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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]A word of advice from a parent of high schoolers:
- Have your kids take the technology credit in middle school.
- Consider having your kids start a foreign language later in middle school or in high school instead of 6th grade.  That way they can appease colleges by taking 2-4 years of the same foreign language without having to take the AP level course.  My son earned three credits of Spanish in middle school and now feels pressured to do two more levels even though he greatly dislikes foreign language and would rather focus more on STEM.  I think it would have benefitted him more to skip foreign language in middle school and take Spanish 1 and 2 in high school.   [/quote]

This is my pet peeve as well - MCPS encourages students to start FL early, but without explaining the impact. If we had known, DC would have started in grade 7 and stopped at level 4 in tenth grade. Instead they ended up having to take level 5 in tenth grade.

And, I don't think all MSs offer a class that would provide HS technology credit. [/quote]

We/DS selected Spanish 1A/B for 6th grade in part because the non-instrumental music/non-FL option (the "rotations") didn't seem super duper interesting to him (we just insisted on Band but he had a choice between the other two). If he finds it too challenging, we may ask for Spanish 2A in 7th and Spanish 2B in 8th - or there's nothing actually stopping him from not taking FL for one year, then getting back to it, right? I realize that if he continues with both Band and FL though MS there wouldn't be any more time for "rotations," but he does get some enrichment through other activities and summer camps. If he decides to quit Band after 6th grade that's also fine, we were just repeatedly told that it's harder to come back to that later, hence insisting on it for 6th.*

* Yes, I realize that that can also be the case with a FL, but DH and I both have experience with being able to get back into the flow of a FL after a break. I think that's different from Orchestra/Band after a year of no practice.[/quote]

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