<p>Tiredofsnow - the merit money is quite appealing at Auburn! But it would definitely mean compromising on his area of interest. On the other hand…it has a great band!</p>
<p>Oh - we are also in Katy. You’re in Alaska now, right?</p>
<p>missypie, kate, et al.: I apologize. I didn’t mean to be offensive. I thought I acknowledged that the 10% rule and the automatic waivers for valedictorians made your concerns rational. I did intend to mock, but I didn’t intend to mock YOU. I was mocking a system under which it is rational to want a sensible, noncontroversial educational reform to be delayed for years.</p>
<p>The actual number of kids in any district affected by this has to be pretty limited. To pugmadkate’s comment, I wonder how you can count on val or sal status at halftime, so to speak, of a student’s high school career. If there was a standard game plan for ambitious students meeting these requirements while maximizing their class ranks, I have to believe that most if not all of the serious competitors used the same strategy, so that the rule change would not disadvantage any of them vis a vis the others. And if somehow a less-talented interloper temporarily slipped into first place, I would think two more years’ worth of grades (many of them in weighted courses) would probably restore order to the universe. Since the 10% line is doubtless farther up the bell curve, there is probably more room for random rank changes, but the vast majority of top-10%ers are likely to remain in the top 10% notwithstanding the change. And, again, if your child was close to the line at the end of 10th grade, I don’t see how you were counting on UT admission (or why this change would put it beyond reach).</p>
<p>If I were a legislator, I would be sympathetic to you, but I would look you in the eye and ask you why I should delay implementing a policy that would make life better for 40-50% of rising juniors because it might make a meaningful (but not necessarily final) change in ranking for a dozen kids or fewer per school.</p>
<p>I never really did hear of a reason that the classes were eliminated other than “It’s good for the students to have more electives.” At some point in the past, a prior legislature thought it was a good idea to require all students to take classes in health, public speaking and technology. Not entirely irrational. I assume it will swing back in a few years, but by then my kids will be out of school. </p>
<p>And by the way, I am the mom of No. 61 out of 600 but she has no desire to go to UT anyway. And I’m also the mom of the student who saw his merit aid jump by a few grand a year when he went from the top 20.1% to the top 19.7%.</p>
<p>My Ds is number 2 out of 676 in his class of 2010. He already took Health, Speech and Technology. Talking to him, he doesn’t feel that the immediate changes will have any effect on the rankings. He is looking at McComb and Mays business schools. Even though UT is the flagship, College Station would seem to be a better fit than the city of Austin.</p>
<p>Glad he’s not worried. But if your Son was able to fit in 12 heavily weighted AP classes and another student was able to now fit in 14, assuming the same high grades on each, the other students would have more GPA points. Of course, student’s transcripts won’t be public information, so no one will know for sure how things would have turned out.</p>
<p>So how are those courses going to be listed on the transcript with respect to the required curriculum? Will they be omitted? Will they be listed but marked as optional? </p>
<p>While I like the idea of my sons not having to finish off these courses (of more benefit to my rising junior than my rising senior) - I hate the ambiguity of the situation.</p>
<p>Although I find this information very interesting, Texas Education is based on independent school districts and although the guidelines from the legislature have been changed, it does not mean each INDEPENDENT school district will take that under advisement. I suspect that our ISD will “grandfather” the new requirements in and have them only apply to incoming freshman. The rank game is a big one and this change will change many rankings. The ISDs have to take this backlash into consideration when making their individual decisions and I truly believe that the majority of ISDs will not make that choice. They are more in tune with the parents and they have to absorb the backlash. Only time will tell. I have a rising junior, and I have paid for classes in health and speech from Texas Tech. She would love to not have to take them, but she is prepared to. As far as shifting in rank, the top five in her high school play the game the same (mail order classes for non weighted requirements) so this will make no difference for the heavy hitters, but will certainly change many others.</p>
<p>Collegeshopping, you make a good point…which highlights the uncertainty of it all. School will be starting in six weeks and we don’t know what classes will be required…I assume because *the schools *don’t yet know what classes they’re going to require. It would be much easier PR-wise to make the classes required for at least another year, so that the kids already signed up to take them in 09-10 won’t feel like they are wasting their time.</p>
<p>“It would be much easier PR-wise to make the classes required for at least another year, so that the kids already signed up to take them in 09-10 won’t feel like they are wasting their time.”</p>
<p>While I agree that this makes some sense for the schools in terms of staffing and scheduling issues, I don’t necessarily think it’s the best thing for the students. If my rising junior is not going to be required to have credit for health or technology, I don’t want him spending his time in those classes. He would much rather take Tech Theatre II or journalism or another science - classes of much greater interest to him.</p>
<p>So you and scores of other folks are going to show up at schedule pick up and want to transfer out, but there will only be a few slots in tech theatre (actually an auditioned class at our HS anyway, so no slots) and journalism, and if Mrs. Jones who normally teaches 6 classes of Multimedia only has one left, what’s she going to teach for the other 5 classes? The week before school starts, she can’t just suddenly become a competent tech theatre or journalism teacher. So all of us - parents, students, teachers and administrators - are in a bad spot. That’s why the other changes of which I’ve been aware have started with the entering class.</p>
