OP makes perfect sense to me, and I'm neurodivergent. Learning how to state the components of my train of thought separately, with back-and-forth response, and adapt them according to feedback, took years. (This may have been an artifact of learning to write paragraphs with narrative flow before I could reliably speak in sentences. When writing stories that take up multiple paragraphs, one does not generally give gaps for other participants to respond, and having a recognisable beginning/middle/end was considered pretty good for an under-8 child, which inadvertently reduced the importance of consistency and logic in the rest of the narrative...) However, from what I've seen, neurotypical people make more consistently-sized jumps and process the validity of a given jump differently. Note that not all neurotypical people use the same rubric for jump validity, and different contexts/audiences also change the preferred (and optimal) rubric. More effective neurotypical communicators also communicate each jump they do make (directly or via some sort of cue), as a way of testing whether the other people in the conversation are willing for it to go in that direction. Also, a lot of neurotypical people haven't had practise at spelling out how they arrived at a particular thought process and therefore are less good at describing how it worked on a particular occasion (especially if the request was a surprise to them). I know two neurotypical people who could start talking about wasps in a conversation about carnivals, but it's because for them, there is only one jump in carnival-to-wasp (for different reasons). In certain contexts, both often make large conversational jumps - one of them routinely doesn't "see" the smaller jump options they missed, and the other one can make pretty much any conversation link to the animal kingdom in some way (but makes an effort to only state the jump when they think other people want to know that link). Neither would do what was described in OP, and go through multiple linkages without checking the other participants were following each link.

The common cold still exists, though its incidence has dropped dramatically due to being temporarily out-competed by COVID.

Students might not get shot for protesting in Canada (rarely), but it's been all over the news for the past two weeks that they often do in Myanmar right now (and in some cases, even people who were just going about their daily lives, which rather invalidates any protestor/rioter distinction that might have been attempted). Has the lecturer been so snowed in with course administration that he did not know that Myanmar had a revolution that included a general internet shutdown? Or did they forgot to check where the student was from before replying? Either way, this is a pretty basic research fail.

Not to mention that with a lot of people, getting the message that any of the vaccines is worthwhile is already difficult. Saying that the type of vaccine needs to be critiqued even if it's been approved for use makes it even more difficult to get doses in arms.

Several potential methods (assuming of course that the argument in a given case is well-founded; accusing stuff on inadequete evidence is also a thing, especially in environments where the student/teacher relationship is very poor): If the professor gives any sort of mid-term assessments (even ones that don't get counted towards the grade, such as pop quizzes), marks that don't match the provided rubric (if there was one, especially if the rubric was nominally an objective one). Also, if two students wrote a similar assessment item for the same or materially similar question, and got very different grades. (as you say, students doing different questions can't do this approach). Significant differences in the marking of mid-term assessments cannot be accounted for by differences in the questions or by material introduced or reasonably assumed to have been encountered by students (e.g. in outside research) between those times, or differences that would explain such marking were not communicated by agreed methods (usually, those laid down in the department handbook, provided in course preparation materials or stated at the start of the first class). This covers lecturers who change rubrics for no coherent reason. Differences in how papers were marked, compared with exemplar papers (if these were provided). Track record of successful appeals, especially on academic grounds (the latter are as rare as hen's teeth, so even one can cause a reputation for inconsistent marking, even if it was the only time it ever happened). Students talk to each other about their grades, and are generally confident in stating inconsistency is across the board even if they themselves are aware of only one or a few examples in their class. (Students tend to keep electronic copies of their papers, so if they don't like a mark, they can easily swap it with their friends to attempt that sort of analysis).

80 minutes isn't a lot of driving - for parents who are used to driving. It's probably 2 hours out of your week, when adding in time spent getting children ready and turning round at the other end of the journey - not massive, but enough to matter. However, if you are at the limit of driving you can do for the week and maintain your equilibrium, the amount other people typically do is not relevant. Your needs are also valid. Four ideas of variable viability, if you want to give the co-op a try: Is it walkable for your 8th-grader? (20 minutes in rush hour in a city might be 1-2 minutes on a rural highway, so location makes a big difference). It might be worth your 8th-grader spending 2-3 hours (round trip) walking to something like that, if the walk's possible and safe in that sort of timeframe. (Think of it as adding extra PE to the week). Don't do this if the pavements are bad/dangerous/non-existent, your 8th-grader is apt to get lost or the roads are fast enough for "20 minutes by car" to be the equivalent of half a day of walking - even if your 8th-grader is capable, the worry it would cause you won't be worth it. Is it possible to swap something else out that involves driving? Perhaps do your grocery shopping while waiting for co-op to end (which means you do the same amount of driving, but homeschool at the time you are currently grocery shopping instead of the time co-op happens)? Is it possible to visit someone in that timeslot instead of when you usually do? (Or, if the true limit is homeschooling time rather than driving time, is there anything else out of the house that you can move to that gap?) If you already homeschool for a lot of time each week (in your opinion), is there something you can cut? Yes, there are several options for homeschooling in the car, but if you are feeling overscheduled, the co-op can be a good excuse to remove 2 hours of teaching time. There is a good chance that older children will rise to the challenge and lose rather less than 2 hours of education, even if they don't participate in the co-op. Younger children are more suspectible to overscheduling and thus may outright benefit from "less is more". Also, you will feel less pressure to fill the car journey with "good" learning if your plan already says that what you are doing is good enough, and that anything done in the car is a happy bonus. You could also give your 8th-grader a research project to find an alternative route that does not require you to drive "in case the car breaks down". This is worth issuing even if you think there aren't any - either your 8th-grader will get creative and figure out/negotiate something, or the fact that there are some situations where the journey would be impossible will be established. Even if you never use any alternative found and end up driving every time, knowing you have that option if you find you cannot stand doing one more car journey on a given week may help you because you won't feel forced. And if your 8th-grader sees that driving is necessary to get to the co-op, it will be easier to have an honest conversation about how it will or won't fit the family's needs. Plus your 8th-grader gets to practise research and presentation skills needed in high school in a different context, with some stakes attached.

