Online High School??

[4_2_it]

I'd never pull my child out of school for online school without having an opportunity to review the curriculum and see specific examples of the coursework. Socially, your son will be missing out on stuff, but I have no idea how big his current school is or what kinds of activities they offer. I went to a small private school (Graduating class was 20). I really never connected with anyone in my class and hung with the people I worked with.

As far as home schooling goes, my wife did this with my oldest through 4th grade. We live in one of the best school districts in the Philly 'burbs and my daughter was way ahead of her peers when entering the 5th grade. If you choose the homeschooling route, it will be the equivalent of a 25-40 hr a week job for you if you plan to do it right.

Good luck in whatever you decide.

[entertainme]

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For what it's worth, I took a few online classes this past semester and to be honest, found them to work for me. I liked being able to do work in the comfort of my own room and on my own schedule (to an extent). The only problem I encountered was making sure I kept up with due dates and such since it's much easier to blow off assignments when you're not being constantly reminded of them by professors, other students, etc.

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Thanks for sharing. I assume this was college because you say professors.

It looks like my daughter will be taking Chemistry online this summer too.

[entertainme]

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I'd never pull my child out of school for online school without having an opportunity to review the curriculum and see specific examples of the coursework. Socially, your son will be missing out on stuff, but I have no idea how big his current school is or what kinds of activities they offer. I went to a small private school (Graduating class was 20). I really never connected with anyone in my class and hung with the people I worked with.

As far as home schooling goes, my wife did this with my oldest through 4th grade. We live in one of the best school districts in the Philly 'burbs and my daughter was way ahead of her peers when entering the 5th grade. If you choose the homeschooling route, it will be the equivalent of a 25-40 hr a week job for you if you plan to do it right.

Good luck in whatever you decide.

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I have learned that they use the Apex curriculum which the school district insists is more challenging than regular classes. I'm going to plan to go to school, check things out and also discuss with his techers in the next two days. Had to happen right before graduation and my daughers party. Yeah me. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

I would guess graduating classes around here are 60-80 kids in a town of about 1400.

[challenger84]

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Agreed. I certainly may be wrong, but it sounds like OP is a concerned parent who may just be in denial about the real reasons for their child's trouble in school. The whole attitude of "It's the schools fault that I'm not doing well" is typically BS. More often than not, there is usually a bigger problem with your son's motivation than the quality of the school. If your son is really as gifted as you say he is, he might just need to remove his head from his ass.

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I really don't blame the school. They have a bunch of kids at all different levels and do the best they can for them.

I agree that motivation is part of the problem. It's not that he's not motivated to learn, (hence watching MIT courses, reading hundreds of wikipedia articles, etc.)

Obviously, part of discipline is grinding stuff out because you have to. It's just a fact of life.

What I'm doing is exploring alternatives to see if another option might provide better curriculum and/or better motivate him to do well.

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Also, you still haven't addressed the reason for not sending him to private school. You said something about him wanted to finish out high school with his friends, but this doesn't seem like a good excuse. Will online classes or home schooling really be that much better?

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As stated earlier. We live in the sticks. Private school is at least 45 minutes each way on a good day, let alone in winter.

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My parents drove me 45 minutes each way, through the mountains, to private school for 8 years of my life. But online school would have been much easier and stuff and I'm sure I would have learned just as much.

[emon87]

Also, if your kid can't find the motivation to do the work now when his teachers will call him out on it in class if he hasn't done it, why do you think online classes will make him more likely to do the work? Fact is he will spend all day goofing off and then cram everything in.

[cpitt398]

i think the fact that both you and your husband are home all day will be bad for him also. I know you said he can do stuff in the afternoons, but Im not sure this much around your parents is good for you when it comes to being independent later in life.

[spyderracing]

As it has been stated earlier, you're not gonna get much sympathy here as you're dealing with a lot of smarter than average young people here who made it through school just fine. Sure I thought highschool was boring. I slept through AP chem/bio (stayed awake for bio because I found it interesting, but I never studied), didn't study for either exam and spiked 5's on both. I got a 30 on the ACT ([censored] 22 on the english section owned the 34 I had going otherwise). I maintained a good gpa in HS because I was motivated enough to do the work that I found easy as hell anyways

The fact that you're kid is watching MIT online classes doesn't mean anything if he doesn't understand them. I can watch Stephen Hawking do astrophysics all day, and I may find it interesting, but I certainly couldn't comprehend HOW to do it. It sounds like you're making excuses for your kids lack of motivation. Ask him if he'll be content doing oil changes for the rest of his life.

[React1oN]

Why not just do the normal highschool(with most advanced classes possible), and just take online extra AP courses etc?

[guids]

PS, the kid is lazy, he maybe smart, but the reason he isnt performing up to potential is no one but his own fault, dont blame the school for not challenging him, thats what my mom did, and it gave me a pass to make me even lazier.

[ballin4life]

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Why not just do the normal highschool(with most advanced classes possible), and just take online extra AP courses etc?

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This is the answer. Normal classes, and then take additional subjects online.

As a child prodigy myself, I went to a different school from my friends for 4th and 5th grade for the district's gifted program, and it really did hurt my friendships. Even if I would see them on weekends or after school or whatever, I still felt left out when they talked about classes, teachers, school gossip etc. Also, they still make fun of me about it to this day. Your child's friends may make fun of him for switching to online school. School is easy, and it sounds like your high school sucks, but it is definitely an important time for socialization. So I'd reccomend taking some subjects at school and additional subjects at home, to get the best of both worlds.