<p>missypie - I agree that it makes more sense to start these graduation changes with the incoming freshman class. But if they are going to make the decision NOT to do that - then I am certainly going to take advantage of it in any way possible. There are LOTS of other classes my son would prefer to take - including one that never “makes” because there are never enough kids signing up. </p>
<p>Not sure what our district is going to do. I think I will email our principal and see what he says. </p>
<p>Bottom line - it’s going to be a mess! :)</p>
<p>oh - interesting that Tech Theatre is an audition class? What kind of audition?</p>
<p>My younger son took Tech Theatre I last year and loved it. Wanted to sign up for Tech Theatre II this coming year, but didn’t because of the computer technology course. He has lots of drama experience from our overseas schools, and he really enjoyed the “switch” to learning the technical aspects of theatre.</p>
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<p>Just think of the schools. The teachers are off. The administrators are working shorter hours. They get word after school is out that the classes that hundreds of kids are signed up to take are no longer required.</p>
<p>We have always had a strict “no schedule change” policy…I can just imagine the misdirected hostility this year, no matter which way the school goes.</p>
<p>I have no idea what they have to do to get into tech theatre…maybe it’s an interview and application rather than an “audition.” I just know that near the end of each year, there is a list on the web site of the students chosen to take oral interp and the students chosen to take tech theatre.</p>
<p>I don’t think our school has any strict schedule change policy. My sons didn’t need any schedule changes last year (we met with the registrar and counselor in the summer to set up the classes), but I know other students who did make changes. </p>
<p>I agree that it’s going to a mess. Of course, there will be some kids who choose to stay in these now defunct courses because they are pretty easy A’s. But given an opportunity for my son to take something more interesting (and for my older son not to have to do the Health correspondence course)…I’ll take it if available!</p>
<p>Oh - as for Tech Theatre - while there is no audition, I do seem to remember that the first course is hard to get into because it’s very popular. I think we had an advantage coming in new and meeting with the counselor in the summer. I think she was trying to make things work for us. But, I think if you enjoy/do well in the first course, getting into the next level course isn’t too difficult. </p>
<p>However, from what DS tells me…there are a few kids from his class last year that are likely to be “banned for life” from anything involving the theatre!!!</p>
<p>How flexible the school can be probably depends a lot on how large the school is. I believe we have two teachers teaching Multimedia all day every day, teaching 300+ kids a year. How do you slip maybe 250 of them into other classes? Plus, within each class, they do schedule pickup in alphabetical order. Is it fair to let the A-Ds have first crack at any available opeinings in other classes, then the poor T-Zs are the ones stuck in the class?</p>
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<p>Yeah, we have a Theatre I class that is a prerequisite to any of the other theatre classes. I imagine that every year there are freshman who take it thinking it will be an “easy blowoff” class where rowdy behavior is tolerated. Those are probably the ones left off the list for the other classes. But I also think it takes “demonstrated interest” too…if a kid signs up to take tickets and hand out programs at every perfomance, she’s a lot more likely to be chosen for the class.</p>
<p>I think my son really wanted to do Tech Theatre II next year because they kinda got messed up in TT I this past year. </p>
<p>Usually, the school does the big musical in the spring and the TT I class works to help build the sets and then (selected ones I imagine) work backstage doing props, lights, sound, etc. But for some reason, the school year before we got there…the spring musical had to be canceled and was postponed until this past fall. All the sets/backdrops were already done - so there was nothing for the TT I class to build and they were too inexperienced to help out. </p>
<p>DS was rather bummed about that. He did help build the backdrops for some of the smaller theatre productions, but they weren’t very complicated.</p>
<p>I may be the only fool who feels this way but I am sad to see the Health requirement go. This class encouaged some interesting discussions in my home last year when my rising Sophomore took it. It isn’t a class that he would have ever selected to take but it was worthwhile. I am also sad for the teachers who have built careers around some of these classes who on such short notice are now placed in limbo. There are several times that our district has made changes over the summer and I have hated it but this trumps all of that. I have been trying to think about if there is some kind of a sliding scale that would make this a little more fair and less shocking. Like perhaps if all of these classes were not required for incoming freshman. Then perhaps sophomores could eliminate any 2, juniors could eliminate 1 and seniors could eliminate none. Just a thought, but this would still leave the freshman class scrambling to make schedule changes. My rising sophomore is also just outside the top 10% with dreams about UT so I am really trying to think about what our best strategy should be. I miss the good old days when all we had to worry about was taking classes and doing our best and the rest took care of itself. …Missypie where are you finding this scholarship money for the 20th percentile?</p>
<p>Just thought I’d post about the good laugh we all had yesterday while opening the mail. Ds got a letter and flier from UT talking about his eligibility for the freshman honors program. Uh, yeah, I’m sure he’d be a great addition, if he could only get into UT.</p>