Back when I taught at a community college, we were told that every course has 2 course numbers. One is the number that you see (Chem 101) while the other is somehow encoded in the transcript and is what colleges use when they communicate between them to determine whether a course transfers. Both my lecture and lab courses had a common syllabus that we were allowed minimal deviation from. It was required that in the lecture at least 80% of the grade came from closed-note, closed-book assessment. This was part of the articulation agreement with the State U, although I don't know if it's also required across other schools. In our current state, a number of the online courses seem to be offered through a state-wide e-campus, so the course is the same across several CCs and possibly also State Us. Obviously it's possible to cover the material in more or less depth, or to make harder or easier tests, but the content should be the same. I know that my teaching at the CC was similar to what I had as a freshman in college, although to be fair it's also not all that different from what I teach to homeschoolers. The biggest difference between high school and college (whether CC or U) is pacing. The class that I teach to high schoolers has 8 units in it and takes a full year. When I taught it at a CC, the semester course was 6 of those units, with a tiny bit more detail. It was the bio for health science (mostly nursing/EMT students) and it left off the material about ecology and classification of organisms, but added a bit about viruses. There are also classes that are just not going to be that difficult for most good students. Classes like Intro to Psychology are often not that challenging, whether taken at a CC or U. Many students can manage these sorts of classes even if they are younger.

When my kid took the SAT in 7th grade for the talent search, kid's score was significantly delayed. We emailed and called repeatedly. It turned out that the 'irregularity' was that kid's score was unusually high for a 7th grader. We were supposed to get the scores mid-December and I think we finally got them in late January or early February. They took forever, but they did finally get it done. I'm sorry you're dealing with this.

I have done courses at home, outsourced to a co-op, and outsourced online, so I am not a purist as far as approach. But, I wouldn't outsource a class in a situation where I couldn't explain what the benefit was. In your case, your student doesn't seem to be learning well and is stressed. There doesn't seem to be any benefit to that approach for that student. My kids have taken a class at co-op because they'll enjoy it with friends, or I've outsourced to somebody who is very knowledgeable in their field (our co-op French teacher is actually French!). I've even outsourced because a kid was being particularly cantankerous and I needed to not have conflict with them over a subject. But, there are lots of great ways to teach your kid at home and we've done different things. There is no way to learn everything, so I put together plans based on my kids' interests and goals. We do some courses as standard college prep (or career prep, if that's what you are looking for). Knowing that my older was interested in engineering, we wanted to make sure that kid was well prepared for college with solid math and science (we did AP, but standard high school classes would have also been appropriate). We also made sure that we covered the expected gov/econ, world history, and US history. But, we handled those in different ways. US History was done through a co-op class with friends. The class didn't use textbooks at all, but kid took the AP exam and did well after taking it. For world history, we picked some topics of interest and kid read a ton of books that we discussed and kid wrote a paper. There is no way to do all of world history in one year, so you can choose your approach. A survey? A deep dive into one area? Exploring a theme? One of kid's major books was something about the history of weaponry...which covered all sorts of conflicts that one doesn't usually hear about. I wouldn't have enjoyed it, but kid learned a lot. I wanted to cover a few specific topics in government, so we did that semester very much together - I found some videos and some interesting resources that we discussed. Then kid did online econ. In your shoes, I would look at what specifically you are feeling like you have to cover - why are you feeling like there is so much and so little time - and figure out what your student really needs to learn. What is the math plan, what do they need to work on in English (essays? reading literature? forming good sentences and editing?). Then for history and science, look to see what is needed for their goals. Are there state graduation requirements? Specific classes needed for the college/career your student is interested in? Once you figure out what you need, you can figure out how to address each thing. You may choose to outsource some classes and do others at home. You may even choose to outsource everything, but if you go that route, there is no reason to do it in a way that is stressful for you or your student. Any time you outsource, you are giving up some control and flexibility, so if you do outsource choose classes that support your goals for the content and also your student's non-academic needs.

Spouse was adamantly opposed to properties that had weird things like easements and shared driveways. Also, when I search for houses I set my filter for a certain property size. Bumping up to 1 acre might make your property visible to a lot more potential homebuyers.

