summer school-health

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm planning to have DC take all health online as a rising 9th, chemistry as a rising 10th, and technology as a rising 11th. DC is artsy and won't have room for multiple arts electives without summer work. DC, of course, doesn't know all of this yet!

Double-check the chemistry plan—many core classes are only offered for credit recovery (that is, if you failed it the first time). The system is set up to discourage using summer school to get ahead on those core course tracks.

I actually think this is reasonable, having seen how compressed the summer sessions are, even with the busy-work Health classes my kid took. It would be really hard to get a solid foundation in a math or science class in such a short session, and they'd probably end up having to re-teach themselves a lot of the concepts in a later course that builds on the summer one.

But you might be able to talk to a counselor about getting credit for a Montgomery College summer course. I think there are some that can be approved for MCPS graduation requirements.

[Anonymous]

Our math wiz is thinking of knocking Health and Math during this summer. Considering the fees, we are thinking of one or the other. I am wondering what will be work load if DS does both?

[Anonymous]

Health curricula for summer appears to be same/similar to what they learn in MS. It does not seem a lot of new topics or workload for the kids in summer school. I would like to see what others have to say.

[Anonymous]

If you can knock off two courses during the summer, they can pursue their passion in arts/music?

[Anonymous]

I wish there was a way to enroll a rising 8th grader in health. By the time my kid is rising 9th, I would prefer they use the time on a summer job. My kid takes high school algebra in 7th grade--why not health?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Health curricula for summer appears to be same/similar to what they learn in MS. It does not seem a lot of new topics or workload for the kids in summer school. I would like to see what others have to say.

Health is a LOT of busy work, with many small assignments to be completed between each online class period. With a standard school-year semester, many/most of those assignments would be done in class.

For most kids, it’s not overwhelming, more tedious than anything else, but it does take up a chunk of time outside of class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Health curricula for summer appears to be same/similar to what they learn in MS. It does not seem a lot of new topics or workload for the kids in summer school. I would like to see what others have to say.

DS is in 9th and just finished Health A online. I'm not sure about summer school, but the school year version is 6 weeks. It's not hard but as others have said it is a lot of busy work. There was nothing in the topics that he didn't already know---STIs, Nutrition, mental health, opioids, alcohol, and a few other topics. What made it challenging was the pace of the class and the workload. Each week there are 6 -8 assignments/quizzes due; late submissions incurred a 10% penalty per day, and all work had to be turned in by Sat of that week. There also were not redos or retakes. Quizzes were a combination of multiple choice and essay. The multiple choice questions often had multiple answers and you had to select the correct 2-4 in order to receive full credit. There was an SSL project, a few research projects, and a few presentations.

TBH, DS didn't learn anything new about the health topics. But he did learn how to budget his time, how to look ahead at the calendar, that doing a large amount of work over the weekend prior create less stress during the week, how to incorporate teacher feedback to improve his next submission, that 2-3 sentences was not a complete response, and how to research by using sources from one site to find additional information. The value for DS was in the study skills, not the content.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our math wiz is thinking of knocking Health and Math during this summer. Considering the fees, we are thinking of one or the other. I am wondering what will be work load if DS does both?

What math is he planning to take? Check to be sure it can be taken for original credit, not just credit recovery. Many of the core classes are recovery-only in the summer (for students who have already taken the class before and failed it).

And be aware that he will still be required to take some sort of math class each year of high school. Your post isn’t clear whether his goal is to get ahead or to avoid taking math classes later; but you can’t “knock out” a math class over the summer in order to take something else one year.

Health is just a lot of small, straightforward assignments. Not difficult, but time-consuming. But I’ve heard that summer can be tough for math classes because it’s a full semester’s worth of material covered in less than a month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Health curricula for summer appears to be same/similar to what they learn in MS. It does not seem a lot of new topics or workload for the kids in summer school. I would like to see what others have to say.

