Originally Posted by bluemagic
Originally Posted by Val
[quote=CFK][quote= Interview with local concerned teen ]After the January suicide I mentioned, which took place at Meghan’s high school right before finals, a female senior hung herself at her friend’s house. Returning to school to take finals during this time was difficult for Meghan and many of her fellow students. These teens were [told that they] could speak to their teachers about rescheduling their exams, but some, like Meghan, didn’t want to risk negatively affecting their resulting grades.
I happen to know that Palo Alto High has done a lot to change the culture of their high school in the past 3 years because of these suicides. I don't have a whole list, but one change was to move the whole school year back to start in mid-August so that the semester would be over before winter break. This allows the H.S. students to really take a break over the holidays rather than spend it studying for finals, and it gives students/teachers a few more weeks of the school year before AP tests.

My H.S. is trying to make some of these changes but it's slow. And some of the changes, while good for the average kid don't help my MY student. Starting next year H.S. will officially start at 8 instead of 7:30, BUT in order for my son to stay in marching band he will have to be at school at 7am. And marching band is one of the few things that is keeping him happy in H.S.


Right-- and locally, some of the changes that OUR schools have made to-- well, to protect students of more modest ability from their parents, to be completely truthful (though, as I noted earlier, maybe they ought to clean up their OWN houses a bit as well)--

make life even rougher than it used to be for the HG+ kids.

* sophomores may take ONE (and only one) AP class.

* ONE foreign language only

* Juniors and seniors may take up to two AP classes, and seniors may take 3, but only with permission from the superintendent's office.

* dual enrollment credits are limited to 21 total credit hours during the high school career.

There're a lot of those kinds of restrictions now. This is what leads to places like "your 12yo high school sophomore has outstripped what we can realistically offer her-- have you looked at just enrolling in the local community college instead?" frown


The equally sad part is that it doesn't seem to have made THAT much of a difference to the kids who are being ground by this particular millstone, either. Now they don't take the AP classes, but parents still expect them to take the EXAMS and earn 5's. So it really just means "afterschooling" for them, which may be even worse.



Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.