At the last 2-3 eye doctors that I've seen, the back of the eye thing was in paperwork that I filled out when I got there. It was just a thing to sign saying that it was an option and the extra cost was X, which may or may not be covered by insurance. I always do it because it can take hours for my eyes to undilate. With the cost of the different glasses add-ons, I've never not had somebody mention it but it's quick. Once I pick frames, they go through a checklist that's something like 'with your prescription, I'm guessing you want the premium material to make them thin, now for anti-glare..., and about tinting...'. Are you sure that they didn't do any of this? I've always found them willing to stop and explain, or let me choose a cheaper option, but the default is the top stuff. And, having gone from getting less expensive to more expensive options over the years as my vision has gotten worse and as I'm not a student I see the advantages and wouldn"t go back

One of my kids did Life of Fred algebra as review while doing geometry. Would it work to do something like that - maybe review Life of Fred Fractions and Decimals, or pre-Algebra, or whatever needs reviewing - while doing the current math?

We also stopped spelling somewhere in middle school. with one kid who didn"t need much spelling practice at any grade we used the vocabulary words as spelling and sorry for the weird puncutation and capitalization _ my keyboard has lost its mind and isn"t working properly at all

I think there's a big difference between occasional babysitting and frequent childcare. if I watch somebody's kid for a few hours every few months, I could follow pretty much any rule. But, in a recurring situation, I think it's fine to say that you aren't going to monitor something. I fix gluten free food for one kid friend, but I won't police sugar intake. I have a big punch bowl in the dining room where any candy that makes its way into the house goes. It's always available so not a big deal to my kids - I think there's still valentine's candy there and we just finished the second Easter bunny a few weeks ago. When friends come over some go nuts. I'll say something if I see them grab something every time they walk past, but most parents know that it's there and I'm not going to try to make sure that kids follow the sugar preferences of their parents when they are here for a few hours. And I don't think that anybody expects me to. I know that my parents let the kids watch things and eat things that I don't, but as long as it wasn't dramatically inappropriate I'm not going to worry about it.

My senior took 3 years of Latin in high school, but having taken Latin 1 and 2 in middle school kid got pretty far into it. The last 2 years were spent translating poetry and prose. Kid enjoyed the work that was translated, but then kid read a translation of the writings of Marcus Aurelius for fun at the suggestion of the Latin teacher so that probably isn't typical. This kid enjoyed the grammar and found the roots to be useful. But, taking the class was a choice, starting when, as a late elementary schooler, kid asked if it would be OK to join the middle school Latin class at co-op. My younger student will be taking French at co-op - this kid took a few years in middle school, will be starting high school French 1 in 9th grade, and will probably only take the required 2 years. My choices weren't philosophical, but about letting my kids know what was available and maybe exploring a little and then letting them make some choices, within boundaries. I could see a kid being bummed if they needed a language and Latin didn't transfer, but this is something that can be checked ahead of time. And, ultimately, there are always going to be things that get left out and things that you do that are going to be less useful than you had hoped...and there will be surprise favorites. My kid took a music theory/appreciation class at co-op just to check a fine arts box but it turns out to be a favorite that exposed kid to new kinds of music and new ways of thinking about music. On the other hand, a horticulture class that I put together because kid likes helping with the garden and fruit trees and bushes and likes science turned out to be perfectly fine but not a favorite. There's just no way to know what will click or what path they'll take in the future.

Now that we have a kid who drives, I've come to realize how differently kid, spouse, and I remember directions. One remembers directions (go north on road X for 2 miles), one visualizes a map, and one remembers landmarks (drive until you see a blue house, then go left and keep going until you pass the pizza place that has green shutters). I think that probably is related to how we remember other things. Some in my family remember anything that they find interesting, even if they only read it once or twice. I usually find that I need to do something with the information. I can't just read it and write it down. I need to work with it in some way -draw a pathway, flowchart, or timeline, put things into categories, etc. I used to study for my grad science classes by rewriting and annotating my notes until I understood, and then give a lecture from memory over the the content using a whiteboard. I would do this until I could explain everything. I also use silly devices for things that are easy to slip up on - rhymes, etc. Speed drills can help force the brain to learn things, too. Check out Barbara Oakley's Learning How to Learn - it explains the neurobiology behind how we learn and then gives tips to increase learning. It's written to middle schoolers, so it's a quick read. And, Hirsh's books were very influential in how I planned school for my elementary kiddos.