DS is in 9th and just finished Health A online. I'm not sure about summer school, but the school year version is 6 weeks. It's not hard but as others have said it is a lot of busy work. There was nothing in the topics that he didn't already know---STIs, Nutrition, mental health, opioids, alcohol, and a few other topics. What made it challenging was the pace of the class and the workload. Each week there are 6 -8 assignments/quizzes due; late submissions incurred a 10% penalty per day, and all work had to be turned in by Sat of that week. There also were not redos or retakes. Quizzes were a combination of multiple choice and essay. The multiple choice questions often had multiple answers and you had to select the correct 2-4 in order to receive full credit. There was an SSL project, a few research projects, and a few presentations.

TBH, DS didn't learn anything new about the health topics. But he did learn how to budget his time, how to look ahead at the calendar, that doing a large amount of work over the weekend prior create less stress during the week, how to incorporate teacher feedback to improve his next submission, that 2-3 sentences was not a complete response, and how to research by using sources from one site to find additional information. The value for DS was in the study skills, not the content.

Thank you for a very detailed and helpful response.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our math wiz is thinking of knocking Health and Math during this summer. Considering the fees, we are thinking of one or the other. I am wondering what will be work load if DS does both?

What math is he planning to take? Check to be sure it can be taken for original credit, not just credit recovery. Many of the core classes are recovery-only in the summer (for students who have already taken the class before and failed it).

And be aware that he will still be required to take some sort of math class each year of high school. Your post isn’t clear whether his goal is to get ahead or to avoid taking math classes later; but you can’t “knock out” a math class over the summer in order to take something else one year.

Health is just a lot of small, straightforward assignments. Not difficult, but time-consuming. But I’ve heard that summer can be tough for math classes because it’s a full semester’s worth of material covered in less than a month.

Geometry is done in 8th. was thinking of Algebra II in summer to be able to select pre-calc in 9th available at the HS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our math wiz is thinking of knocking Health and Math during this summer. Considering the fees, we are thinking of one or the other. I am wondering what will be work load if DS does both?

What math is he planning to take? Check to be sure it can be taken for original credit, not just credit recovery. Many of the core classes are recovery-only in the summer (for students who have already taken the class before and failed it).

And be aware that he will still be required to take some sort of math class each year of high school. Your post isn’t clear whether his goal is to get ahead or to avoid taking math classes later; but you can’t “knock out” a math class over the summer in order to take something else one year.

Health is just a lot of small, straightforward assignments. Not difficult, but time-consuming. But I’ve heard that summer can be tough for math classes because it’s a full semester’s worth of material covered in less than a month.

Geometry is done in 8th. was thinking of Algebra II in summer to be able to select pre-calc in 9th available at the HS

Apparently, this year, one requires recommendation from the MS teacher for Algebra II course in the summer. Also noticed that one will need to contact counselors at school for sign-up. Parents will pay the invoice when received later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Health curricula for summer appears to be same/similar to what they learn in MS. It does not seem a lot of new topics or workload for the kids in summer school. I would like to see what others have to say.

Health is a LOT of busy work, with many small assignments to be completed between each online class period. With a standard school-year semester, many/most of those assignments would be done in class.

For most kids, it’s not overwhelming, more tedious than anything else, but it does take up a chunk of time outside of class.

+1 Nonsensical amount of busy work with no new knowledge. Sr still thought it was loads better than wasting a class slot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Health curricula for summer appears to be same/similar to what they learn in MS. It does not seem a lot of new topics or workload for the kids in summer school. I would like to see what others have to say.

Health is a LOT of busy work, with many small assignments to be completed between each online class period. With a standard school-year semester, many/most of those assignments would be done in class.

For most kids, it’s not overwhelming, more tedious than anything else, but it does take up a chunk of time outside of class.

+1 Nonsensical amount of busy work with no new knowledge. Sr still thought it was loads better than wasting a class slot.

Especially for my kid with inattentive ADHD. Easy classes and no-brainer assignments are exponentially harder for them than challenging ones; but being able to stack those tasks and blow through them all at once, at a time when they felt focused, was a big help.

For a while there it looked like it was possible Health B wouldn’t be available in summer/online in time for the Class of 2025 to take it, and I had visions of that one class tanking their 4.0.

[Anonymous]

Health A one summer and Health B the next