Oh yes, we have some pretty SAD schools here. I am very sorry if your new ones is zoned for one of them.

Right. Except my district has three levels of freshman English, college prep 1, English 1, and Remedial 1, and placement tests are used to determine which of the students gets into them if they did not complete Advanced English class for 8th grade which is roughly the top 20% and based on their achievement scores at the end of 7th grade. Math placement also determines freshmen science placement which then determines if the student will make it to dual enrollment or AP's in the junior and senior year. I will say that college prep English 1 and 2 (sometimes called Honors depending on the district) are the prerequisites to take AP English or dual enrollment College Comp. So unfortunately, it isn't problematic for math only although some districts are much more forgiving with placement than others. Mine is a total snob which is just laughable because I think they do a lousy, lousy job!

Here in the good districts it does affect things. Algebra 2 as a terminal point for none college bound students covers less content and uses a different text. The Algebra 2 text for college bound students has three chapters of pre-calc prep. The district has a symbol or something they use on the transcript to indicate which course was taken, but off hand, I can't remember what it is. Students wanting to get into AP Chem or AP Bio have to take the harder class as a pre-requisite. They cannot take Trig/Pre-Calc from the easier sequence.

We can't answer that for you because it is District specific. Common core was largely rejected so there isn't a strict stream of what is required as prerequisites for each school. Some will begin freshmen in biology if they had physical science in 8th grade. Some consider physical science to be a high school class and do not offer biology until 10th grade, and part and parcel of that can be that they have dropped advanced physics and chem/AP's because they are expensive to provide or don't have someone qualified to teach them. English placement is almost entirely test specific and based on 8th grade achievement exams. I am sorry we can not be more specific than that. She needs to find out what her district his doing with the top 20% of the 8th grade class because that will be a good guide. But again, they do not have to accept anything he completes, and may require placement exams. My stab in the dark guess is that if he had algebra 1 squarely under his belt and tests well in it, physical science (and chances are they will use math placement as an indicator of science placement as well), then those two will fall into place. English will be a wild card. If you can cover some good literature and teach him to write a sound, five paragraph standard essay, outline for a simple paper, and master some high school level vocabulary then I think he would probably test into the rotation for college bound students. But again, it depends. If he is going into one of our top high schools like International Academy, Frankenmuth High, City High Middle School, Saginaw Academy of Sciences and Arts, Grosspointe, Novi High School, Black River Public,....several others, the stakes will be a lot higher. When my niece attended SASA, she was considered a remedial student because she struggled in math and could not test out of algebra 1 and geometry prior to 9th grade and it very negatively impacted the course options for her in science as well. The difference in "college prep" between the lowest performing district in my county to the highest performing is absolutely startling! See if mum can talk privately with a teacher at the high school he will be attending to find out what is suggested.

FAFSA, I believe, is designed to exclude as many students as possible from any hint of financial aid. I think it is this way by design. Our son's medical settlement (not even remotely big enough to cover his expenses for the rest of his life related to this injury) not only counted against him, but it counted against his brothers once we had multiples in college because it was seen as reducing our financial burden as parents and raised our EFC. Our EFC per kid one year on a household income less than $90,000 a year would have put us at $60,000 total EFC! The only thing that saved us was their merit scholarships. We still shelled out 1/3 of Dh's gross income for college so we wouldn't end up dipping into his 401K. Additionally, we had expenses for caring for our mothers, but could claim them as dependents nor deduct those expenses on taxes. He and I lived on next to nothing. But we made it because the house was paid off and so were the cars. We kept it that way. Now we just have this semester and youngest is done. Not paying so much for college allowed us to buy our retirement home in late 2021 before we were completely priced out of the market. The system is entirely rigged to 100% screw over the bullk of the taxpayers. Our kids were all in reasonably priced state schools with in state tuition. And they aren't "independent" until 24 or they get married or have a kid! Insane. Are they adults or not? My brother, due to heart attack and stroke, has nearly $100,000 of medical bills he is paying on because despite being "insured" every kind off thing the insurance could think of was disallowed including the ambulance for one event, and the helicopter for the other. He is somehow still working. He is way lower income than us, has no non-retirement savings, and all that debt. His youngest child (20 years old) still can't get any financial aid but unsecured student loans. So she is working a crap job until she turns 24 (not much of anything around here pays well enough to support and adult on their own), and then applying to college.