It was on my parents' bookshelf. That's where most of my reading came from in middle/high school. I think it was fairly popular at the time, but I don't know. Back in the days of 1 TV per house and only a handful of channels, I read all sorts of things over breaks from school.

It seems straightforward to us, too, but I'm hearing things acting like it's a bigger deal. It does add some steps to the process - it used to be that we just turned in the paperwork, but now we turn it in to the school, get signatures, and then have to send it to somebody else.

The rule changed so that you can use an umbrella, too, a year or 2 ago. Then it changed again last year but nobody seems to know what it means. Even before, we just registered with both. The county registration was basically nothing other than a standardized test in the spring, and then the umbrella managed our transcript.

Good job, @Michelle in IL2! That's exciting for your family. My guess is that, over time, they will mellow on the requirements. Like, they don't check the high school kids' grades every week and they'll get tired of dealing with yours, too. But, it's a start. Our state has changed the rules in some way that isn't transparent, but we got all of our paperwork turned in to the school athletic director so we've done our part. We should probably follow up and make sure that there is nothing else that we need to do. Our biggest issue may be making sure that kid has enough real classes in spring of senior year to stand up to review if needed. So many of the public school seniors have almost nothing that last semester (they have block schedules, so only 4 classes, and they are all done with the graduation requirements). They have schedules like 'teacher's aide, yearbook, advanced PE, history of rock music' and there is no homeschool equivalent. Not that my kid wants to take nothing, but kid was thinking that DE physics with calc and then finishing up a few other credits will be enough and I'm keeping an eye on it in case we need to add something else. eyeroll. But, good for you!

With my own kids, they haven't been interested in reading things that I would have a problem with. My older did struggle with books where people were cruel and wouldn't read them, I used to pick up classics and books from the Sonlight/Bookshark lists used at curriculum sales, and since kid was an advanced reader kid would read ones that matched things that we were studying. But, I realized that I had to watch for the type of content because 8 year old kid really had a problem with books that were on the list for older kids because they were just too much. On one hand, it's appropriate for kids to learn that the world isn't always a kind place, but on the other hand, everybody will experience that unkindness first hand in some way and i'm not sure there's benefit in having them experience all kinds of meanness and cruelty through people's first person accounts when they are young,. I think that for some kids it leads to some amount of learned helplessness, espcially if the kid is the type to read and not want to talk about it. It's one thing for a kid to know that there are bad people who kidnap and hurt kids and another for them to read a first-person account from a survivor when the reader is 7, and I think parents have to make judgements about how many horrors they expose a kid to. There is also a difference between what we let kids read, which they can walk away from, and what is assigned, as somebody mentioned above. I was a typical gen X kid, given free rein of the library and my parents' bookshelves. Some of what I read when I moved to adult books in late elementary school was great - Sherlock Holmes, etc. Others were fine - Louis Lamour westerns, Tom Clancey books. Others had a lot of graphic sexual content that I'm sure my parents had forgotten about. We may think that it doesn't have much impact, but the fact that my brain can still recall specific scenes from books I read at age 12 while I can't recall the plot of a book that i read last summer implies that our brains may work a little differently. My parents were more restrictive with movies, interestingly enough. I check to see why a movie has a particular rating but am fairly lenient, and my kids aren't big movie people anyway. So, with books and movies I'm not quite the 'anything goes' sort, but I'm also not particularly sheltering. My bigger 'censorship' was with my tween - at some point I had to severely restrict the teen/tween TV that was on Disney and Nickelodian because the kids were so rude and my kid was coming to mimic that because it was 'normal' unlike kid's reasonably polite friends.

