Hello----I'm an ex-pto president. I've retired (totally burned out!) and am now a high school mom hiding out from joining the pto there. Anyways, I'm hoping there are some other high school parents who can give me their opinion on my situation.

Our public HS (California--enrollment over 2,000) has many scheduling issues which prevent college bound students from getting all the clases they need to meet college admissions requirements. My sophmore could not fit PE into her schedule this year because of all the classes she needs (4 core classes, Spanish 2 and PE) none of them are offered 6th period. A senior student is being forced to take an online art class (required for college admissions) because the class is full (some of the students in art are freshmen!). These are just two examples, of many scheduling issues at the school.

Often the college bound students are forced to attend summer school, community college, or take courses online in order to get all the classes needed for college admissions. Many parents and the school administration think this is perfectly normal. I don't agree.

I think it is fine for students and may be a great experience to attend community college while in high school, however we don't have a community college in our town. The nearest community college is 15 miles away.

Is this happening in at your child's high school? Maybe I'm behind the times.

Wow. I have a sophomore and haven't found your situation to be the case in our school. Your high schools are not actually preparing the students for college; I'm puzzled as to why this would seem to be acceptable.

The worst situation I've run across in our school regards the curriculum of some of the duel credit classes offered (credit for high school graduation plus credit for college). It seems that the students taking the classes (say, Spanish I) with the expectation of enrolling in Spanish II in college are finding that their Spanish I class didn't cover what it was supposed to. So, the kids are wholly unprepared for the college level Spanish II. Torque'd a few parents off who paid the college credit cost for the high school class just to have to pay again for their child to take the remedial class in college.

I also have a sophomore. While we could fit all her classes in during the 4 years of high school, we chose to take summer school gym before her 9th grade year and this past summer so it will free her up to take something she really likes; many of the band, choir, and drama students do this so their schedule is free for an additional class in the field of their choice.
In our district we also have what's called the Toledo Early College High School. A student can attend classes at our local college and receive up to 60 credit hours of college without paying any out of pocket expenses. We are fortunate that we have a college in the city.

And I know how it is to be burnt out from the PTO's but you may regret not helping out. Maybe you could just help out with a few small things like volunteering for concessions at a game, or baked goods for a sale, or just attend a meeting and offer suggestions/ideas.

Thanks for the input. Talking with parents with students at other schools, I'm realizing more and more how off track our school is. Our school requires students to take low level classes which gobble up time and prevent students from taking the necessary classes for college. Example: 9th grade science is pre-chem/pre-physics, 10th is Biology, 11th is Chem, 12th is Physics. The honors track should be allowed to go straight to Biology in 9th grade. Also geography is a required class which is very low level--they start off by learning the continents! Students should be allowed to test out of geography. The sad thing is students are given very little information about college admissions. For students who don't seek that information on their own, they will find out much too late that they never even too the right classes. The school is content to push kids off into "filler" classes just so they have 6 classes. All this school seems to be focused on is making sure the students graduate.

I'm going to be following up with the principal/superintendent/school board on this issue. I know it is a situation that has been tolerated by parents for years. I have no idea why people put up with this. I've been told it is due to budget cuts, but the changes that need to be made would cost nothing, so that is no excuse at all.

As far as helping out--I do help out on campus in the concession stands--I guess I never even considered that as being involved. I don't mind helping out, I just don't want to get sucked into any leadership positions, so that is why I say I'm hiding.

We had a couple years where new requirements outpaced the current curriculum and it was almost impossible for the high achiever students to complete the necessary credits with only what the school offered during the school year. Among other things, only 2 credits of athletics count towards graduation. So any serious athlete who plays a sport for 4 years, automatically forfeits 2 credits. They can't even be counted as electives. It is/was very common for students to take summer courses to help make up the deficit.

Recently they changed our schedule to from 6 to 7 classes per day. The math works. For the most part 28 credits will cover the requirements. However, now the classes are only about 48 minutes long. By the time they get everyone settled and dive into a subject, I fear they only get about 35-40 minutes of instruction time. So I'm not convinced it will be a successful plan.

We have Block scheduling at our high school which the majority of students, parents, and teachers love. We call our days of the week either Red Day or Blue Day (school colors) with 4 classes per day. This type of scheduling affords the teacher the time to get students settled and proceed to teaching and have the time to do so. The graduation requirement is 25 credits but most of the students have much more. By the end of her sophomore year she will already have 16.5 credits.

Do your 8th grade students have the opportunity to take classes that will give them high school credits before they reach high school? Often our excellerated Math students have already completed Algebra 1 by the end of 8th grade and can start out with H. Geometry.

Geography is a required class? Good Luck working with your district; sounds like your curriculum needs updated. If they give you the run-around at the district level, ask when there curriculum meetings are as well as policy meetings. Those should be public.

Glad to hear your volunteering at the concession stands!