She loves mythology, and has read it extensively already (she owns the Quiz Bowl questions in that area
).
I contacted the principal last night, and asked to meet with him today. Just got home from an hour long discussion with him. He actually is a pretty good guy (which I knew). The door is open a crack on the option of the AP class again when I explained why I thought it was a better option for her than the regular English class. It was a good experience for D to advocate for herself, but there are just some things a parent is more able to articulate and argue for in this situation. We also had a good conversation about the opportunities schools have with today's technology to teach to an asynchronous class (or child), and that this was an example of a way to do that (the online AP class). He was open to that discussion at least. And... he really couldn't/wouldn't defend the use of the Simpsons. So I am glad I went.
We left it that (1) he agreed to talk to our DYS contact person about acceleration (with not much hope that he will change his mind, though), and (2) that we will look into changing her schedule to fit into the other teacher's class (again, he is not committing for sure, but offered to see what is needed). One thing we know is that she will need to drop back the lower level French class for 2nd semester (which she already took last year), but he thought with some tutoring she could still be ready for AP French next year. We already pay for French tutoring (one of those asynchronous areas, she has zero natural talent for it), so that wouldn't be a hardship.
So still hoping for AP, but fallback is a change in teachers. Will keep you posted!
