School Time

Well, this is a little late but I did want to report on how the enrollment process for school went.

I went into the high school and enrolled Caleb in the 9th grade. The counselor was not in at the moment so I was unable to sign him up for classes. We did however, get a list of the classes available. On the Monday, following this enrollment we went back to speak to the counselor to decide on Caleb's coursework for his first year in high school.

We decided that he would be taking Honors English & World History (this is a parallel course and neither can be taken on its own). He will also be taking Geometry, Biology, PE, Computer Apps and Italian I. If for some reason the Computer Apps class is full then Caleb decided he will enroll in JROTC. I wish this were offered separately instead of only as an elective. Our "requirements" for Caleb were that he take Italian I and be involved in some sort of physical activity.

The options for fall sports are Cross Country, Tennis, Volleyball and Football. Caleb decided that he would go out for the cross country team. Because the high school is so small anyone who tries out for the team makes it. (There are a total of about 300 students from the 7th through 12th grade). The counselor told us that the longest distance they run in Cross Country is 5K. So for the summer Caleb and I (and probably Jared and James as well) will work on a C25K (couch to 5K) running program. This way Caleb will be ready to run for the season. With his long legs and long stride he should be a natural at this. Even now when he walks with a purpose he can walk faster than I can. This is quite a feat as I usually have a pretty fast pace. I just can't keep up with him when he gets those long legs working.

James and I are very proud of the way he is adapting to starting public high school. He loves to be homeschooled but is accepting the fact that he will be in a public school environment next year. We made this choice for several reasons. One is that we believe that he needs more of a challenge, more competition for grades, etc. Second, I just don't think I can provide the best environment for the lab sciences in my home. Especially now that we are overseas - where am I going to get items for dissection or all the chemicals for Chemistry experiments?

Jared is now enrolled for 6th grade. He came with Caleb & I to Caleb's counseling appointment. He was very disappointed that he was too young for the Tennis and Volleyball team. He also seemed really disappointed that he will not be choosing his classes for the year. Once he realized that he will get to choose for 7th grade and that there will be more options he felt a little better. If I remember correctly there are no sports available for the elementary school. There may be track and field but nothing else. So Jared will be going through CYS (Child & Youth Services) to find a sport to participate in.

The crazy thing here because of the number of transitioning students is that we won't actually get a schedule for either child until the first day of school. So we will not know who their teachers are, what school supplies they need (besides the basics of pencils and paper) or even where to go for their first class. For Caleb, all the high schoolers meet in the school gym first thing to be introduced to the faculty and receive their schedules. I think there is an Open House so they can see where the classrooms will be about a week before school starts. Those poor kids will be very confused for the first week or so.

Another thing I find odd is that they do block scheduling. This in itself is not odd but they way they do it is. The high school students (and perhaps the middle school as well) take 7 classes plus one seminar (kind of like study hall but not). So this means they have 8 classes. This is broken into 4 a day. The days are then labeled A & B (but for the new school year they will be starting them as Black or Gold Days). Unlike college where you would have MWF classes and T,TH classes here you would have Black Days and Gold Days. This changes each week. For example the first week - Mon, Wed & Fri would be Black Days and Tues, Thurs would be gold days. The next week this switches and Mon, Wed, Fri are now your gold days and vice versa. Each class period is 80 minutes long and in the course of 2 weeks you would have attended each class 5 times. SO...for parents and student we have to remember what color day it is in order to remember what books and homework to bring to school. YIKES! Need to definitely keep a good calendar to keep track of that info. I do have to say that this schedule is better than what they used to do a few years ago. That schedule had them rotating every week which class was first. So week one you would have 7 classes and let's say English was your first class and Math was second. Then the next week Math would be the first class, English would move to the end of the day and whatever class was third then moves up to 2nd place. Oh my heavens, who thought that mess up? I think that would be very difficult to keep straight.

Better go for now.

Ciao.