My DS got an A for the 1st half of geometry, but has already struggled slightly during the 1st 2 days of the second half (87% so far so no huge issues but not as strong as last semester). I have reminded him to just do his best and ask questions when he needs to. I will consider it a win if he gets an A/B for the 2 semesters- they are so quick!

He says that he is excited to return to algebra during the school year and does not really like geometry so he is glad that he is taking the condensed class and will not have to endure this torture all year (his words)!

Weirdly, my kids had a hard time getting A's in Honors health in the summers. It's not a gimme by any means. not hard, but lots of work that you have to stay on top of.

My daughter is taking two summer school classes in an effort to free up room in her schedule. She is putting in real time every day to get the coursework done. There are two elements of summer school that do seem to make getting an A more challenging from an operational point of view.

1. The semester is so short that you don’t get a lot of interim feedback letting you know you are on the right track. Even if the teacher grades three times a week, they are grading huge batches of assignments at once so you have very little time to course correct.
2. You don’t get the advantage of averaging and rounding up letter grade from two quarters together, which objectively offers more opportunities for an “A” than if you just have one average grade for the whole semester.

I think in that sense it is definitely harder to get an “A” even if the content is not so dissimilar to the regular school year. It just must be done much more quickly. One class seems reasonably do-able but I think I’ve discovered that two classes at once is not for the faint of heart.

Anonymous wrote:If it seems hard it’s probably because summer school is mostly for dumb kids and kids who fail during the regular school year. It’s not hard for the normal kids.

Classy. And wrong. Many highly intelligent children chose to take summer school to free-up space in their schedules to take additional science, math and other courses during the school year.

Anonymous wrote:The 1st semester ends tomorrow. 2 weeks to learn an entire semester's worth of work- it is very fast. It seems like a good idea to use the opportunity as credit recovery (a passing grade, but probably not an A), but not for the original credit. I'd be curious from the county what the grade distribution is.

How do we find out the final grade? The grades do not come in ParentVue, but I do see some in my child's MCPS Classroom. Is that the correct final grade?

They are in Edmentum Family Sensei for my kid's two classes.

My kid took an Honors History class A and B two summers ago and got As in both. He is not an A student but that was all he focused on. It really brought up his GPA since they were honors classes and helped when he applied to colleges. I think this year you can only retake classes and not for original credit.

The 1st semester ends tomorrow. 2 weeks to learn an entire semester's worth of work- it is very fast. It seems like a good idea to use the opportunity as credit recovery (a passing grade, but probably not an A), but not for the original credit. I'd be curious from the county what the grade distribution is.

How do we find out the final grade? The grades do not come in ParentVue, but I do see some in my child's MCPS Classroom. Is that the correct final grade?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here- thank you. I’m specifically speaking of the geometry class.

I wonder if I should plan on getting him a tutor to do the class with. That way he will really learn it and not just speed through and still earn the A.

(We are only considering this because we moved to MCPS mid-year and he is self-conscious about being behind his classmates. He’s actually a strong math student).

DS dropped his honor geometry summer class. It moved too quickly. It wasn’t about not getting an A. He was worried he might not get a C. There seemed to be no direct instruction. The teacher had the kids working independently in edmentum during the synchronous lesson times. It was a poor fit for his learning style. We will not attempt a summer class again online in an academic subject.

My kid is taking this now. I think he will pass with a C. It was very fast paced.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid retook two classes last summer that he originally got Cs in and got As in the summer classes which replaced the Cs on his transcript and helped his GPA.

We really have lost the plot as a community if this is what kids are subjected to. No wonder they’re so stressed.

Why is it bad to retake classes to improve knowledge and/or grades?

My son had a terrible Spanish teacher and got a B and a C for the last semester. I don’t think he’s ready for the next level and I think retaking the class with someone else will help him learn what he missed and improve his GPA.

So the class isn’t asynchronous? I would assume not since you state that he needed a better teacher. Can you let me know what school is offering it in person? Thanks!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid retook two classes last summer that he originally got Cs in and got As in the summer classes which replaced the Cs on his transcript and helped his GPA.

We really have lost the plot as a community if this is what kids are subjected to. No wonder they’re so stressed.

Why is it bad to retake classes to improve knowledge and/or grades?

My son had a terrible Spanish teacher and got a B and a C for the last semester. I don’t think he’s ready for the next level and I think retaking the class with someone else will help him learn what he missed and improve his GPA.

You don’t think he’s ready or he doesn’t think he’s ready? Also, why not get a tutor or practice the material from this past year over the summer? Why is taking the entire course over the summer needed for a student who achieved a B and a C.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid retook two classes last summer that he originally got Cs in and got As in the summer classes which replaced the Cs on his transcript and helped his GPA.

We really have lost the plot as a community if this is what kids are subjected to. No wonder they’re so stressed.

NP. I don’t see how this stresses a kid out. If anything, it should relieve stress over the Cs. Also, GPA might matter more today than test scores, and kids routinely take SATs and ACTs multiple times.

You are illustrating the point. Why are we at the point in society that students should stress about less than perfect grades and less than perfect test scores. Students are stressed out, far more than even 10 years ago. It's not good.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid retook two classes last summer that he originally got Cs in and got As in the summer classes which replaced the Cs on his transcript and helped his GPA.

We really have lost the plot as a community if this is what kids are subjected to. No wonder they’re so stressed.

NP. I don’t see how this stresses a kid out. If anything, it should relieve stress over the Cs. Also, GPA might matter more today than test scores, and kids routinely take SATs and ACTs multiple times.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid retook two classes last summer that he originally got Cs in and got As in the summer classes which replaced the Cs on his transcript and helped his GPA.

We really have lost the plot as a community if this is what kids are subjected to. No wonder they’re so stressed.

+1000

99% of the time it’s the parents and not the kids. I wonder what makes the parents this way?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid retook two classes last summer that he originally got Cs in and got As in the summer classes which replaced the Cs on his transcript and helped his GPA.

We really have lost the plot as a community if this is what kids are subjected to. No wonder they’re so stressed.

Why is it bad to retake classes to improve knowledge and/or grades?

My son had a terrible Spanish teacher and got a B and a C for the last semester. I don’t think he’s ready for the next level and I think retaking the class with someone else will help him learn what he missed and improve his GPA.

Anonymous wrote:My kid retook two classes last summer that he originally got Cs in and got As in the summer classes which replaced the Cs on his transcript and helped his GPA.

We really have lost the plot as a community if this is what kids are subjected to. No wonder they’re so stressed.