How do you supplement if public school education not meeting student's needs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This NYC based program is worth knowing about though not cheap. Kids can take just one course, or many.

https://spcs.stanford.edu/stanford-online-high-school

OP here - this looks intriguing. I see that you won't receive a HS diploma for anything less than full-time. Any idea how colleges take this program into account if you don't have a diploma to add to application?

[Anonymous]

If you have a math whiz, who is not challenged in the pull-outs pp say -- the kids who are doing math above the advanced grade level -- do not assume that private will be the answer. We know someone who pulled a kid out of a Big-3 because they could not help their DC with truly advanced math. The kid went to basically an online high school as work-at-your-level.

[Anonymous]

PP to add, that if your dd is not in a pull-out then she may not be advanced, but bored. Re college: if you want to add any 8th grade activities to the common app, they have to be truly exceptional. I'm going to go out on a limb and say something that was guided by her and not her parent. There are a few kids who are developing life saving solutions in 8th grade; they will add that to their college apps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you have a math whiz, who is not challenged in the pull-outs pp say -- the kids who are doing math above the advanced grade level -- do not assume that private will be the answer. We know someone who pulled a kid out of a Big-3 because they could not help their DC with truly advanced math. The kid went to basically an online high school as work-at-your-level.

She is perhaps considered a math whiz but she also just loves it and we want to encourage her. I have heard this view of privates for math. She is not a Deal with the math pull-outs. We should have moved to MoCo for the Blair magnet program!

[Anonymous]

The comments about Deal ELA are discouraging. I am a teacher and it is not that difficult to craft a decent and thematic or otherwise integrated course of study in these subject areas (reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar etc). Ugh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD is 7th so not too far behind yours. We supplemented with private math tutor during the year and classes via private school during summer. She enjoyed the summer courses a lot. We may consider private for high school because of the vast difference in writing and composition. However, I really don't want to spend the funds if it can be avoided.

OP here - thanks for all the ideas. We have a private math tutor that helps her with accelerated math. What private school offers classes for kids other than their students? I would like to explore that.

These are summer courses online. Most of the boarding schools that I looked up - Choate, Hotchkiss, Exeter, etc. - offer 6 week summer programs for kids starting in 7th. This summer, all of those schools offered virtual summer programs. My daughter did Choate summer classes and really enjoyed them. This is not me just saying that. She actually told me upon completion of the course that she had way more fun than she thought that she would. If 2022 is a better year, we may opt for in-person. Note, these are not super low cost options, but it's cheaper than private school. See: https://www.choate.edu/summer , though you can google the other ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The comments about Deal ELA are discouraging. I am a teacher and it is not that difficult to craft a decent and thematic or otherwise integrated course of study in these subject areas (reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar etc). Ugh.

The DCPS curriculum is standardized across all schools. So the weaknesses at Deal are the same in all DCPS middle schools. If you try to find curriculum information on the DCPS website on ELA you are sent to the Common Core website. That’s all skills and no content, an intellectual desert. I don’t know why anyone would stick with DCPS at this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The comments about Deal ELA are discouraging. I am a teacher and it is not that difficult to craft a decent and thematic or otherwise integrated course of study in these subject areas (reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar etc). Ugh.

The DCPS curriculum is standardized across all schools. So the weaknesses at Deal are the same in all DCPS middle schools. If you try to find curriculum information on the DCPS website on ELA you are sent to the Common Core website. That’s all skills and no content, an intellectual desert. I don’t know why anyone would stick with DCPS at this point.

Okay fine, but how’s high school ELA? If middle school is weak but high school is decent enough to not enter college at a disadvantage, then doesn’t seem worth moving for barring other concerns.

[Anonymous]

I can strongly support the positive feedback about outschool. My child took a writing course all year and loved it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD is 7th so not too far behind yours. We supplemented with private math tutor during the year and classes via private school during summer. She enjoyed the summer courses a lot. We may consider private for high school because of the vast difference in writing and composition. However, I really don't want to spend the funds if it can be avoided.

How did you find the tutor? Do they use a set curriculum?

Can anyone recommend a particular math tutor for middle school kid who loves math?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The comments about Deal ELA are discouraging. I am a teacher and it is not that difficult to craft a decent and thematic or otherwise integrated course of study in these subject areas (reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar etc). Ugh.