We have a hard time getting away since the kids play sports in alternating seasons. We've done several short trips over the years, though. We used to live in Albuquerque and have done some return visits - there are great museums and local hikes that are really different (Bandelier has cliff dwellings, El Malpais is on lava, the Sandias have mountaintop trails, and El Morro is just cool). We did several days in Chicago one time - a riverboat tour, several great museums and the aquarium. The boys went to a cubs game while the girls did the American Girl doll thing...both liked the giant lego store. We did a road trip in TN - in Memphis we saw Mud Island and went on a riverboat ride and saw the Civil Rights Museum, some music museums, and Beale Street, and Graceland, then we stopped and walked the trails at Pinson Mounds state park, and then on to Nashville where was saw the Acropolis and played at the water park at the Gaylord. Another year we did a KY trip - we kayaked in a flooded cave at The Gorge, then drove to Lexington and Louisville (Churchill Downs, the Louisville Slugger factory, we walked across a bridge into Indiana) then we went to the Shaker Village (I loved this!) and Mammoth Caves with a detour to see Lincoln's birthplace. Chattanooga is a cool town - the aquarium is fantastic, and the touristy incline railroad and Rock City sites are fun. I'm not a city person, but we've done a few fun things in Atlanta while there for a ball game - Stone Mountain, aquarium, etc. We also did a great trip to DC at the end of Christmas break on year. We've had a couple of fun trips to TX, but since that's local you know about Fredericksburg and other places that we've been to visit friends. 🙂 Southern New Mexico is interesting - we did Carlsbad, White Sands, and the kitschy Roswell when we lived close enough for that to be a weekend trip. We keep hoping to do one southwestern trip that takes the kids to the Grand Canyon - we were waiting until the Hoover Dam tours were restarted, but at this point I'm not sure we'll get it done while the kids are still 'kids'. 🙂 My husband says that if you pick anywhere, or need to be somewhere for a reason, I can plan a 3-7 day fun educational outing with local restaurants - we love trying local 'homestyle' places, diners, and whatever specialty restaurants an area has (Cajun was a favorite in Lexington, , Jamaican in Louisville, and Afghan in DC). We never did the long road trips of his childhood that he had hoped to do, but I've pointed out that our trips are much less 'drive-by' - we see a lot when we go somewhere and I try to find unique things to do. My kids like different things - one is a 'read every sign at the museum' while the other is more 'Look - the giant sloth is cool...what's next?' so we try to find a balance of activities. My on-the-go kid likes museums with IMAX movies and loved the music that you could get on headphones and the live music in Memphis, so that kept both kids happy.

The AP scope and sequence, which is mostly the same content that is usually taught in high school, doesn't have any dissections or content that would align with dissections. The content is mostly molecular biology, genetics, and ecology. There are labs and hands-on activities that can be done with this content. Testing food for various macromolecules and an osmosis lab are common, as is microscope work. Ecology is a good place for students to design their own lab - anything with growing plants or varying something and then observing birds or squirrels or something can work. Students often struggle to design an experiment since they are used to following directions for labs, but it's a useful exercise.

The Critical Thinking Company has some good puzzle books - Mind Benders and Balance Benders come to mind but there are probably others.

The scope and sequence of high school biology for many states does not use all of the Miller-Levine book. I aligned my co-op class with the TN standards, and when I started teaching online I checked with a couple of other states, including NY and CA. I may not be completely current since the standards change, but as of a few years ago none of the states had much of the systems content that is found later in the book as part of their standard high school class. My guess is that in some places anatomy is an elective option. At our co-op, much of that content is covered in the middle school life science with dissection class. The teacher and I worked together to minimize overlap so that students had time to go more in depth. I would look at an AP bio syllabus. You don't have to follow it, but it would give you an idea of what is in the AP class. I've had kids take the test after doing my class, which isn't an AP course but aligns closely. You can absolutely choose to use a syllabus that covers the whole book, but if you want a less stressful plan that would still leave her in good shape for a nursing program if interested, you can definitely find a plan that doesn't cover the whole book but is still rigorous. In biology, high school and college texts are often written such that more than one class could be taught using the same book and many classes do not use the whole thing. Good luck finding a plan that fits your needs!

I took it in middle school in one state and high school in another, so it was in some schools back in the 80s and 90s. My older took it at co-op where it was taught by a nurse, but I'd also think it was an easy 1/2 credit to do at home. I'd have my student look into different ideas of a good diet and maybe keep a food journal for a week, talk about exercise and types that are life-long, and look at mental and reproductive health issues. I'd also loot at drug use, addiction, and sleep. Some classes have an overview of body systems and others don't - it would depend on what my student had done in biology class. I might also add a CPR class. Some areas offer classes like how to administer Narcan and if that was available I might consider including it.

