its a very competitive and hard to get into arts magnet school. Its a public school that the students have to audition to get into and they only have a few spots per grade about 70. It goes from 6th to 12th. Once you are in high school they have all AP classes so that you have no choice for example to take AP Bio or AP Chemistry -that or Dual enrollment. They have no such thing as remedial classes there. You are just asked to leave if you can't cut it.Anonymous 3 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 15, 2019 11:56 amIt's a prep school or a school for advanced studies?RedBottoms wrote: ↑Fri Mar 15, 2019 11:15 amIts not an advanced class.Its the regular 6th grade Language Arts class. But its an advanced school. They push the kids super hard there. The school has super high test scores and wins awards all the time. So its way harder than the average regular middle school my other son goes to. A lot of kids fail out and drop out of this school because they either get fed up with the high standards or they just can't actually make the standards and get Fs.Anonymous 1 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 15, 2019 10:08 am I happen to agree with you on this. What is the point to a break if not to relax and do no work?
That said, though, I think this practice does occur often. And, if the kid is in gifted or advanced classes (as I think Redbottom's kid is), he will need to assume that this will most often be the case. Hell! I don't think my kid had a break at all between grades 8-12. She worked through all breaks including summer.
We can all debate as to whether or not it is right or it is wrong that a kid would have to go 4 years without a break. But in our district, that is the way it is for students who elect to take the advanced route. The student who chooses the advanced route knows what will be expected of him. If he doesn't like the idea of never getting a break, he needs to choose a different route...one that gives him the break he wants/needs.
For my kid, taking the no-break route worked best. She loved having her face in a book all the time. It relaxed her. It was what she was good at. And it made her feel good about herself. If taking advanced classes makes a kid feel accomplished, that she has a purpose, and it doesn't stress her out, I say take that route. If taking advanced classes deprives a kid of other valuable aspects of life or causes him undo stress, he should lay down his pursuit of the advanced classes.
My son is not dropping out. He wants to be at this school. The Social Studies and Science and Math teacher don't assign that much outside school work and what they do assign is reasonable in my opinion.It never takes that long. But the Language Arts teacher is freaking nuts.
So I have no doubt by the time he takes the ACT or SAT he is going to score very high.I have no doubt he will get a lot of college offers because its said colleges know this school and its current very good reputation.
But I don't think making 6th graders work over spring break is the answer either