Career Oriented High School? Advice needed, son struggling.

[Anonymous]

Our 8th grade son is questioning why he has to learn certain subjects -- will never need them in life (such as physics, chemistry, foreign language... or advanced math classes in late high school, etc.). Wants to go to school only for "useful" things he will actually use in his life/job. We've explained endlessly the importance of all his classes. This isn't a passing conversation, but a constant source of stress in our home. Him begging us not to have to go to school -- hates it, hates school work. Emotional break downs. Anything outside of the box we should be thinking about? With two parents with masters degrees, all we know is the traditional high school/college path.... but are there different kinds of high schools we should consider? Schools in which kids specialize earlier in certain careers? We are in Arlington, but open to the DC metro area or virtual. He does like coding and investing and perhaps other careers. It seems awfully young to zone in on a path. And even still, I imagine he'd still have to take most of the traditional high school required classes. Or has anyone else dealt with this and have any other suggestions? Their child pushing back on needing/wanting to do certain subjects, saying they were "useless?" He's smart, but dysgraphic/ADHD disorganized, so that may be playing a role. School feels hard to him. He begs us to help him and relieve him from having to go to school all together, which of course we can't do. We're tying to help in so many ways, but still falling short. The stress and tears continue. He otherwise is a really good kid. Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

[Anonymous]

I’m sorry you are going through this. You might want to post on the SN board or have this moved there.

My kid was similar. He’s much older now, left public and takes the basics online that he needs to graduate, some courses at community college and has a part time job. He is much happier but there were some terrible, rough years in between.

I would try your local public first. It’s free and a lot of changes happen from 8th to 9th grade. He may find a group or something to become involved in.

There are all sorts of alternative privates around but I’d give public a chance first and then tour if he really wants a change. I wouldn’t recommend full virtual at his age yet. We aren’t in Arlington and my son didn’t want to go to these but at one point we looked at the New School of Fairfax and Sycamore in Arlington when we were first considering leaving public.

[Anonymous]

Career Center or Arlington Tech?

[Anonymous]

Is he medicated for the ADHD? Does he have an executive functioning tutor? Does he have an IEP or 504 for support? If not, I would start those three things ASAP. I would keep him in your public base school through ninth grade with all this added and then see where you are.

Also, post this on the SN board.

[Anonymous]

Check out Mckinley Tech in DC. Not sure if there's a path to paying tuition to attend. It's a public selective school - applications due 2/1. It's a calm, stable place with academics that are good but not super high caliber.

They have tracks that are college prep and also more career prep, with a STEM focus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our 8th grade son is questioning why he has to learn certain subjects -- will never need them in life (such as physics, chemistry, foreign language... or advanced math classes in late high school, etc.). Wants to go to school only for "useful" things he will actually use in his life/job. We've explained endlessly the importance of all his classes. This isn't a passing conversation, but a constant source of stress in our home. Him begging us not to have to go to school -- hates it, hates school work. Emotional break downs. Anything outside of the box we should be thinking about? With two parents with masters degrees, all we know is the traditional high school/college path.... but are there different kinds of high schools we should consider? Schools in which kids specialize earlier in certain careers? We are in Arlington, but open to the DC metro area or virtual. He does like coding and investing and perhaps other careers. It seems awfully young to zone in on a path. And even still, I imagine he'd still have to take most of the traditional high school required classes. Or has anyone else dealt with this and have any other suggestions? Their child pushing back on needing/wanting to do certain subjects, saying they were "useless?" He's smart, but dysgraphic/ADHD disorganized, so that may be playing a role. School feels hard to him. He begs us to help him and relieve him from having to go to school all together, which of course we can't do. We're tying to help in so many ways, but still falling short. The stress and tears continue. He otherwise is a really good kid. Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

I was with you until this. There are academies, but they specialize in giving kids a jump start on the trades or other occupations that don't require college. The closest to his interest would be coding boot camp and hoping for the best, but that's a field that is getting saturated with kids who have BS degrees in computer science.

[Anonymous]

It’s a tricky one. What public HS are you zoned? My kid was similar, although my kid had no problem doing the minimum work to get As in classes that didn’t interest (humanities and languages…though even my kid admitted certain economic and STEM/Industrial Revolution topics were interesting in history).

