Parents of the Class of 2019

[soccerdad72]

DS is taking a lifeguard certification course all weekend long. Hoping he passes it, as they've pretty much guaranteed him a summer job if he gets certified - with pay anywhere from $9.50 - $11 an hour, so not too bad.

 

[mom2rtk]

DS is taking a lifeguard certification course all weekend long. Hoping he passes it, as they've pretty much guaranteed him a summer job if he gets certified - with pay anywhere from $9.50 - $11 an hour, so not too bad.

That's awesome. Good luck to him!

My daughter's job (her first) is just cashier at KMart. Turns out to (thankfully) be just a summer job since our local store finally made the list to close. I'm happy we won't be having arguments about her quitting when school starts. I think it's going to be hard enough to juggle it with her summer tennis schedule.

 

[momz]

That's a good call to let her stay home, study and get ready. I would have done the same if I thought there was any chance for credit for my DD. But we've pretty much accepted from early in the year that wouldn't be likely. This guy is just awful, and he's the only one teaching the class at her school.

Good luck to your DD! And congrats to her on the letter!

We also discovered that the AP classes are only as good as the teacher. My DD enrolled in APUSH at the beginning of this year. But, she struggled and stressed so much over this class during first semester that we decided it was more trouble than it was worth. We spoke with her guidance counselor and withdrew her at the semester break. Now she is in college prep US history and she is loving it. She is getting all A's, loves her teacher and is learning. That's what's important.

She will be taking another AP class next year (AP music theory). But, she already knows most of what will be discussed in that class, so I don't expect her to struggle as much with it.

Honestly, the school pushes these kids to take more and more AP classes without considering the individual students strengths and personality. Not all AP classes are right for all students.

I told my daughter not to worry about this APUSH thing. If she needs to have a US history credit in college, she can take it then. But, for now, US history credits won't help her much.

 

[laughinplace199]

DS took the AP Euro exam today too. I haven't heard from him yet, so I have no idea how it went, but he did stay home this morning to get some extra sleep and to do a little extra studying.

DS also has a summer job at our local zoo. This will be his second summer at his dream job - he gets to roam the zoo and talk to people about the animals (he's been obsessed with animals since he was little)!

 

[bjscheel]

DD thought about taking AP Lit next year. Our AP classes are online and she's never taken an AP class, just online college credit classes. Last night she said it didn't fit her schedule and that was fine with me. She'll be taking college algebra next year and we only need so much stress in our life...I have no idea how strenuous these online AP classes are. Although it might be a way to clinch valedictorian if it raises her GPA above 4.0.

DS took the AP Euro exam today too. I haven't heard from him yet, so I have no idea how it went, but he did stay home this morning to get some extra sleep and to do a little extra studying.

DS also has a summer job at our local zoo. This will be his second summer at his dream job - he gets to roam the zoo and talk to people about the animals (he's been obsessed with animals since he was little)!

How lucky! I wish we had some cool options locally- her dream job might be working at Build A Bear- but nothing like that is close enough.

 

[ColoradoDisneyFreaks]

Well, she said she's not sure how she did on the test, but she's gotten As in the class all year long, and she doesn't experience test anxiety, so I'm thinking she did pretty well. She said the same thing last year after the AP Human Geography test and she ended up with a 5 on it.

She did get lucky with her APEuro teacher. She loves him. She had him last year for Leadership as an elective (she got tossed in that class because they didn't have anything else for her to take), and she hated him the first few weeks of class. She'd come home and complain about how awful he was, she said he's mean, he was a chauvinist, and abusive to the girls in the class. My response to her was that she needed to be sure this was the case, and to give me examples of it happening. Because if it were true, and she did, then I was going to the school and I would unleash hell on this teacher. If it was just a case of her not liking his teaching style, then she just needed to get through the semester and not flunk the class. Doing so would help her in the long run to learn how to work with people she didn't necessarily like. Cut to a week later, she comes home very excited to tell me that she's figured him out. He's not mean, he just challenges students on what they say because he really wants to start class discussions and he loves it when students argue back with him and stand up for their discussion points. He spends the first few weeks challenging what they say, which of course teenagers take as being mean, because he wants to start discussions.

