Right, it depends on the school - in my grad school department at a state U it was common for faculty to only teach 1 class and complain about even that, while in spouse's at another state U in a different field it was typical to teach 2 each semester. But, the question keeps being asked 'Why can't they expand the number of seats by hiring more faculty?' and faculty that don't teach won't help with that problem. Adjuncting or even full-time instructor jobs don't pay enough, so while some place might get lucky and find somebody who wants to work part-time (a retiree, a mostly stay-at-home parent) or somebody who is geographically stuck (married to somebody who can't move, caregiver for parents, etc) usually there isn't a good solution. And, most retirees that we know choose consulting instead of teaching. Even when we were in school 20-30 years ago, there were challenges finding people to teach in the computing fields while there were a glut of qualified PhDs floating around the bio sciences. Spouse actually taught a 400 level undergrad class while still a grad student because they couldn't find anybody to do it. The extra $ was great on top of a grad student fellowship, but doesn't compare with what the starting salary is after graduation.

We do it or Hosanna Loud Hosanna, but not always both. This year was a Hosanna year. 🙂

I was at my kids' science competition this weekend talking to a teammate's mom. A quirk of a homeschool science team is that our kids both play baseball but at different schools - they'll play against each other in a few weeks. We were talking about the things our kids have gotten from sports - her kid has learned that just because the game is going poorly doesn't mean you fall apart - you take a deep breath and get back on track. My kid has come home saying that pitchers should always thank the bullpen catcher - they work hard and get no applause since they aren't on the field, and Friday kid mentioned thanking the kid who caught a particular out since it meant that there was no hit scored against the pitcher. These are all small things, but when I look at the work world...staying calm under pressure, thanking the people who do the unseen work or bail you out when you are less than perfect, learning to cheer for your teammate when its their turn in the spotlight, learning to play both lead and supporting roles depending on what is needed from you...all of that is more important than being able to have a curve ball that drops through the outside part of the strike zone. Is this the only way to learn these things? Of course not! But, for our boys, their love of the game is putting them in a place to develop these skills and habits. Neither will likely play in anything beyond a rec league after high school, but I could see both of them choosing to coach or ump at some point. So many life lessons are learned on the ball field if it's done right, and as long as we can help make it happen we are happy to do it. For years I've watched parents get teary as their kids finish their senior seasons, even for kids who spend plenty of time on the bench, and I've been shocked at how hard it's hitting even though my kid is just a junior.

One more thought...I have no problem with my kids having to entertain themselves at an extracurricular location to make the schedule work. If he needs to go early or stay late to catch a ride, he can pack a meal to eat or pack homework to do while he's waiting. Many times I've dropped off a kid early or they've had to stay after practice and wait for me to get back. Obviously you can't do this with tiny kids, but with tweens and teens, it's not at all unusual for kids to catch a ride with somebody going straight after school even though their own practice doesn't start for an hour, or have a kid need to wait for somebody else to finish before they can ride home with them. So, if something like that lets him catch a ride, or lets a parent pick him up after the other gets home, that would be typical here. Alternatively, time on a bus may not be time that is lost. School work can be done on the bus. I know that actually doing the driving is hard for you in your situation, but from his perspective this isn't all that different from the 1-3 hours my kids have spent in the car several days a week, several months each year, for most of their years of school. One kid used the car time as breaks or meals, and the other became a master at 'car school', actually planning certain subjects to correspond with certain times in the car because the timing worked out. Bus time could be used similarly. And, if driving needs to be slow-rolled due to anxiety, getting rides and taking the bus could give your kid a measure of independence that could be helpful. Again, he could decide that it's too time-consuming, but I've been fascinated to watch the maturity that has suddenly shown up in our kid once kid was independently mobile (in our case, it's with driving, but busses aren't available here). A little autonomy has gone a long way.

