Summer's over

[sam_gordon]

At least it seems so to my DD (rising HS sophomore).

She went to the school website today (last day of school was Friday) to see if the summer assignments were posted. She got her assignment for English (read a book, keep a journal for 20 consecutive days, test on the book when school starts again), AND for AP World History... complete 13(!) worksheets... 1-12 are due the first day of school, #13 on the 3rd day. Each worksheet is 5 pages long. No certain book to get the information from, use the internet, library, whatever. Oh, and there will be a test on #1-12 in the first week.

There are less than 12 weeks until school starts back up. DD has a weeklong church camp and is going to the Junior Classical League convention in Las Vegas for 4-5 days.

I get having a reading project due, but this seems extreme to me. She said nothing was mentioned before school let out.

No, I'm not looking for suggestions on what to do. All I want to know is if this seems reasonable for HS.

 

[Art 1]

At least it seems so to my DD (rising HS sophomore).

She went to the school website today (last day of school was Friday) to see if the summer assignments were posted. She got her assignment for English (read a book, keep a journal for 20 consecutive days, test on the book when school starts again), AND for AP World History... complete 13(!) worksheets... 1-12 are due the first day of school, #13 on the 3rd day. Each worksheet is 5 pages long. No certain book to get the information from, use the internet, library, whatever. Oh, and there will be a test on #1-12 in the first week.

There are less than 12 weeks until school starts back up. DD has a weeklong church camp and is going to the Junior Classical League convention in Las Vegas for 4-5 days.

I get having a reading project due, but this seems extreme to me. She said nothing was mentioned before school let out.

No, I'm not looking for suggestions on what to do. All I want to know is if this seems reasonable for HS.

That's a very light load to what mine had. It has paid off for them though.

 

[leebee]

When DD19 took AP Bio, she had 13 chapters of work to do over the summer. I thought it was excessive. She also had 3 books to read and reflect upon for AP literature and maybe 200 terms to identify for AP US History. She ended up dropping AP bio at the end of the 2nd week of the semester. It was all just too much. She still did outstandingly well in HS, got into several very competitive Universities, and didn't kill herself studying along the way.

We found the entire AP thing to be pretty useless. Yes, they need to take AP classes and do well in them to get looked at by the competitive Universities. However, even if they pass the AP test with a 3,4, or 5, there's no guarantee that this will be accepted by the universities. If they are, they sometimes are only "elective" credit in the subject, not a direct substitute for a course. Besides, if you are going to be a bio major (for example), you really want to take your bio courses in your department, not test out of them. I know very few kids who got outstanding AP scores in science or math fields who were allowed to "skip" that intro class in college and move onto the more challenging stuff, and the few who did, didn't recommend doing it that way.

My DD's high school might be an anomaly, though. All the kids in AP classes did outstandingly well in the class, but very few scored higher than a 3 on many of the actual AP tests. Grade inflation, anyone?

 

[ironpig70]

Totally unreasonable.

Its summer BREAK

School is out and she should be free. I equate this to working weekends with out pay.

My kids will not be doing school work this summer and if the school has a problem with that they can deal with me.

 

[ohiomom28]

Is this just for AP classes? I've never heard of having work to do over summer break... Other than "recommended" summer reading.

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[Hrhpd]

At least it seems so to my DD (rising HS sophomore).

She went to the school website today (last day of school was Friday) to see if the summer assignments were posted. She got her assignment for English (read a book, keep a journal for 20 consecutive days, test on the book when school starts again), AND for AP World History... complete 13(!) worksheets... 1-12 are due the first day of school, #13 on the 3rd day. Each worksheet is 5 pages long. No certain book to get the information from, use the internet, library, whatever. Oh, and there will be a test on #1-12 in the first week.

There are less than 12 weeks until school starts back up. DD has a weeklong church camp and is going to the Junior Classical League convention in Las Vegas for 4-5 days.

I get having a reading project due, but this seems extreme to me. She said nothing was mentioned before school let out.

No, I'm not looking for suggestions on what to do. All I want to know is if this seems reasonable for HS.

Very normal and reasonable for AP classes. That is why they are AP.

DS is taking AP Chem, AP Lit and AP Calc next year. Has summer assignments in all. AP Chem has a test on the first day based on the summer assignment.

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

For AP classes? Yes, that's the norm. DS16 took AP English and AP History and had summer work to do. Annotations on a specific book for English, read a second book and 5 chapters with questions for History. However, we got a book for the History class.
We knew the work load was going to be heavier with AP, and we signed up knowing that.

But for everything else my stance is as follows. "You ask me to not take my kids out of school for vacation, then you need to respect my time and not dump homework on them over vacations and summer."

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

I work in education, and I am really against the idea of summer homework. I think the kids deserve a break. Summer used to be special, now it seems that they try to tether them to school. I figure AP teachers will strongly disagree with me, but I just think summer homework is not a good idea.

 

[MrsDuck]

Sorry, but that's an AP class...

 

[Hrhpd]

Totally unreasonable.

Its summer BREAK

School is out and she should be free. I equate this to working weekends with out pay.

My kids will not be doing school work this summer and if the school has a problem with that they can deal with me.