Now she's the kid who actually speaks up first, and starts the discussion (you know how that goes, the teacher asks a question and the whole room sits wide eyed until one brave soul opens their mouth, then it's a flood of conversation) and loves him as a teacher, and he loves her as a student.

She's signed up for APUSH next year, along with APES. She is taking her Biotech II class, which is by invitation only, and is a year long research project that she's really excited about. But, because she had to switch around her schedule, she can't take AP physics next year, so she's aiming for AP Chem or AP Bio. She really likes the classes, and thankfully enjoys writing, and can type pretty fast, so it doesn't hold her up.

I don't think DS who will be starting high school next year will be following her track and taking many AP courses at all. It's not his thing, and that's perfectly fine too.

 

[mom2rtk]

Well, she said she's not sure how she did on the test, but she's gotten As in the class all year long, and she doesn't experience test anxiety, so I'm thinking she did pretty well. She said the same thing last year after the AP Human Geography test and she ended up with a 5 on it.

She did get lucky with her APEuro teacher. She loves him. She had him last year for Leadership as an elective (she got tossed in that class because they didn't have anything else for her to take), and she hated him the first few weeks of class. She'd come home and complain about how awful he was, she said he's mean, he was a chauvinist, and abusive to the girls in the class. My response to her was that she needed to be sure this was the case, and to give me examples of it happening. Because if it were true, and she did, then I was going to the school and I would unleash hell on this teacher. If it was just a case of her not liking his teaching style, then she just needed to get through the semester and not flunk the class. Doing so would help her in the long run to learn how to work with people she didn't necessarily like. Cut to a week later, she comes home very excited to tell me that she's figured him out. He's not mean, he just challenges students on what they say because he really wants to start class discussions and he loves it when students argue back with him and stand up for their discussion points. He spends the first few weeks challenging what they say, which of course teenagers take as being mean, because he wants to start discussions.

Now she's the kid who actually speaks up first, and starts the discussion (you know how that goes, the teacher asks a question and the whole room sits wide eyed until one brave soul opens their mouth, then it's a flood of conversation) and loves him as a teacher, and he loves her as a student.

She's signed up for APUSH next year, along with APES. She is taking her Biotech II class, which is by invitation only, and is a year long research project that she's really excited about. But, because she had to switch around her schedule, she can't take AP physics next year, so she's aiming for AP Chem or AP Bio. She really likes the classes, and thankfully enjoys writing, and can type pretty fast, so it doesn't hold her up.

I don't think DS who will be starting high school next year will be following her track and taking many AP courses at all. It's not his thing, and that's perfectly fine too.

I hope your daughter did great on the test. If she felt good about it, I bet she did.

My daughter got an A in AP Euro first semester and is about to finish second semester with an A as well. And she's quite sure she bombed the test. She said there was a lot on there she had never even heard of. I do blame her teacher for that. So disappointing. But as I said, he's the only teacher of this class at her school so it is what it is.

Thankfully she's aware that he was a bad teacher and it has't put her off taking other AP classes next year. She's signed up for APUSH, AP Lit and AP bio (although still might swap that to AP Chem). There are no AP math classes available at her school as a Junior. They just do an advanced track for math, so she's taking Trig/Pre-calc and then will attend our local Math/Physics institute her senior year for dual credit Calculus and Physics.

We signed her up to take the ACT in June, so she needs to start reviewing for that. Thankfully school is over on Friday this week, so she'll have some time. She (and we) have no expectation of a great score on the test. We didn't even sign up to have it sent to any colleges. We just thought it would be good to take it for practice.

 

[ColoradoDisneyFreaks]

I hope your daughter did great on the test. If she felt good about it, I bet she did.

My daughter got an A in AP Euro first semester and is about to finish second semester with an A as well. And she's quite sure she bombed the test. She said there was a lot on there she had never even heard of. I do blame her teacher for that. So disappointing. But as I said, he's the only teacher of this class at her school so it is what it is.