In spouse;s computing-related field, some people would be looking at at least a 50% pay cut to go to a university - many private companies require long hours, but the schedule is flexible and people are well compensated. The gap in actual salary may not be 2X, but with stock options, which universities can't offer, and bonus packages that vary but can be large some years, they would have to truly love the university lifestyle to choose it. And, at that point they wouldn't be doing research full-time. It may be cutting edge, but if they are actually going to teach classes it would, at best, be part time. Travel would also be more restricted. Pre-covid, spouse was often out of town M-F, 2 weeks/month. There have been times when he spent a week every month working with colleagues in another country. That can't happen for university professors because they have to be there to teach. In spouse's area, there seem to be 3 places that people go after grad school - industry, national labs, and universities. University professors in computing are financially very comfortable, but universities are competing against the other 2 types of employers and usually pay the least while also allowing the least time for research. It's a comfortable life, but, having been through grad school and seeing what their professors' lives are like, people know that they will spend a lot of time teaching, grading, going to committee meetings, and writing grand proposals. They will supervise students doing cutting-edge research, but they won't be doing much of it themselves. That would have appealed to me, actually - the idea of only having to do bench science when I was training a new student sounded lovely when I was post-doc-ing, but many computing people like doing the actual work and aren't as interested in pursuing a job where they don't get to do it.

I'd guess that where a lot of us are struggling is the idea that it's completely unworkable because it's 20 minutes farther - currently it's 10, and the new place is 30, and how it works that often he would be the only kid going. and how even having a 2 hour commute some days would make it impossible to do anything. Even traveling with different kids, would there still be a lot of days that he'd need to take the bus? Would it be workable for him to get rides 5 days, you take him 1 day, and he busses 2 times, or something like that? Right now we are playing 5-6 baseball games a week - usually 1 or 2 home games that are close, but we've driven an hour or more to get to several of them and most are at least 30 minutes away. We have flexibility as homeschoolers but most kids are doing this after school, many are driving themselves, and they are still managing to eat and such. It is very tiring, I'll grant that. But, most of these kids have been going distances for lessons, coaching, or other activities for years. Maybe it's different in different locations, but driving 30 minutes each way isn't particularly unusual here, and getting rides isn't, either. Several times, JV or V players have traveled that far to cheer on the other team when they aren't playing. I would be fine with saying that something has to give - he needs to arrange rides, or if you are having to drive he needs to help with something at home. Or make working on learning to drive a condition of continuing. The statement about the parent not making arrangements for rides was more about the fact that it would be socially awkward here to have a parent texting other kids to find a ride. I don't know how the practices are scheduled, but is there a job that he could get near the practice to make the commute work better? If there are 2-a-days, could he work in between so that he didn't need to come home? Or even at the practice facility - i know a couple of kids who work at the place where they train, and I know others who work near their activity rather than near their house. Or could he work someplace near home that has 4-hour shifts, making it possible to fit in a shift before or after practice, keeping him out of the house over the summer? It may be time to quit - every activity does come to an end at some point - but if that's the case then it's going to be very hard emotionally. For many kids there is a natural cutoff when they graduate, and it's hard to do it by choice earlier if they aren't planning to. I'm on a couple of facebook groups for my kids' sports, and there are frequently posts with people remembering the last time they played with a twinge of grief that they don't get to experience that any more. After my last game in the marching band, I went back to my dorm room and cried (and I'm not a cry-er by nature). The point is that even if HE thinks it's time to quit (which he may or may not), it's not surprising that it's not something that he wants to deal with. Even if it absolutely had to happen due to injury or graduation, it's could be very emotional, and if it's something that he doesn't think needs to happen yet then I wouldn't be surprised if there are big feelings. All of that being said...every year there are kids who quit the team. Most do it because they realize that the time that they are putting in is more than the enjoyment that they are getting. Have him make a schedule and start working on rides to figure out how often he'd be doing each thing - get a ride, bus, parent ride, etc. Then start looking at work or whatever else he might be planning to do and see where that is and how it would fit together. He may decide that he wants more downtime, or he may like the thought of being gone a long time. He may not be interested in the other activities that you want him to try and that's why he wants to stick with this one. Even he probably doesn't know if he is nervous about new activities or truly likes the current one, but he can start to look at what his options are and see what looks like how he wants to spend his last year or 2 of high school.