It can be tricky actually. Michigan does not require public schools to accept any credits or work or proof of work from homeschoolers. Every single school district is allowed to set its own policy. So I have known children who were allowed to enter the grade their homeschooling parent indicated was appropriate, children who were required to take subject testing and were placed according to the results, and students who were automatically set back a grade or two as "punishment" for being homeschooled. Teachers in my area are openly hostile to having formerly homeschooled students placed in their classroom so one needs to find out the faculty culture/attitude about home schooled students before racing to re-enroll. There are truly great districts with open arms to homeschoolers, and some who are positively punishing, and it is all perfectly legal. The children should be prepped for taking placement exams. Chances are the 8th grader/rising 9th grader will not receive credit for algebra 1. The usual course of action is a math placement exam, and if the student tests out of algebra 1, they are placed in the next math class in sequence. For some schools that is geometry, others it could be algebra 2. Michigan colleges and universities do not want to see any 8th grade or middle school work on transcripts. They consider only the last eight semesters of work completed to be on the document. But that is fine because the assumption is that if they see geometry or algebra 2 as the first math of high school, the student must have passed the prerequisite. It is the same for things like Spanish 2. If that is the first foreign language on the high school transcript, it is assumed Spanish 1 was passed in a previous grade. The parent really needs to contact the principal of each building in the district she intends to rep enroll in and ask about their homeschool policy so she knows in advance what to expect. Hopefully they just want more students and will welcome them with open arms, no strings attached. But, that is not guaranteed at all. We do have school or choice as well. She can enroll her children in a district in which she does not reside so long as she can provide transportation, and at the high school level, they have an opening that does not require them to hire more faculty because adding the student puts them over their policy limit for student/staff ration. So she can shop around and see which schools might be best for her kids or have the best rep admittance policy. Technically, on paper, Michigan is restrictive on homeschooling. The only actual legal exemption to the mandatory attendance law is religious. But because they do not require registration, no one has to make a religious claim to homeschool. The only other option is if the parent possesses a teaching license. Zero enforcement however. We home schooled secularly for academics only and flew totally under the radar. The state also mandates specific subjects must be taught, and it is a broader list than other states. But people do what they want because no enforcement. Where it comes into play is if a stinky district says "you didn't cover x, y, z, your kid has to go back a grade" or if one is trying to get a rising 9th grader into high school and they say the proper pre-requisites have not been achieved and the student cannot enter the college prep sequence. That is a big deal down the road if you want your student to have access to AP's and dual enrollment or Calculus or Advanced Bio or whatever. Much of this is district dependent, not state dictated.

The Marx Brothers. The Marx Brothers are running the planet.

😥 I don't know what to say. Just so many 💓. I understand your compassion fatigue completely.

Currently, the splint is driving me bananas. I used the excuse of "need to change the tape" which is NOT true 😁 to take it off about 20 minutes ago. Still haven't put it back on. Sigh. This has only been four or five days. I have a minimum of three weeks of this. I am not happy with Harry Potter. Where is my Madame Pumphrey juice so I can grow a new bone over night?????

Thanks!

Has it started dumping yet? Just wondering if everyone is hunkering down now. Meanwhile, we are supposed to have -9 temp in the morning. But it is going to be 55 at the Bama house on Sunday. I am sucking my thumb, metaphorically speaking, about winter at the moment. Just watch warm movies, ones that take place in luxurious tropical places. Maybe the answer is to drink Bahama Mamas, Pina Coladas, and Mai Tais while starting down shrimp and things made with mango. 😁 Best wishes to all of you!

Oy!!! I agree with Jann, and woman you need more than coffee!! You gotta order yourself some chocolate swirl cheesecake!

Here the size of down payment considered good is actually based on credit rating. So that might be part of it for a young man. The lower the credit rating, the more investment skin the game the bank wants for the riskier buyer or young person.

Well, I don't know what to express. If it was gluten, then it would have been easier to pinpoint. But, not being gluten means your SIL can pound sand double time. I am sorry, Dmmelter!

Yes, I meant to say encourage her to try medical assisting or CNA first. Sigh. Me and my kindle and my broken finger...typing is not my strong suit at the moment! Sorry about that!

She might want to try CNA or medical assisting. A lot of hospitals have pushed LPN work down into those two fields, and then bumped up the Dh's and tuition assistance for RN's. My niece in law is an EKG and Lab Tech and has been given tuition assistance to go for her BSRN. Very very few LPN's employed in her seven hospital network. It seems like some states have seen a big change in the nursing profession in this regard. So I would encourage her to go LPN unless she can confirm that there is a lot of good employment opportunity for that in Texas. I think it will vary by region. The great thing about medical assisting is along with CNA it gives a sneak peak into whether or not they would truly enjoy nursing and they have so many colleagues to talk with about that.

Same here. And most of our hospitals wants BSRN's not ADN's which is the shorter program of the two.

Agreed!

Big, huge, bear strong type hugs from me to you!!

Amen!

You have done nothing wrong. And frankly, the hospital social worker should.have been on top of this! Not you. It is NUTS and immoral how !such they think untrained, inexperienced family should be expected to do and arrange. Tell your sister in law I said to take a flying leap off a short pier! If she wants the job done, she can do it herself or shut up!

Well, I have some similar issues, and gave up being creative. I just don't enjoy cooking or planning for food all the time, and after this many years of doing it for my family, am over it. So, I tend to eat the same thing every morning. I have a cold, boiled egg and a celery stick. I then subsist on coffee until my lunch time salad. But, I am also not strict keto because eliminating legumes and oats when I struggle with anemia and am unwilling to snarf down large amounts of beef everyday means I have to compromise. My salads tend to be topped with black beans or hummus, and I use lemon juice or some other form of vitamin C with it to help with absorption. Boring. Boiled egg and celery, and coffee. It works, but isn't something palatable to people who really like food!

I am so sorry! ❤

Good luck with all that shoveling! Stay safe

Oh I agree. I fully expect our healthcare access and treatment to end up beat back to the Stone Age over this. I have no faith that those in powers rich enough to run off to Europe and Asia for medical treatment, to give two farts what is left for the rest of us. They will continue to pander to their base to the ruination of this country.