Thankfully she's aware that he was a bad teacher and it has't put her off taking other AP classes next year. She's signed up for APUSH, AP Lit and AP bio (although still might swap that to AP Chem). There are no AP math classes available at her school as a Junior. They just do an advanced track for math, so she's taking Trig/Pre-calc and then will attend our local Math/Physics institute her senior year for dual credit Calculus and Physics.

We signed her up to take the ACT in June, so she needs to start reviewing for that. Thankfully school is over on Friday this week, so she'll have some time. She (and we) have no expectation of a great score on the test. We didn't even sign up to have it sent to any colleges. We just thought it would be good to take it for practice.

DD's school is the same way with math, so she's on the same track as your DD. She hasn't signed up for either the ACT or the SAT (schools are saying now that colleges look more at SAT scores than ACT scores, unlike back in my day), we'll wait until next summer for that. We've got next week and then 2 days the following week and then they're done. A busy summer of travelling, and then back to school for Junior year! She isn't working right now, I'd like for her to be able to lifeguard on weekends next year during school, but we'll have to see if it's available.

 

[mom2rtk]

DD's school is the same way with math, so she's on the same track as your DD. She hasn't signed up for either the ACT or the SAT (schools are saying now that colleges look more at SAT scores than ACT scores, unlike back in my day), we'll wait until next summer for that. We've got next week and then 2 days the following week and then they're done. A busy summer of travelling, and then back to school for Junior year! She isn't working right now, I'd like for her to be able to lifeguard on weekends next year during school, but we'll have to see if it's available.

It won't be long before summer tennis starts up, so I'm going to enjoy these next few weeks when she's "just" working. I think this job has probably cured her of the desire to work during a school year (thankfully). Turns out it's not as much fun as she expected. Although I fully expect her feelings on the matter to change once the paychecks start showing up. But the store is closing (darn ) so it will be over regardless.

 

[mjkacmom]

I hope your daughter did great on the test. If she felt good about it, I bet she did.

My daughter got an A in AP Euro first semester and is about to finish second semester with an A as well. And she's quite sure she bombed the test. She said there was a lot on there she had never even heard of. I do blame her teacher for that. So disappointing. But as I said, he's the only teacher of this class at her school so it is what it is.

Thankfully she's aware that he was a bad teacher and it has't put her off taking other AP classes next year. She's signed up for APUSH, AP Lit and AP bio (although still might swap that to AP Chem). There are no AP math classes available at her school as a Junior. They just do an advanced track for math, so she's taking Trig/Pre-calc and then will attend our local Math/Physics institute her senior year for dual credit Calculus and Physics.

We signed her up to take the ACT in June, so she needs to start reviewing for that. Thankfully school is over on Friday this week, so she'll have some time. She (and we) have no expectation of a great score on the test. We didn't even sign up to have it sent to any colleges. We just thought it would be good to take it for practice.

I wish our school let freshmen and sophomores take AP classes. Dd is taking 5 next year (including AP calculus), plus another honors class. I think it's too much. She'll take the PSAT's in the fall, I believe, and she will take both the SAT's and ACT's. DS19 took both, thought the ACT's were easier, and did significantly better on them. Our schools don't start until after Labor Day, and since AP exams are always the same dates, the kids have to do a lot of preparing on their own, since our school year ends the last week of June.

 

[soccerdad72]

DS passed his certification, so he's now a licensed (well, once the paperwork is complete) lifeguard. He should be on the payroll at the management company by Memorial Day weekend, when most pools around here open. They've told him they try to keep guards fairly close to home, so hopefully he gets a pool not too far from us. Heck, he could even be working at our neighborhood pool, in which case he could walk to work.

No AP classes for him this year - he chose not to take APUSH. Finals for him aren't until early June, so he still has a few weeks of school left. I think he has 3 AP classes next year - Calc AB, Spanish 4 and a Computer Science AP class that will be new next year, so that will be interesting.

He still is being wishy-washy about soccer for next fall, but I think the incoming seniors who will be the captains next year will get him motivated - they're all good friends of his, so I can't imagine he'll be able to tell his buddies he's not coming out for soccer. He hates the coach, but I think he likes his friends more.