I wouldn't have a problem with putting some of the responsibility for figuring out the ride thing on the kid, but I wouldn't encourage a teen to drop an activity. My teen isn't a starter right now on their sport team and doesn't pal around with the kids (it's a public school team, so the others hang out together more), but kid gets playing time and does well. Kid also loves every minute of practice and games and seems to be reasonably well liked and enjoys being with their teammates. We do what we can to support this. But, at this age responsibility for organizing and figuring schedules out falls on the boys. So, in your situation, I'd be happy to drop my kid off at a teammate's house but I'd expect my kid to make arrangements as far as who they are riding with each day. Whether they make a schedule, text somebody the night before, always ride the same kid, etc...that's up to them. But, I wouldn't encourage a kid to quit if they enjoy the activity and are willing to do some of the work to make it happen. I would not be arranging transportation on a daily basis. In our area, doing that for a regular activity for kids after freshman year would be considered strange (parents do arrange things for overnight trips for a different activity, but even then most of the time it starts with the parent asking 'do you know whose parents are driving?' so the kids have done some of the footwork to figure it out). There is also the possibility that, after doing the longer travel for a while, your kid will decide that it isn't worth the time commitment and try something new. Or the hours in the car will help them bond with a teammate. There's no way to know how it will turn out.

I would think that it depends on the exam. Khan tends to do a good job of explaining concepts. My own kid has found that the AP review videos on the College Board website are a good review once you've covered the material. In US History and Chem kid took a standard solid high school class (co-op or online). For chem, we found an AP syllabus and followed it's pacing through a textbook. For calc, kid started by working through a textbook but when kid didn't like how one section was covered kid started watching the videos and then doing problems from a couple of different texts until kid understood the concept. For AP Lang, kid will watch the videos but isn't taking a special class - kid's co-op English classes should be sufficient preparation. For all, we do a few practice tests starting about a month out to figure out what areas need more work.

Thanks - I'll mention it. They don't care about 'really homeschooling' - they just want another option for this kid. I messaged the mom that y'all were helping me to make a list and she was appreciative.

Not sure. They may be home alone, but also a grandparent lives next door. The family looks after the grandparent so they won't be supervising, exactly, but kid wouldn't have to be alone all the time. This kid's afternoons, evenings, and weekends are filled with ball and likely church stuff too - social isolation isn't a concern, but there won't be an adult to help with work except for when a parent would be home after work. I really can't imagine what is going on with this kid at this school - this family isn't the type to coddle their kids (I'm not saying that pulling a kid out of a toxic situation is coddling - I just know them well enough to know that their first instinct is to say 'tough it out' and 'respect your teachers'). And, like i said, their older kid went to school there and there wasn't any drama.

I'd expect that they do, or could get a computer if they need one.

We're in TN. No learning challenges that I know of. The dad has picked up a second job to be able to pay for the kids' sports. If I had to guess, there's money for buying books if needed but it wouldn't be easy to come up with several hundred dollars per course to outsource each individually. And with both parents working and their older being a 2 sport senior next year, there likely isn't a ton of extra time to deal with a big learning curve managing this.

At least in TN, it's less about the principal knowing or caring and more about the school filing the proper paperwork with the sanctioning agencies for the sport. So, whoever is responsible for making sure that gets done needs to know - it may the the principal, the vice principal, the athletic director, or the coach. But, there are likely deadlines. We are fortunate in that if we file with an umbrella that meets state requirements, that seems to be enough to make them happy as far as showing grades. But, the coach also knows that my kid is pretty academic, so he's not having to worry that there are bad grades on the report. He checks on the records of some of the kids in school on a regular basis, from what I hear.

A former ball coach for one of my kids is unexpectedly looking at homeschooling their middle schooler for the next 2 years. Both parents work and there isn't a lot of extra money. I don't know what drama at school is prompting this, but their older kid is in high school and they're planning to have the younger return for high school so it seems to be an issue specific to the middle school. Nothing that we do would work for this family - we either do things that I'm heavily involved in teaching or we outsource in a way that is physically (due to distance and schedule) or financially unworkable. What do you suggest? They are looking at something like K12. Thoughts? The school that they are pulling the kid from isn't great, so the kid isn't likely to get a subpar education relative to school by doing something that is just generic online classes. From what I can tell about this kid from sports, they are a hard worker. Does the group have any suggestions that would help this family?

