Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums High School Accelerate everything but PE?!

Online PE....has a ton of online content about exercise, weight, nutrition, blah blah blah and you track your movement with a fitness tracker and upload it along with a list of your activity. You have a bunch of exercises that you do including a mile run and every week you record your time on a mile run and these exercises...like how many push-ups you can do. Also some video tapes of you doing specific exercises requested for that week (no longer than 1 minute).

I am no fool I am betting most kids lie about most of it....but you have to wear the tracker so you have to do something...at least walk (or put it on you kid brother and make him run around the block a couple of times). But my son was pretty honest and did every bit of it.

Yes.. quite complicated rules that a lot of parents don't understand. Classroom/Online course on the rules for ~30 hours and 6 hours of on the road driving with a instructor. I won't go into all the details here. The crazy thing is the rules go away if you plan to take your drivers test after you turn 18.

The drivers ed course isn't about learning to drive. It's about jumping through hoops and keeping more young teens off the roads. The drivers ed class includes rules of the road, and chapter after chapter of information about the evils of drinking/drugs & driving.

The "30 hour" online class my son took was a lot of repetition. California care more about the classes "length" than learning info. My daughter took the class in a classroom and she never took a test or a quiz. And my son's online course had quizes and a test at the end but many of the questions were asking if you had read the text vs. knew the rules of the road.

Given my druthers, he'd be in drivers ed and have a free period where PE is now. This is what the counselor proposed. I wish he'd proposed this to my son last week when they made the changes.

But now it's a week in. DS likes CAD and has missed the entire first week of DrEd. Can you say stress? He's already perfectionist.

Does Drivers Ed count as PE? The first H.S. I attended (many many moons ago in another state) Driver's Ed took place of PE for one quarter.

I honestly wouldn't worry about him missing the first week of Drivers Ed.

Drivers ed does count as a "wellness" course. So he could take it and have a study hall. BUT, DS really likes the CAD. And *I* don't mind him missing the first week, but DS does. (Why a class you might actually learn something in for a change doesn't count as a "wellness" course is another question, and one I hesitate to ask the school because it sounds snarky)

It seems so simple, but it isn't, everyone in the house has an opinion on this, and it's all tainted by the facts that our kids' schedules always have a snafu, that none of us had Driver Ed on the radar for this semester, generally that we don't like being blindsided.

Well good luck and I hope you can find something that will work without his needed to drop the CAD class.

We are not yet done with first semester, DS16 has finals next week. I wish two of my son's teachers could be changed but that won't happen. His Chemistry teacher has driving me nuts all semester because she is one of those teachers who never updates grades. And the history class/teacher really isn't working out very well based on his grade. He has an unusual teacher style it doesn't help the class is at 7am (zero period), I really wish he could be moved to 6th period since marching band is over. BUT since my DS didn't pass the CA physical fitness test last year (we think it was recorded wrong but it's a state tests and not easy to fight) he MUST take a PE class this spring despite only needing two years of PE. (This is a loophole that allows schools to only require 2 years of math.. if you can't prove to the state you are fit you must keep taking PE.) It's one of things that wouldn't bother me, except for the 7am history class. He could be moved to PE at 7 but doesn't want to because he in a PE class with other band kids.

The weekend is an exercise in getting him to study. Since he "tests" well he doesn't have a lot of experience with this kind of studying. Because the finals are only 10-15% of the grade, they won't make much of a difference to his grade in most of his classes.

Standardized tests...in PE?! I mean, maybe it's because I always hated gym class with a passion, but.....*shudders*

I'm right with you I hated PE. But my son doesn't hate PE and he is reasonably fit so it was just a frustrated when we found out he failed last July. It's a test you take in March, don't get the official results till July. Not the kind of thing that's easy to go back and say.. well the tester screwed up. From my son's description instead of asking my son to do as many pushups and situps as he could during the time requested, they stopped him after he had "done enough" and that turned out not be enough. How many one needs to do varies depending on how old & your weight. Not a huge deal since my son still needs another year of PE. But irritating because it limits his schedule this spring. And perplexing because my son while not a super athletic is reasonably fit. I worried about my daughter taking it as she passed no problem.

You don't have to pass it to graduate, but if you don't pass it you are required to take PE the following year and take the test again. The state would like to require PE for 4 years, and the districts don't want to add it to their schedules. This is a sort-of compromise.