 

[mom2rtk]

I wish our school let freshmen and sophomores take AP classes. Dd is taking 5 next year (including AP calculus), plus another honors class. I think it's too much. She'll take the PSAT's in the fall, I believe, and she will take both the SAT's and ACT's. DS19 took both, thought the ACT's were easier, and did significantly better on them. Our schools don't start until after Labor Day, and since AP exams are always the same dates, the kids have to do a lot of preparing on their own, since our school year ends the last week of June.

The ACT continues to be the prevalent choice around here. Based on the schools my DD is considering we'll probably just stick with that.

I hadn't even considered the impact of the later starting schools on the AP curriculum. We start in mid-August but that didn't seem to help. They were supposed to have work to do last summer, but the school didn't have books to send home with the kids, so they double timed it for the first month or so of the year. They lost a lot of kids with that grueling start. Too bad it didn't seem to pay off.

 

[ColoradoDisneyFreaks]

I didn't either mom2rtk! We tend to start the 2nd full week of August, and then get out at the end of May. The only AP class they let Freshman take without really special dispensation is the AP Human Geography, anything else pretty much requires an act of God to get in. Next year is going to be a pretty heavy load for DD as well. She did really well this year until swim team, it got difficult then, but next year is going to be even harder! We'll have to see how it goes. Now that she's got a year under her belt of the more difficult load, she may be able to handle it better.

 

[mom2rtk]

I didn't either mom2rtk! We tend to start the 2nd full week of August, and then get out at the end of May. The only AP class they let Freshman take without really special dispensation is the AP Human Geography, anything else pretty much requires an act of God to get in. Next year is going to be a pretty heavy load for DD as well. She did really well this year until swim team, it got difficult then, but next year is going to be even harder! We'll have to see how it goes. Now that she's got a year under her belt of the more difficult load, she may be able to handle it better.

No AP classes freshman year at all here. Some weighted classes but no official AP until sophomore year, and then I think it's just AP Euro. Next year is when it all really takes off.

I never did talk her into continuing Spanish though. So I guess just 2 years of actual High School Spanish will be it. I'm not even sure it would be a good idea for her to move on to Spanish IV. Her teacher was out most of this semester and they just had another teacher babysitting the class during that time. That's a lot of class time to have wasted away.

 

[ColoradoDisneyFreaks]

No AP classes freshman year at all here. Some weighted classes but no official AP until sophomore year, and then I think it's just AP Euro. Next year is when it all really takes off.

I never did talk her into continuing Spanish though. So I guess just 2 years of actual High School Spanish will be it. I'm not even sure it would be a good idea for her to move on to Spanish IV. Her teacher was out most of this semester and they just had another teacher babysitting the class during that time. That's a lot of class time to have wasted away.

DD is done with Chinese after Chinese III this year as well. Once she determined that it's not really conversational Chinese, she decided she was done.

 

[MerissaAndMomLoveDis]

One example was a soft-spoken professor in a lecture hall speaking into a mike. Nobody could hear her, so a student asked if she could speak louder into the mike and she said no.

WOW! That is just crazy!!

 

[MerissaAndMomLoveDis]

UGH. I'd be really unhappy about that too. I would probably need to have a chat with the principal (or assistant principal) to find out what their plan is to avoid anything like this happening again.

My DD's AP Euro exam is this afternoon. The morning was a total disaster and she was late to school. She's very stressed right now. She started her first job earlier this week and has worked several evenings this week already. I'm regretting letting her do that and will definitely adjust next year what we'll allow.

Regardless, this entire year has been a waste in that AP class. The teacher has been awful from day 1 and it has been a running joke that anything she learned in that class was self taught. I feel like I just lit a $100 bill on fire today.

Of course brother graduates college on the other side of the state bright and early tomorrow morning and we had planned to leave much earlier in the day but can't because of this waste of an exam today.

But man, that potential invalidation story would have pushed me right over the edge!

