Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy High School IEP

My 9th grade son's IEP is Friday and I'm worried--don't know what to expect or ask for. High school is more structured than the familiar elementary & middle school domains. I'd like him to skip 10th grade English and go to AP English, do that sophomore & junior years, and get his 4th English requirement either at the community college or online.

Our math sequence goes Alg 2, Geometry, Trig, Calc. Is there any reason to opt for trig now and do geometry later or do we stick with the sequence?

World History, biology, French and one elective. Doesn't seem like much room for discussion. The school doesn't offer AP world history or AP biology--just honors.

Any other suggestions? He will get some college counseling and participate in clubs, sports, and competitions.

Good Luck Cym!
Grinity

What is IEP?
I will put my three cents in later today, so watch for it tomorrow am. I feel like we have a lot in common from the way we look at our son's education, Cym.
Love, Ania

P.S. I am so busy today making our traditional Shrove Tuesday pastry. I have delivered it to school, will deliver to Boy Scouts and Math Club tonight. Too bad you can't taste it:-(
It is delicious.

It sounds wonderful, Ania. We go to annual Shrove Tuesday Pancake dinner at church. I love breakfast for dinner (sometime I'll make omelettes but never pancakes), and it's great not to have to cook.

Dottie, the out of order math is because I wonder how necessary geometry is in the scheme of higher math. If you look at the sequence of college courses or gifted offerings or the math behind science, it's all algebra, trig, calculus. I don't think I ever had a formal course in geometry in school. What if it's one of those made up courses that is unnecessary, just to fill space in math blocks? I'm not a 3d (spatial) thinker, nor are my kids.

I don't know the answer, but I believe Alg 2 course that DS 13 is taking is really the same as his honors Alg 1 and they've just drawn it out into 2 courses. Maybe he should be introduced to trig functions and new material that more naturally complements algebra. I invite those of you with math knowledge to correct me, because my math brain cells have long ago shrivelled (I uesd to be quite good at it, but that was a long time ago and I feel like I'm re-learning algebra as my boys go through it)....Sorry for the rambling.

I loved HS Geometry in Honors version. I spent many daydreaming moments sure that I would be the one to prove Eucild's Parallel Postulate. We did lots of Proofs and kept a notebook of them. Although I went through AP Calculus, Geometry was my favorite by far!

Smiles,
Grinity

DH and I loved geometry, too. The logic of proofs appealed to me even though I am not a math-y person by nature.

Of course, DH also loved diagramming sentences, so it's possible that we're just weird people...

("At least we found each other and didn't force others to suffer!" we always say.)

IEP is Individualized Education Plan. In our state "gifted" is under the umbrella of Special Education, so all gifted kids have IEPs here. The IEP is renewed annually with a meeting to discuss goals for the next year. Goals can include academic area or other things like "read 5 books and meet with mentor to discuss each" or "learn crochet" believe it or not. One thing I always put in our IEPs is to be able to "test out" of mastered work (mostly relevant to math). Also, compact curriculum to the extent possible and not streamline homework (maybe 30 problems on same topic is unnecessary for highly gifted). Participate in competitions (listing specific ones).

Sorry, could not get to the computer last night:-) Sweets and champagne :-)
Math - Geometry is on the SAT, so do not even think about skipping it completely. For Ghost the sequence is Algebra I- Geometry- Algebra 2/Trigonometry-Pre Calc -Calculus BC.
I believe that the bigest difference in the way the courses are tauhght is in the Algebra 2/Trigonomery/Pre Calc area. Some schools combine Algebra 2 with Trig, some combine Trig with Pre Calc. Ghost has been working with matrices lately, which his teacher is actually skipping this year as this is the part of Pre Calc curriculum, so says she. My friend, a mathematician who used to teach college and now teaches HS Calculus, differs, saying that matrices belong with Algebra 2. Who do you believe?
Overall, my impression is that for a weak math student, if the choice for the last class of HS math is between Geometry and Algebra 2, I would skip Geometry and do Algebra just becasue it will be more useful in college.
For a strong do not skip Geometry.
How strong mathematically is your son? What do you think he is going to major in , how much college math does he really need?
As for English - if he is a strong reader, I would push him as far as possible. Is it ACS, who regrets now not pushing for a higher level English class for her son?
Cym - let me know where do you see your son in 3 years, what major and whether in state or out of state college and I will try to be more specific.
Ania

Hi Ania,

DS has done matrices in Alg 2. I think you're probably right to stick with the honors geometry. DS 13 is a good (not great) math student. He works at it, understands, but DS 9 is more of a "natural" math person. He picks things up fast and almost intuitively. DS 13 is not like that, but he is at the top of his HS class for math. I do NOT see him studying something like math, engineering, computers in college, other than intro courses. I assume he'll need 2 calculus classes for science or medical field or maybe some statistics if he goes into econ. He is VERY interested in economic theory, reads Forbes cover-cover, as well as about 4 other magazines each month. He has taken Macro & Micro econ courses at summer institutes and next year may take Global Economy course in China...

I see him going to a top out-of-state college. Besides econ, he likes medical field I believe (based on courses he was interested in for summer institutes this summer).

Yes, he is a very strong reader, but today I was discouraged from pushing the AP Eng by counselor who says the "district policy is for only jrs & srs". I'll still ask, but am not optimistic.

Thanks for your help!

Isn't econ actually a lot of math? I'd bet that most medical fields would involve less math than the econ would.

I was an econ major for about 3 minutes my freshman year of college, so I could be wrong. But I think real economists spend a whole lot of time on stats and numbers and economic theories which they demonstrate by using mathematical proofs.