Need Advice about a Class Scheduling Issue (credit, activity)

[cordata]

If it is as you have described it is nothing short of academic fraud.


The Texas Education Agency would be pretty interested if you can't get action.


On the other hand things may not be exactly as they seem, perhaps your child is leaving out some details.

[calgirlinnc]

Originally Posted by cordata

If it is as you have described it is nothing short of academic fraud.


The Texas Education Agency would be pretty interested if you can't get action.


On the other hand things may not be exactly as they seem, perhaps your child is leaving out some details.

I've also emailed the teacher twice to get more of a complete picture but no answer so far. I have seen the handouts and my son has described those accurately.

What I don't understand is why this is such a big deal. He is not asking to change out of a required class.

[calgirlinnc]

Small update:

I did hear back from the teacher. She seems super nice but now I am even more confused. The gist of it was "your son is the only 'art' student in the class and everyone else is learning 'French', but that OK because we are still calling it 'art'. " Then there was lots of info about how this class builds confidence, is so much fun, etc.

So then I had a long conversation with my son...maybe he should give this a try...it's good to stretch yourself sometimes, etc, etc. But as he was talking to me I realized that all the anxiety attacks he had last week were directly related to the days he had this class. He said the big problem is that he is isolated and is basically expected to be doing art on his own. It got so bad last week that he was asking about counseling.

Now I am all for counseling if it is needed, but to me the simpler solution is to remove the cause of the stress. This isn't a required class. I mean, he stinks at math and excels at history and has to navigate and manage both. That is part of maturing and learning to handle adverse situations as well as successful situations. But to go for counseling over an elective?

I never got any calls returned on Friday and I need to have a plan going into tomorrow.

[North Beach Person]

Texas must be some sort of strange animal to allow a school to run a French class and call it "Art". It might be time to go to the Principal or the area office (or however the system is arranged).

Seriously. I rarely give the second part of the above advice because people are too quick to give that option before in school remedies have been exhausted.


Keep the emails from the teacher or any others pertaining to this!

[TurtleCreek80]

Originally Posted by calgirlinnc

Small update:

I did hear back from the teacher. She seems super nice but now I am even more confused. The gist of it was "your son is the only 'art' student in the class and everyone else is learning 'French', but that OK because we are still calling it 'art'. " Then there was lots of info about how this class builds confidence, is so much fun, etc.

So then I had a long conversation with my son...maybe he should give this a try...it's good to stretch yourself sometimes, etc, etc. But as he was talking to me I realized that all the anxiety attacks he had last week were directly related to the days he had this class. He said the big problem is that he is isolated and is basically expected to be doing art on his own. It got so bad last week that he was asking about counseling.

Now I am all for counseling if it is needed, but to me the simpler solution is to remove the cause of the stress. This isn't a required class. I mean, he stinks at math and excels at history and has to navigate and manage both. That is part of maturing and learning to handle adverse situations as well as successful situations. But to go for counseling over an elective?

I never got any calls returned on Friday and I need to have a plan going into tomorrow.

That teacher is just giving you BS. You need to go to bat for your son tomorrow.

Did you call the principal’s office Friday? I’m serious, superintendent, school board, etc. GO.

[calgirlinnc]

Originally Posted by TurtleCreek80

That teacher is just giving you BS. You need to go to bat for your son tomorrow.

Did you call the principal’s office Friday? I’m serious, superintendent, school board, etc. GO.

Yes I did call and left messages. I most likely need to go in person.

Thanks for the encouragement.

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by calgirlinnc

Yes I did call and left messages. I most likely need to go in person.

Thanks for the encouragement.

No...you DO have to go in person. You're obviously not getting anywhere with phone calls, e-mails, etc. They're clearly not going to take you seriously unless you show up.

[Beaconowner]

Why are you concealing the actual class that they want him to take, and instead are talking in hypotheticals? After 27 posts avoiding what the class is, it seems silly. Just put it out there so we can see what we are all talking about.

[TurtleCreek80]

Originally Posted by Beaconowner

Why are you concealing the actual class that they want him to take, and instead are talking in hypotheticals? After 27 posts avoiding what the class is, it seems silly. Just put it out there so we can see what we are all talking about.

Does it really matter what it is? My advice would be be exact same whether he signed up for Physics and got forced into Statistics, or signed up for Orchestra and got Photography.

[North Beach Person]

Originally Posted by TurtleCreek80

Does it really matter what it is? My advice would be be exact same whether he signed up for Physics and got forced into Statistics, or signed up for Orchestra and got Photography.

Having said that, there are legitimate reasons for students not getting the classes they sign up for at times.

When building the schedule, both for the school and for individuals, the first thing that absolutely has to be taken care of are the graduation requirement classes (English, History, Math, Science, PE, Health, Financial Literacy-which is fairly recent but becoming widespread).

Then you have to take care of the electives needed for graduation, typically 2 years of a foreign language, a fine art or two, likely a computer based class or two, some free electives like Psychology, a Practical Art like International Cuisine (Home Ec, now called Family and Consumer Science).

Some of these are interchangeable, some aren't. Some school systems will have one diploma category for kids who take a more academic load including foreign language while kids who don't take the FL will be in another category.

Once you get the "must haves" covered is when you pump in the free electives. If a student doesn't have the period for that open, especially for a class that only meets once or twice a day, then another class is substituted.