Thanks for your reply mom2rtk. I WAS about to go right over the edge when I posted here the other night, so I really appreciate you replying. There is nothing I can do to turn back the clock and fix this mess, but you had a good idea -- speak to the school to find out what they plan to do to void this happening in the future. Hopefully something positive can come out of it. These tests are stressful for the kids, and I can't understand why the school would do something to put them at a disadvantage in the first place. As of right now, I still haven't heard a final decision as to whether the tests are invalidated, though my DD is at work right now so I haven't seen her after school today yet.

Just from the parents posting on this thread, it seems like AP classes are not as uniform as you would think they would be. I really feel for you and your daughter -- sounds like it was a stressful morning before the AP test and I hate you feel like you wasted a $100 (but you did give me a good laugh with the "feel like I just lit a $100 on fire"). Is that what they charge the parents to take an AP exam? So interesting--we only pay $10 per test, and a lot of the kids even have that fee waived. My daughter attends a school with a high percentage of economically disaDvantaged students, so I guess that is why we pay so little compared to your daughter's school???? I hope your DD did better on the tests than she thinks she did. My DD had a teacher like yours--she never lectured, not once, the whole school year, so the kids basically read the book and taught themselves the material. How is it possible to "teach" history and not lecture????? And the book was a nightmare--there have been sixteen editions published between the textbook my daughter's class used and the teacher manual the teacher was using, so much of it was ordered differently, and it took multiple complaints from the kids and 4 weeks of school before she figured that out. They even were tested over stuff that the teacher insisted was in chapter 2, but then the students showed her it was on page 560 something. So kudos to your daughter for persevering and figuring it out on her own as best she could.

I also understand about working. It really does make it hard on the kids during testing times if they work at night, get home late, etc. my kiddo started working when she turned 14 two summers ago--2 nights a week during the school year from 4:00 to 7:30, sometimes more during the summer. I am grateful that her job (coaching gymnastics) is closed for all major holidays, they understand that I don't want her to work more than two nights a week during the school year, and they are pretty understanding when she needs off for a school event (for example she usually works Friday nights, and the prom was two Fridays ago, so they let her work on Thursday night instead.)
I think you said earlier in the thread what your daughter is doing and if she likes it, but I can't remember. Is she liking her job?

 

[MerissaAndMomLoveDis]

DS took the AP Euro exam today too. I haven't heard from him yet, so I have no idea how it went, but he did stay home this morning to get some extra sleep and to do a little extra studying.

DS also has a summer job at our local zoo. This will be his second summer at his dream job - he gets to roam the zoo and talk to people about the animals (he's been obsessed with animals since he was little)!

Good luck to your son on his AP exam! Just wanted to say what a cool job--to work at the zoo! Does he want to have a career in doing something associated with working in a zoo? My DD volunteers at our Zoo's Aquarium and loves it!!!

 

[mom2rtk]

Thanks for your reply mom2rtk. I WAS about to go right over the edge when I posted here the other night, so I really appreciate you replying. There is nothing I can do to turn back the clock and fix this mess, but you had a good idea -- speak to the school to find out what they plan to do to void this happening in the future. Hopefully something positive can come out of it. These tests are stressful for the kids, and I can't understand why the school would do something to put them at a disadvantage in the first place. As of right now, I still haven't heard a final decision as to whether the tests are invalidated, though my DD is at work right now so I haven't seen her after school today yet.

Just from the parents posting on this thread, it seems like AP classes are not as uniform as you would think they would be. I really feel for you and your daughter -- sounds like it was a stressful morning before the AP test and I hate you feel like you wasted a $100 (but you did give me a good laugh with the "feel like I just lit a $100 on fire"). Is that what they charge the parents to take an AP exam? So interesting--we only pay $10 per test, and a lot of the kids even have that fee waived. My daughter attends a school with a high percentage of economically disaDvantaged students, so I guess that is why we pay so little compared to your daughter's school???? I hope your DD did better on the tests than she thinks she did. My DD had a teacher like yours--she never lectured, not once, the whole school year, so the kids basically read the book and taught themselves the material. How is it possible to "teach" history and not lecture????? And the book was a nightmare--there have been sixteen editions published between the textbook my daughter's class used and the teacher manual the teacher was using, so much of it was ordered differently, and it took multiple complaints from the kids and 4 weeks of school before she figured that out. They even were tested over stuff that the teacher insisted was in chapter 2, but then the students showed her it was on page 560 something. So kudos to your daughter for persevering and figuring it out on her own as best she could.