I'm the Fundafunda teacher. For parent-graded classes, the class would have to be formatted in a particular way for a teacher to be comfortable with parent grading. For questions with only 1 correct answer - like in math (or even physics and chemistry), or multiple choice questions - it would be fine. I tend to ask open-ended questions with multiple possible answers, which I think is more common with biology, so it would be harder to design something that is parent-graded. I do use TAs to correct homework - they aren't assigning grades since the homework is just 'graded' for completion. They are given fairly detailed answers, and all TAs are former students who did really well in the class so I know that they understand the material. Even with that, they sometimes have to ask for help to figure out what a student is talking about. It would be hard to write an answer key for the type of questions that I ask that would contain enough rubric for parents to assign points for tests and projects. For that, it might be easier to just use the text and whatever test bank and teacher's manual is available. The content is very standardized, so if the student prefers a lecture format then Khan academy videos over the topics would probably be a good match...for something easier, maybe Amoeba Sisters or Crash Course Biology videos. I'm sure that there are others.

I would contact the AD and principal (single email. copy both on it) and possibly also copy the coach before the end of the school year. In this area, baseball has try-outs over the summer for the next spring's team, and football starts working out as soon as school lets out and basketball has open gyms all summer. Actually, at a baseball game last week we saw the current 8th grader football kids doing some sort of conditioning with the high school coach. We are in TN and most people that we know have had an easy time of working with the school. We are required to have paperwork submitted prior to some date in August if we want to play - it's a date before school starts. So, we usually drop it off during the week after school lets out, when admin is still around but students aren't there. The first year we made an appointment, but at this point we just drop of the papers in the office and tell the secretary who it's for. They say that they submit it as soon as the portal opens. Everybody here tries to stay on top of making sure that everything is done since the teams at our zoned school are often in the running for district, regional, or even state championships and opponents are all over the chance to vacate wins over bad paperwork. Also, be prepared to hunt down things like dates and contacts on the state education department or sports sanctioning agency websites. We found that everybody at the school was happy to help but that they didn't necessarily know what to do. Now that they've done it, it's pretty easy. Other than the usual safety paperwork, we have to submit a page saying where we've played in the past (to make sure that people don't just claim to homeschool to switch schools) and submit our course list for the next year so that the principal can approve them. It's never been an issue.

The course is asynchronous. There aren't face-to--face meetings, although the class started as a live co-op class and I still teach that, too. The online and live students are in the same Canvas classroom with the same assignments, with the only difference being that the live students have a live lecture and don't have to watch the videos unless they are missing something in their notes. There aren't notetaking templates, but some students choose to print the weekly homework pages and answer the questions as they work their way through the videos. That's not my preferred method - I recommend that students learn to take notes and then synthesize that into answers for the questions - but for students who have challenges with taking notes for whatever reason, it seems to be effective. There are some samples on the Fundafunda website.

Where is this?? I'm looking on local news and don't see it yet. I'm so sorry.

I'm always hesitant to post on threads about my classes because I'm not here to promote them, but in case you don't get reviews from people who have taken the class, I teach the Fundafunda class and have had several students with dyslexia over the years. While there is a book, it is mostly used as a supplement and students can get the material from the videos if they prefer that. I have had students do very well and say that they only used the book in a few specific sections. Some students have had their parents scribe for them, which is also fine. If you have any questions, you can message me directly.

Several years ago, our music director became divorced. This was shared by the director with the various music groups, which tend to be close and who were all appropriately sympathetic. Several weeks later, the director came back and said 'i really appreciate your discretion...but...could you spread the word? People keep coming up and asking 'How's Spouse?' and I'd like to not need to explain to everybody in the church individually that we are divorcing.' It's kind of shocking, actually...with 50+ musicians, nobody had said anything until they were asked to. But, in your situation, some people have seen things and some people know things from sports and there are kids involved who talk to each other and what gets relayed could be like a game of telephone. You might have success with taking the choir director's approach, and as @Not_a_Number suggested, get people who know you to share information when the opportunity presents itself. As with other hard situations - health issues, finances, etc - there's no ideal way to both maintain privacy and have people know what's going on to respond appropriately. The best approach may be to come up with a short message that your family agrees is for public consumption and let people know that they are free to share. It doesn't have to be extremely detailed or personal, just enough to dispel rumors.

Nursing is an impacted major at a lot of colleges because there are limits on how many students can do the hospital work each year. For some majors, like CS, it has been a struggle to find good faculty in some specialties. If a field is lucrative enough to have lots of students wanting to study it, it's often lucrative enough that people who are good at doing it can make a lot more money in the private sector than as a professor. Coupled with the fact that it takes a certain personality to want to teach...it can be surprisingly hard to find people who are both good at tech and good at teaching. Many faculty prefer the research part of their job and try to minimize teaching, which leaves the school still looking for instructors, adjuncts, etc and makes it hard to expand the number of seats available.