Easy enough. You don't have to take AP classes. Just keep your kids out of honors classes and they won't have to do any school work over the summer.

It is pretty standard around here for the AP and IB classes to have summer homework. Everybody knows that going in. Many kids choose not to do certain AP classes because of the summer load.

 

[Southernmiss]

Very normal and reasonable for AP classes. That is why they are AP.
l..

Yep. Ds got out Thursday. Reports next Sunday for a three week governors school. Then has band camp from July 17 to Aug 2nd . School starts aug 7th.

Somewhere in the middle, he will do ap work for his three ap classes.

 

[TLuvsD]

Light load, overall, for AP. AP and IB are above and beyond....and it shows in the summer assignments.

My big gripe was some of those assignments were worth very few grade points. If the work is assigned, it ought to impact the grades.

 

[Lorelei Lee]

My daughter had a similar workload for AP classes in high school.

My daughter also felt she was at a disadvantage vis a vis AP exams because we live in NY, where public school doesn't begin until after Labor Day, yet she had to take the exams at the same time as students whose AP classes had been meeting since mid August.

She put in the work, however, and started her freshman year at [a prominent Jesuit university] with 15 credits. [and I'll add the gratuitous brag that she made Dean's List this year].

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[Lorelei Lee]

Easy enough. You don't have to take AP classes. Just keep your kids out of honors classes and they won't have to do any school work over the summer.

It is pretty standard around here for the AP and IB classes to have summer homework. Everybody knows that going in. Many kids choose not to do certain AP classes because of the summer load.

Exactly. Don't sign up for the class if you don't want to do the work. And if you sign up for the class but don't do the work, accept the consequences, such as a failing grade on the assignment.

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[Hrhpd]

Yep. Ds got out Thursday. Reports next Sunday for a three week governors school. Then has band camp from July 17 to Aug 2nd . School starts aug 7th.

Somewhere in the middle, he will do ap work for his three ap classes.

Exactly. I see summer homework as no different than sports and band starting up in the summer.

DS also plays football. School was out on Thursday, picked up his gear for next season on Friday, starts 2x a day practices on Tuesday. Mornings are lifting, early evenings are conditioning. Culminates with 7 on 7 scrimages with other schools in July. Then has a 2 week break (only time we can vacation) and then right back to practice first part of August. School starts 3rd week of August.

 

[sjc011]

If schools weren't so concerned with testing, then there wouldn't be a need to play "catch-up." Personally, that's a pretty light load. I was in high school ten years ago, and I had to read 5 books every summer.

Your daughter hopefully isn't being forced into doing that other stuff. Education is so important throughout life. (I agree with the AP stuff- it's good to take those classes, but there's no need to take those exams.) Complaining that there's too much work just instills in your daughter that if it's too hard, it's not worth doing. Hey, she's learning how to multitask- something she needs to learn in college! (Unless she's getting her Bachelor's in Partying...)

To the other posters that are complaining that school breaks are meant for doing nothing, I feel bad for your kids. They need to enjoy life, but they also need to be shown that there is more to life than video games and binge drinking on the weekends (I'm sure your kids don't do that stuff, but I know plenty of high schoolers who prefer to drink and smoke instead of doing something productive). That being said, if you don't like the school, just homeschool your kids. I'm sure you know more than the educators who are paid to teach it.

 

[Lorelei Lee]

I equate this to working weekends with out pay.

And by the way, those of us in management often have to work off the clock . . .that's why we get paid the big bucks.

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[sam_gordon]

If schools weren't so concerned with testing, then there wouldn't be a need to play "catch-up." Personally, that's a pretty light load. I was in high school ten years ago, and I had to read 5 books every summer.

Your daughter hopefully isn't being forced into doing that other stuff. Education is so important throughout life. (I agree with the AP stuff- it's good to take those classes, but there's no need to take those exams.) Complaining that there's too much work just instills in your daughter that if it's too hard, it's not worth doing. Hey, she's learning how to multitask- something she needs to learn in college! (Unless she's getting her Bachelor's in Partying...)

To the other posters that are complaining that school breaks are meant for doing nothing, I feel bad for your kids. They need to enjoy life, but they also need to be shown that there is more to life than video games and binge drinking on the weekends (I'm sure your kids don't do that stuff, but I know plenty of high schoolers who prefer to drink and smoke instead of doing something productive). That being said, if you don't like the school, just homeschool your kids. I'm sure you know more than the educators who are paid to teach it.

I'm big on commitment. Once you say you're going to do something, you do it. She already committed to the church camp (It's a "rebuild things in our state" kind of thing), and the Vegas Convention (which we've already paid for).

I don't think summers need to be an "all or nothing" when it comes to summer homework. I just feel there's a line, and this is pushing it if not crossing it.

 

[MrsDuck]

I'm big on commitment. Once you say you're going to do something, you do it. She already committed to the church camp (It's a "rebuild things in our state" kind of thing), and the Vegas Convention (which we've already paid for).

I don't think summers need to be an "all or nothing" when it comes to summer homework. I just feel there's a line, and this is pushing it if not crossing it.

It's a college level course...

 

[lsyorke]

I remember the good old days when summer vacation meant summer vacation. And we wonder why kids are so stressed out these days.