I also find they’re a bit misleading: even in virtual 7th grade last year, my kid’s ELA class read four books as a group (same as in-person 6th grade) and many many short stories (especially for the sci-fi unit) and nonfiction writing, and they did all kinds of writing of more than a paragraph, which they were also required to quite frequently for history last year (invent your own religion, talk about sociopolitical aspects of ancient civilizations etc.) Additionally, there’s the National History Day project for which research is required; in my kid’s case, reading two nonfiction books and a series of articles. Some of the experience, as always, depends on the teacher and the student. It was really easy to do nothing and make up work all summer but that isn’t on the teachers, but on DCPS which sets that policy.

In terms of the language, though, I can’t fathom why my kid got an A in French when he’s clearly not all that proficient after two years, and his pronunciation is painfully bad. That seems like grade inflation to me.

I do think American schools in general simply do not teach grammar at all and that’s been going on for a while. I studied a foreign language in college and I had a good understanding of English grammar, which made learning grammar in another language much easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The comments about Deal ELA are discouraging. I am a teacher and it is not that difficult to craft a decent and thematic or otherwise integrated course of study in these subject areas (reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar etc). Ugh.

I also find they’re a bit misleading: even in virtual 7th grade last year, my kid’s ELA class read four books as a group (same as in-person 6th grade) and many many short stories (especially for the sci-fi unit) and nonfiction writing, and they did all kinds of writing of more than a paragraph, which they were also required to quite frequently for history last year (invent your own religion, talk about sociopolitical aspects of ancient civilizations etc.) Additionally, there’s the National History Day project for which research is required; in my kid’s case, reading two nonfiction books and a series of articles. Some of the experience, as always, depends on the teacher and the student. It was really easy to do nothing and make up work all summer but that isn’t on the teachers, but on DCPS which sets that policy.

In terms of the language, though, I can’t fathom why my kid got an A in French when he’s clearly not all that proficient after two years, and his pronunciation is painfully bad. That seems like grade inflation to me.

I do think American schools in general simply do not teach grammar at all and that’s been going on for a while. I studied a foreign language in college and I had a good understanding of English grammar, which made learning grammar in another language much easier.

My Deal 8th grader last year did not read a single book. There were none assigned. The kids read a few online passages (less than 5 pages each) in Canvas. That was it. She/He never got under a 98% in any quarter. I know because I followed along closely last year and we just bought the books for private 9th grade (7 of them) and she/he discussed at length how little she/he read last year. I like Deal and I love public school but the ELA is not good. She/he is coming out way ahead in math but is barely able to write, even as a very top A student.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The comments about Deal ELA are discouraging. I am a teacher and it is not that difficult to craft a decent and thematic or otherwise integrated course of study in these subject areas (reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar etc). Ugh.

I also find they’re a bit misleading: even in virtual 7th grade last year, my kid’s ELA class read four books as a group (same as in-person 6th grade) and many many short stories (especially for the sci-fi unit) and nonfiction writing, and they did all kinds of writing of more than a paragraph, which they were also required to quite frequently for history last year (invent your own religion, talk about sociopolitical aspects of ancient civilizations etc.) Additionally, there’s the National History Day project for which research is required; in my kid’s case, reading two nonfiction books and a series of articles. Some of the experience, as always, depends on the teacher and the student. It was really easy to do nothing and make up work all summer but that isn’t on the teachers, but on DCPS which sets that policy.

In terms of the language, though, I can’t fathom why my kid got an A in French when he’s clearly not all that proficient after two years, and his pronunciation is painfully bad. That seems like grade inflation to me.

I do think American schools in general simply do not teach grammar at all and that’s been going on for a while. I studied a foreign language in college and I had a good understanding of English grammar, which made learning grammar in another language much easier.

My Deal 8th grader last year did not read a single book. There were none assigned. The kids read a few online passages (less than 5 pages each) in Canvas. That was it. She/He never got under a 98% in any quarter. I know because I followed along closely last year and we just bought the books for private 9th grade (7 of them) and she/he discussed at length how little she/he read last year. I like Deal and I love public school but the ELA is not good. She/he is coming out way ahead in math but is barely able to write, even as a very top A student.

I agree these posts are very misleading. All middle school ELA classes at Deal are assigned 4 books throughout the year. It’s true that expectations vary among teachers- but that does mean there are not full length texts in the curriculum.

[Anonymous]

* does not mean

[Anonymous]

We use Beast Academy and AOPS virtual campus for math for my highly gifted / ADHD kid. Can’t afford private school and not convinced we still wouldn’t be using AOPS to supplement math even in private school.