Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Calc AB as independent study??

My 9th grade twins are high school freshmen and both are in precalc. But the Alg. 2/Trig. our two had at the middle school last year covered most of the material in precalc (not the case for the hs Alg. 2/Trig. class the rest of the kids took).

The hs has offered that our kids can "test out" of the rest of precalc by the end of first semester (next month). This is good. The school is proposing that our kids then start working on Calc AB next semester as sort of an independent study. The Calc AB would not show up on their transcript. Next fall they could join a regular class in Calc BC.

My question for those of you with kids past this point is whether you would recommend kids doing Calc AB on their own? (DH and I looked at the AP Calc AB outline, and it doesn't look too taxing, but we're biased since we both know the material well…..) We have a meeting scheduled for this afternoon with the math teacher. One thing we'll ask is how much support the kids will get from the Math Dept. if they do Calc AB on their own. Anything else you would recommend asking?

We're not in the position but if the school has a BC class what do the kids take before that? Wouldn't it be a ?/Calc A?

If you guys are well-versed in the material and can provide assistance when necessary, I don't see any reason not to do this. Taking a year of calc AB and a separate year of calc BC is excruciating.

Thanks for the input! The full year of Precalc has been excruciating already (thus the change in plan), and after seeing the outline for calc AB I wondered if that class would be slow too.