I also understand about working. It really does make it hard on the kids during testing times if they work at night, get home late, etc. my kiddo started working when she turned 14 two summers ago--2 nights a week during the school year from 4:00 to 7:30, sometimes more during the summer. I am grateful that her job (coaching gymnastics) is closed for all major holidays, they understand that I don't want her to work more than two nights a week during the school year, and they are pretty understanding when she needs off for a school event (for example she usually works Friday nights, and the prom was two Fridays ago, so they let her work on Thursday night instead.)
I think you said earlier in the thread what your daughter is doing and if she likes it, but I can't remember. Is she liking her job?

Please keep us posted on what they end up doing with your DD's test. I know it might be too late to save this year's result for the kids, but at the very least admin needs to know parents are paying attention and are watching to see how they do next year.

I shared your story with my DD and I do think it makes her feel like she's not alone in having things related to an AP exam handled in such a poor manner. So thanks for that.

Her teacher wasn't good at lecturing. Most of what she learned was done through reading at home and working up the assigned vocabulary lists. On at least one occasion there were some kids acting up in class and the teacher sat down and refused to teach the rest of the class period as "punishment". That's absolutely crazy in an AP class since it keeps other kids from learning when they had nothing to do with the poor behavior. He kept telling them he was trying to teach it like a college level class, and I can guarantee that's not how college works. I came very close to jumping in and complaining, but my DD didn't want me to. I do know that I'll be watching far more carefully with her AP classes next year and probably will veto her and say something if I see that sort of thing unfolding again.

The fee for the AP exam is $94 (I rounded up to get my $100 figure). We are also in a district with lots of economically disadvantaged kids. Just over 60% of the kids at her high school are on free/reduced lunch. But ours handles it differently from yours. They waive or reduce the exam fee for just those free/reduced lunch kids. The rest of us have to pay the full amount. That would be fine if I felt like she had a decent shot at credit for the exam. The kicker is that to have the grade weighted in her GPA, she must take the exam. So we really had no choice.

You're very sweet to wish her well on the results. Thank you!

Neither of our older boys worked in high school at all. So this working thing is new for us here too. It sounds like your DD has a great schedule for fitting into the school schedule! So far my DD isn't very crazy about her job. But they started off scheduling her for more hours than she told them she could comfortably work so she's been burning the candle at both ends. But she got all excited about how much money she could make and didn't make them cut it back. She's learning now to advocate for herself and set some ground rules. But with the store closing, I think they're just desperate to keep everything staffed. We're learning as we go. I did tell her today that there's no way she's working during the last couple weeks of school next year (she hopes to get another job when tennis season is over). Thankfully she seems (fingers crossed!) to have a solid A in all of her classes. And this is her last week, so hopefully she won't pay with anything more than her AP Exam (and my hundred dollar bill )

 

[bjscheel]

1.5 days of school left! Tomorrow I'm going to see if DD wants to ask at the coffee/smoothie shop if they could use any help this summer. I don't know if they will, but if she could work there, it would be no evenings or Sundays because they are closed. And she would be one block away from me. It would be even more awesome if she could work the same hours I do since she can't drive herself. They close the same time I get off but open earlier. The place has been somewhat of a hangout for DD and her friends and the owners really like her. I had forgotten about that as a possible option.

Today DD was elected class president for next year. She didn't really care about it but her friends asked her to put her name on the ballot, maybe a few of the group could all be officers together. The class votes for 4 kids each and the top vote getter is president, next is vice-president, etc. So she is pretty pleased about that. I know she would help at graduation next year, and prom, but I don't know what else it involves.

This made me think today that she ought to write down all her activities and leadership positions thus far, now while she can remember them. DD18 wished she had started a list earlier in her career when she was filling out scholarships this spring. So DD15 got her list started tonight.