Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion High School or College Classes for Middle Schooler

Have you considered an AP course? Or studying on his own to take an AP exam? (Here is a link to a post on a related thread: Self-study AP exams)

Porosenok96 - Good question on "why" they'd want him to re take it, LOL. It's just my districts lack of understanding of acceleration and resistance to it. DS didn't complete the entire course because their approved service provider was awful so I pulled him. But he got enough from the units he did complete plus the accidental teaching for a month they did on it last year. He's probably 1/2 to 3/4 complete on a year course in a months time.

But I don't want to mess with the awesome relationship we've forged this year at his new school. They are fantastic! It's the district not the school level that would fight me on this.

indigo - Doing AP on his own hadn't occurred to me. I wonder if they have AP Earth Science? Maybe I could get the school to let him work on some extra challenging Earth Science during units he already knows.

This is why I love this forum - it gets me thinking in directions I hadn't thought of before and helps me to know I'm not alone

I don't think there is AP Earth Science but there is AP Environmental Science. Not sure it's close enough, but he could certainly study for it. In my H.S. Earth Science is a H.S. freshman course, not a college level course.

In this case don't involve the district, if possible. In my experience, if school is willing to do something nice for you, they will do almost anything you ask, but if the district authorities do not know about this -) Ask about the end of the year test, or they can give your DS pretests before each chapter they teach. If he excels the pretest, he can work independently and learn something new.

There is no AP Earth Science test, and the environmental studies is very far afield from what most would consider Earth Science (rock cycle, plate tectonics, earth history). Sadly, few high schools offer a college-track Earth Science class either. However, that has the potential to change as the NGSS include Earth Science as a college-track class.

Consider a community college Earth Sci class if a higher level earth science is the goal. Things like MOOCs are out there, and many are of high quality, but none can replace the hands on aspect of geology: the rocks. I'd be happy to vet any course you do find, though, if that's a help.

The current list of AP offerings is in the link in this post up-thread.

Did you know... NGSS is actually more common core standards, as read from the Common Core website:
Emphasis added.

We got our school to subject accelerate by having our student take the ACT early through Northwestern U center for talent development. They were blown away by his scores (college ready). We chose not to grade accelerate due to him being 2e-but that may have been a mistake.