I can't imagine that I would chase somebody unless it was to rescue a kidnapping victim or something similar. But, I think it's foolish to do something and expect the recipient or the prank to be the 'bigger person'. You have no way of knowing what is going on with somebody. There's always a risk that somebody in the victim household is not sober, mentally stable, afraid because your prank comes on the back of a creepy phone call, or a host of other issues. When I was growing up my family would have rolled their eyes at teen behavior. But, one time an ex came home on leave from the military and kept showing up at places where I was. Another time a parent was getting death threats over a problem at work. Another time our house was burglarized. These were stressful incidents scattered over my 18 years at home, so it's not as if we normally had a lot of drama. When those things were current issues, my whole family was on edge, even though people who were just acquaintances wouldn't have known about it. If there was somebody doing anything weird at our house during those times, 'teen prank' wouldn't have been the first thought on any of our minds.

It's a legal thing. I remember when I taught at a CC I had the mom of a DE student contacting me saying that she needed to know how her student was doing for reasons (graduation? I don't remember) and her student said that they had no idea whether they were passing or not. I told her that I couldn't discuss grades with anybody but the student, but that I could talk about my general classroom policy, which was that every time I returned a test I left a little time at the end and encouraged students to stop by and see what their average was so that if I had mis-entered anything we could sort it out then. This was pre-online platform and my grades were maintained in an excel spreadsheet. So, it's been a while since this information could be released. When I switched from lab work at the U to teaching at the CC, I had one year where I had to do OSHA, HIPAA, and and FERPA training all within a few months. Ugh.

When we moved in to our house, the previous owner had turned off the water at the street. When we turned it back on, the sudden change in pressure messed up the water pressurizer and we had to have some plumbing work done. Most people don't have these, but people do have other things that might be sensitive - a filtration system, maybe? I think it's kind of like the water version of a power surge - often no problems, but can result in damage. If I did turn it off, I'd also want to turn off things like the water heater lest it destroy the element if something happened that caused it to run dry.

I'm mostly home all day, often in the same room with kid(s) for hours each day. If not, it's far more likely to be because the kids are at their chosen activity/friend gathering (that I spend 1-2 hours most days driving to) than because I need to be somewhere. Even with that, I have one who gets upset if my attention isn't available when kid gets the urge to talk (which is most of the day). If I'm sending an email, say that I need to finish reading something first, etc...then kid is upset that other things 'are more important'. Kid doesn't consider time when I'm snapping green beans or doing dishes while conversing as 'paying attention' either. This isn't to complain about my kid, but more to say that it may be a teen/tween thing, it may just be a kid's personality, but there is no guarantee that if you had everything the way that you would like that you wouldn't still run into this problem. Even if you are home all day, there are times when you are in the middle of something and it isn't reasonable for a kid to think that you can drop what you are doing. Even if it's purely social, it's not ideal to stop mid-text with a friend or family member just because a child has started talking. I make sure that I set aside some time to spend 1:1 with each family member each day but I'm not always going to be available the minute that it crosses my child's mind to start a monologue. This isn't to say that I only have conversations at the allotted time, but to point out that it's a good thing to help kids learn that other people are autonomous beings with things that they need and want to do and that the wants of one person can't always dictate what other people are doing.

I can't imagine myself ever being in a situation where I"m performing for a crowd like that, but, thinking about how I handle annoying things when I teach, I think I'd probably have gone with something more like 'OK, y'all, there seem to be some people trying to get selfies. I get it - if you don't have a pic it didn't happen - but the flash is really distracting. So, how about this...I pretend to sing and everybody get their pictures now. In 2 minutes everybody should have their selfies and groupies and then I can get back to singing and you can get back to enjoying yourselves without the flashes bugging everybody...all right, is everybody done? Let's get back to the music!'. I've done similar things with my class - 'Y'all are unusually chatty today...let's take a 3 minute break so that you can stretch and get your words out while I'm not trying to teach' or 'Y'all seem to have a lot of words today, so let's try a bit of review...who can tell me what X is?'. It's not a common thing, but every now and then the class comes in and a few people or everybody is acting like a squirrel on uppers and I just need to manage the weirdness. It's not always possible, but it's easier to work with rather than against the group when you can.