Calling all you math people -- DS11 took the second half of Algebra I with our e-school this semester, moving in from 8th grade math the first semester. He has 97% in the class.

We're looking at full-time e-school for him next year, or nearly full-time with a couple of classes at the regular school, and I'm wondering about the possibility of his taking Alg II and Geometry concurrently. I swear they did that when I was in school, although I didn't personally do it. I didn't actually take Alg II at all.

The e-school says they have people who do it, and they're willing to try him out and see how it fits him; the regular school is not recommending it, but that's with a comment about his struggles with turning in work this year -- which was NOT a problem in his e-school classes at all.

Thoughts?

I'm not familiar with the American system, but my understanding is that it is possible to take Alg II and Geometry concurrently, and that is what we plan to do with our DS. It's an obvious way to "compress 2 years into one".

I think that it depends on the program. My brother took Alg II and Geometry simultaneously. My daughter's school is unusual in that it requires Alg II before Geometry, although I am not sure why.

I think it depends on the curriculum. The last few chapters of my son's Geometry class included beginning Trig, and the last few chapters of Algebra II. I would want to get through most of Geometry before really starting Trig.

If this online school does this all the time, it might be quite workable. Is there a particular reason for doing both together? Does you son really like math?

He's always been a numbers kid, and even though he professes to hate everything about school now, I can see that he still likes math. Especially since he started Algebra I at semester -- he was nearly ruined by a series of experimental years of trying to find a way to make his math acceleration work.

Mainly, we'd like to get him as many college credits as possible while the school is still paying for it, and math is one of the main tracks of that. The e-school offers everything through Differential Calculus Honors, with concurrent college credit for all five calculus classes. (Three of those are single-semester.)

There may well be flaws in my logic, of course -- I'm still mapping out pages and pages of information from all the school websites, to figure out what the best path is.

My understanding of math curricula over the past few decades is that, at various times, the accepted sequence has been algebra I, algebra II/trig, then geometry, or algebra I, geometry, then algebra II/trig. Logically, this means you don't need trig or geometry to do the other. In fact, the district I work in offers the former to freshman who have already had alg I (i.e., they take alg II/trig in ninth grade), and the latter to freshman who have not (mainly to insure that everyone is taking geometry during tenth grade, when state-mandated high stakes testing occurs).

We are using the Singapore Discovering Math (not Common Core) series with our own children; it is an integrated approach that interleaves pre-algebra, algebra, geometry, and trig across a nominal three and a half years. (The last half year is just test prep for the GCSE.) I have not found sliding around between trig and geometry to be a problem.

I think it is reassuring that your DS will be taking both courses at the e-school and the e-school thinks it is fine. Taking both at the same time may be problematic only in a system, which integrates coverage of trigonometry in one course and then presumes that knowledge in the next course. The only other concern is that the writing demands and project schedules don't overload/overlap too much but again there is generally more flexibility with an e-school.

Ok, I have to ask -- everyone says "it depends on the program". Now, I know that they've done many horrible things to math over the years, so I shouldn't be so naive, but somehow I had thought the nonsense would go away when we reached this level. What can they do to algebra and geometry that makes it change with a different program? Isn't algebra just algebra, and geometry just geometry? I look at DS's algebra and when he's having trouble I can open my old books and find the spot where they do whatever he's doing, and it's basically the same. So what program?

My suggestion is to take one the first semester and work on it for two "class periods" at home and finish in a semester and then start the next class (if that is possible). My son is doing this in his 9th grade year because his school is on a 4x4 block schedule.

My younger son will probably homeschool and virtual school when he gets to middle school I see him doing this with a lot of classes-finishing in a semester and starting a new class...he works and learns so dang fast that he might not need to double the time expended.