up on English or History in another school year, it may not be worth it.</p>