Sophie's Grace

Update to post below:

Just picked Sophie up from school, and there is no doubt that this school simply isn't for her.  We knew we were in a top-notch school district in KS, but we had no idea just how great it was.  The honors curriculum here is FAR too easy for Sophie.  She actually took a chemistry quiz today and had the top score in the class after no preparation at all!  Sophie loves a good challenge, and I simply can't sit by and let her lose everything she's worked so hard for.....no way!  Besides, I left it completely up to her and only told her that she had other options if she didn't want to go this route, and she was absolutely certain after her second day of classes that this is NOT for her.  So, we're now in a desperate race to search for  online AP courses, and I need all the help I can get!!!  I love the comments I've received so far and would appreciate any help you might have in homeschool AP courses- I don't even know where to start!  I don't think a Christian homeschool curriculum is going to have the tough courses that we need, so I need some other options!  Ideas?!



Original post:

My heart is just breaking for my sweet third-born today.  We knew that transitioning in the middle of the year wouldn't be easy for Sophie, but we could not have imagined the scenario that is now playing out.

Because Monday was a holiday, we weren't able to do begin the registration process for Sophie until Tuesday.  In the state of Georgia, students are required to have a health and dental screening at the Dept of Health prior to even making an appointment to see a guidance counselor and begin the school registration paperwork.  So bright and early Tuesday morning, Sophie & I hit the GA DOH.

I was careful to ensure that I had ALL of the needed forms to get Sophie through the health dept's process. So I was appalled to learn that Sophie needed a shot that she had already received as an infant.   Sophie had been given her 3rd Hep B vaccination at 5 mos and 26 days old, and that is not acceptable to the state of Georgia, despite the fact that she has been registered in countless schools over the last 12 years with those SAME shot records and has had no issues at all.  The state of GA says she had to receive that shot at exactly 6 mos of age or it's invalid.  Not a huge problem, but rather annoying to say the least!

After leaving the health dept, I immediately called the new high school to schedule an appointment to get Sophie enrolled.  Of course (yes, that's meant to be snarky) they couldn't see us that day, so we had to set up an appt for Wednesday morning instead....another wasted day.  On Wednesday morning we headed over to the school in hopes that we could get Sophie enrolled and still have time to get her books and locker, etc, so that she wouldn't have to worry about the little things on her first day of classes.

That's when our real problems began.

I can't speak for the entire state, but this school district does things MUCH differently than we're used to.

MUCH


After speaking initially with the counselor, we were shocked to find that this school is set up on some sort of strange semester system that doesn't follow anything I've ever heard of.  Now, I may not be an expert on school curriculum, but I have lived in MANY states over the years and have never seen anything like this.

The school is on a block schedule,  but each day is exactly the same schedule.  Now, that's more like the "traditional" high school that I attended, but this gets weird from there.  There are only 4 periods in a day, and each period (or class) is 90 minutes long.  Still not too bad, except then there's this......the students take the same 4 classes every day for the semester and then they don't take them again the following semester.  To clarify, that means that they would take their core subjects (math, english, history, and science) for only half of the year!  And, if they take a language (like Spanish), it's the same thing.  Now, that may be ok for elective courses that are designed to only be a semester, but I really have a problem with them not being exposed to the core classes for 7 months out of the year!!!  And when they're taking upper level language courses (like Spanish) it's even worse!  There's simply NO WAY to retain everything that you've learned for that long of a time-span without having to repeat lots of things the following year.  That tells me that the time it takes to review then cuts into the time for learning new things even more....and then they only have about 3 months of new learning as opposed to the 7 months (or so) they would have if they were in their core courses all year!!!

I wish I could say that was the worst of it, but it actually does get worse.  As you may know if you've been reading my blog for several years, Sophie is not only a straight "A" student, but she maintains at least a 98% average in ALL of her courses, each of them being honors or AP.  Sophie is incredibly gifted and works very hard to keep her GPA high.  Although she was placed in all honors courses in this new school, they are very different from the core classes she was taking in KS.  It will get too complicated to try and explain the differences, but suffice it to say that it's going to be an issue for her this year due to lots of repetition of things she's already covered as well as missing things.  On top of that, two of her four teachers have subs because they are out on maternity leave, and there is just no substitution of an actual teacher when it comes to honors level chemistry.....in my humble opinion!

In addition, the math here is some sort of "new math," and we have yet to understand what they have done.  There is no Algebra 1 or 2 and no geometry.  Instead they have lumped everything together in some sort of group and they call it Math 1 (freshman year), Math 2 (sophomore year), etc.  They do offer honors for each level, but it's just not the same!  Sophie has been place in honors math 2, but we have to wonder if she shouldn't be more advanced, and it's frustrating to make the switch.  And because they require her to take the 3 weird math levels, she will have to double up on math courses in her senior year if she wants to take any of the advanced math she has been planning to take all along.

I suppose if Sophie were an average student this wouldn't be so frustrating for me, but because I know how incredibly important grades and knowledge are to Sophie (who is leaning toward a degree in medicine) and how hard she works, this just STINKS!!!

And if the courses weren't enough of an issue, there's the sheer fact that Sophie is starting school in the middle of the year, in a brand new place.  I was sick to my stomach as I left her yesterday in the guidance office, and then was very unhappy to hear that she hadn't been given a locker and was carrying 3 large books around all day.  And, because she hadn't been issued a locker, they didn't even give her all of her books because she couldn't carry them all around- how does that make sense?!

So, as you can see, it's been a struggle, and I have to say that through it all Sophie has shown her true GRACE and has made me more proud of her than ever as she has not once complained about her situation.  I guess God knew what she was going to need to get her through life, and the fact that her middle name happens to be "Grace" is no mistake :D

I don't mean to "knock" the school!  I'm sure their program is great if you've been here from the beginning, and it is supposed to be the top high school in the area.  And I'm certainly not blaming them for the fact that we moved here in the middle of the year!  It's not their fault that we are having to change curriculum, etc.  In fact, we did get to meet a couple of wonderful teachers and coaches yesterday who went out of their way to welcome us and make us feel comfortable....so it's not all bad.

Honestly, I'm sure Sophie will be fine in the end- we're all just in a very emotional state right now, and it's hard knowing what we left behind!  I think I'm feeling a bit cheated right now, and I would venture to guess Sophie is feeling about the same.  I did actually offer her the option to homeschool or attend a private christian school yesterday, and that may be where we end up if things don't work out, but she is willing to give it a few days and wants to make it work.  I am very sad that she has had to drop her Spanish course to make her new schedule work (only having 4 classes is VERY limiting), and I am hoping she will be able to pick it up over the summer or something to keep it up!  It's the one thing that she's done consistently since the 6th grade and was a part of the honors curriculum, and she had hoped to become very fluent in the language!

I think the hardest thing for her to give up was playing basketball, and she was really excited to be able to start conditioning for lacrosse tryouts (which are coming up next week) yesterday!  Being part of a team will help her to make friends quickly and fit in a bit more, and I'm just praying the rest will work itself out.

Well, I've typed all this in our hotel room with 5 crazy boys tugging on my sleeve the entire time, so I need to get back to them and get OUT of this room ;D  We can't wait to close on our house on the 1st and are anxiously counting the days!!!!