My kid found heaven on the robotics team where you are playing with CnC routers, laser printers, etc. great combination of coding and hands-on building.

There were a number of kids on the team that were getting Cs and below in traditional classes…really they wanted a 21st century votech school. Not learning to be a car mechanic but learning to build and repair robots.

These kids all managed to get to college somewhere, and some dropped out. Of the ones that dropped out, one is now a head technician at a DMV hospital and the other moved to SC to get an apprenticeship for I want to say Boeing. So non-traditional, but they do have some marketable skills.

[Anonymous]

You described my son. These outbursts about school come from anxiety on top of ADHD. Schoolwork feels overwhelming because they can’t focus. They’re not good at explaining their emotions so instead of saying “I’m stressed,” or “I feel overwhelmed,” it’s always the school’s fault for making them do useless things.

What has helped is medication to address both of the anxiety and ADHD, therapy and a semester of every day executive function/study skills/tutor. He’s at a private school that tries to make learning fun and engaging, has small classes, and a light homework load for classes that aren’t honors/AP, which we avoid. He gets As, Bs and the occasional C, which I’ve learned to be fine with.

If he were at a school that was career-focused, he’d undoubtedly find fault with that and find their classes pointless too. I suspect the same with your son. We’ve told him that he doesn’t have to go to college. He acts insulted when we suggest this as everyone he knows has gone or will go to college. He’s only a freshman, so we’ll see how things go, but I could see a post-grad year at boarding school and some time to mature being beneficial.

[Anonymous]

FCPS has the stem academy at Edison. All standards are met through real world problem solving for math/science/tech.

https://edisonhs.fcps.edu/academics/stem

He’d still have to do basic English/history to graduate, but maybe some of it could be fulfilled through nova or college courses that are more specialized? History of tech or writing for business?

[Anonymous]

We know a number of kids who switched to career programs in 9th/10th and are really happy.
MCPS has a whole school dedicated to career programs. The kids still have to take a 1/2 day at their regular school but they spend the other half working on more career focused classes. They are pretty sophisticated too. I think network design is one of them and I think there's another coding-type program too.

[Anonymous]

Read Self Driven Child.

[Anonymous]

Arlington Tech is the obvious choice if you want to stay public. Of course, he’ll need to fulfill all the requirements for graduation, as he would from almost any reputable school.

If you are looking at private schools, Sycamore School in Arlington, or Parkmont or Templeton Academy in DC might be good fits. They all seem to accommodate neurodiverse kids and focus on experimental learning. For example, Parkmont has internships two afternoons a week, I think starting in 9th grade.

I remember someone telling me about an online vocational high school, but I can’t remember what it is. If I think of it, I will post back.

Finally, if you haven’t updated his neuropsych in a while, it might be worth it to assess him again. Anxiety in my experience can express itself in oppositional ways- especially in adolescent boys.

[Anonymous]

Are you rich? Have you explained that he can't enjoy his rich lifestyle unless he can develop an advanced skill and demonstrate work ethic? That foundatial education enables him to understand the world at a basic level, and opens doors to the skills he will need? Or does he claim he already knows his career plan and you are holding him back? Does he want to use that school time to pursue his passion at risk of material comfort? Or is he just lazy and disrespectful?

Is he highly intelligent or not so much.

[Anonymous]

I don't agree that it is too early for him to know what he wants to do, but he is still going to have to push through some required high school courses. My son wants to be an electrician or possibly an electrical engineer (further out, would get an associates degree and then transfer to a 4 year school). He has wanted to do this for as long as I can remember. He focuses on appropriate electives, but still has to take language arts, history etc. There's not a way around that if he wants a regular high school diploma (he does).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is he medicated for the ADHD? Does he have an executive functioning tutor? Does he have an IEP or 504 for support? If not, I would start those three things ASAP. I would keep him in your public base school through ninth grade with all this added and then see where you are.

Also, post this on the SN board.

This. Is he medicated? I had (have) a similar son and medication has been life changing. It helped immensely with executive functioning and motivation.