I'm not a card person so I often don't think to send them. In our orbit, we have both types of people - those who are hurt when their grief or struggle isn't acknowledged and those whose attitude is 'I appreciate the sentiment but I have my support system and need other parts of my life to look normal so if people would quit talking about it that would be much appreciated'. I think a lot of people tend to go into these situations with whatever they would prefer because it's hard to know what others want or need. By nature, I'm more of a 'practical help' person than a 'shoulder to cry on' person, but if I knew that somebody already had a circle offering practical help then I might decide to just stay out of the way. In our church, for instance, the expectation is that help will be provided by a person's primary circle (class, musical group, etc) so if I knew that somebody was in the choir I'd know that they were helping with any practical needs. I do usually text or comment on social media posts as appropriate if that's a usual mode of interaction with that person. But, having seen a few funerals and other similar situations, there are also times when one person's issue goes along with a time when other people are unfortunately unavailable, fulfilling a previous work or volunteer or family commitment, etc that they can't easily get out of. In your situation, I'd likely be planning to respond based on what you did at tonight's dinner - if you said sometihng about being tired from the memorial planning I'd ask how you were doing, and if you didn't bring it up I'd think that you wanted dinner to be a distraction and not bring it up.

Good to know...this was almost 17 years ago. It was bonkers...take the bucket out of the stroller, collapse the stroller, take the baby out of the bucket, send the bucket through the scanner, carry the baby...oh, take the socks off the baby. And they'd ask for things in weird orders so that you were trying to collapse the stroller while holding the baby. I remember at a small airport an older female TSA agent telling a young guy to get over there and help because I had run out of hands. 🙂 It was such a relief when the kids were bigger. Of course, by then we'd moved close enough that family was easily drivable and we only flew for a few vacations, so I rarely flew alone with the kids once it was easy. I have flown with our Science Olympiad team...groups of teens are a different kind of fun. We learned that an unopened can of pringles can set off whatever alerts them for bombs so they had to unpack one kid's backpack and swab various snacks. Always an adventure...

I do think that some people who get upset that they shouldn't have to move to accommodate families blame the family for not reserving tickets in time and 'counting on the kindness of strangers'. They don't realize that the family may have reserved tickets in appropriate family groupings - 3-4 seats together, or 2 sets of 2 so that each parent has 1 kid, etc, only to find that when they are handed boarding passes they are NOT the same as what was reserved. When adults fly, small changes often don't matter. If I fly alone and they move me from 14A to 15A it's no big deal and I might not even remember that I originally reserved something different. But, when that happens to a family it can leave everybody scattered around. It happened to us. I remember being told that all of us needed to go to our seats and they'd move us once people were onboard to ask. My kids were maybe 4 and 7 - finally both out of car seats on the plane, but still young. Fortunately it wasn't their first flight or they would have been scared, but having done it before were OK with 'Stand here and we'll get it sorted out', but we had to reassure them that they wouldn't be alone for the 3 hour flight. But, as I said, spouse flies frequently and still sometimes has to deal with random weirdness, even though he has enough status with one airline that usually they can work it out. Other flying with kids stories... When I had a baby - still in a bucket carrier - I flew solo with the baby. Another mom was on the flight. When we deplaned, there were stairs instead of a jetway. We were given our stroller bases planeside and then left on the tarmac with 2 strollers. We had to leave one stroller on the ground and carry the other up the stairs into the concourse, and then leave that one right by the door to go back and retrieve the second stroller. It was crazy, and a bit scary - it was in Atlanta so not some tiny regional airport with 15 people waiting to get on a small plane. The funny was when I once flew with my 2 kids on s small plane. I sat with the younger one, while my older sat across the aisle. Older kept peering at the video game that the 20something beside him was playing, while I kept trying to distract kid. The young guy noticed and spent a very turbulent flight teaching kid to play - it was something like Angry Birds. I told him that he didn't have to and he said that he appreciated having something to keep him distracted from the turbulence. When I flew with a baby, I was asked to take off their booties because you couldn't wear shoes through security.