I don't use voice automation assistants because I've yet to find out that can interpret my speech correctly, but I did use "please" and "thank you" when testing them. (The fact they all prefaced their interpretation errors with "Sorry" only reinforced this).

This is really frustrating! Grocery store testing is a great thing, but not if it makes the grocery stores an infection vector...

This is brilliant. It proves that anti-vaccination attitudes don't have to be permanent or immutable, and that one good, caring, knowledgeable and honest one-to-one conversation can resolve most vaccine hesitators' reservations.

None of the schools in my area do that. They give the reception number and that's it. Primarily due to individual staff members worrying about lots of people contacting them for any reason or none, which from their perspective defeats the point of a reception. A place with a fully-configured switchboard system could have all those numbers appear as a single number when calling out, but that takes considerable expense to fit the system, and it's just not in some schools' budget. On the other hand, if the situation had got anywhere near as bad as described in the original post, they'd use standard mail, with computer ink on paper, in an envelope with a stamp. Eventually accompanied by similar letters from the council issuing fines for truancy and/or compulsory social worker/legal intervention (as appropriate). Not sure what the solution would be for people who had no fixed address or other types of post trouble, admittedly... Partly because there are laws about how that sort of situation is handled (which requires a provable paper trail, and takes into account the number of parents who don't have internet). Partly in preparation for university, where failing to hand in a single assignment typically means failing the module (even if the scores on the other assignments and exams were perfect) and requires either a successful appeal, or a resit later on.

Most UK secondary school teachers were in person for the entire autumn term of September-December (barring quarantines - the average student lost 10 days that term to COVID exposures/outbreaks, and some only managed 2 weeks of attendance all term), and about 2/3 of them for one day in January - the first day of term, at a time when the UK's COVID stats were going so well that the schools were ordered shut in time for the second day of regular term. The other 1/3 were at schools which had scheduled a teacher training day for that day (UK state schools usually have 5 in a year, given the difficulties in scheduling short training sessions otherwise) and thus had no pupils... ....but that day was in any case not included in the ONS statistic. Some teachers have been in-person the whole time, because students with disabilities serious enough to get official documentation from school, children in contact with the social care system, students in residential or special schools of any kind, and the children of essential workers have been deemed entitled to in-person schooling throughout. Those without the ability to access online learning (and a broader definition of "essential workers") were added in January, but for most of the year, that's required a few % of the teachers to work all the hours in-person they usually would. So... ...not apples-to-apples, but not quite as apples-to-oranges as it may look at first glance. Everyone goes back to school at some point between last week and mid-April (depending on the part of the UK the school is in).

I think I'd have been inclined to reserve the J&J for people who were likely to have problems with making it to two appointments (that being its main strength over the other options the USA has approved), if I was going to reserve it for any particular population at all.

Also, a lot of people (of all kinds) routinely block numbers with reputations for launching robocalls, or mistake them for spam calls if they do receive them (simply from the tone of voice). Some people even block calls from numbers they don't know, so if the truancy-related calls weren't done on the main school line - something large schools sometimes do - and didn't tell the parent that was possible, there'd be no way for the parent to know the call was attempted. Indeed, in the latter case, the higher the level of the person doing the call, the more likely a problem the latter situation would be (since a head of grade, for example, almost certainly wouldn't use the reception phone system to call out). So the call could have been attempted but blocked/misinterpreted, leading to the discrepancy between accounts. (After all, a call that never receives a reply or doesn't even connect is only contact in the loosest sense of the word).

I don't think the law allows that in all places; the younger the child, the more risks there are, especially when dosing modifications for teenagers are yet to be established. (Edited as I realied from reading some other responses that American law does allow this).

On the other hand, if a vaccine regime that works and is safe for adults proves to either be ineffective, or unsafe, for children, it's an even bigger problem to give it to children in the middle of a pandemic than otherwise. The testing is necessary, even if the slow pace is frustrating. (Though there's also the point that a lot of places may well have a vaccine with approval for children before all the adults in those places that want vaccine have received it. Having a pediatric vaccine approved today is only going to change things if enough vaccine exists in an area for children to get doses in the first place).

Another thing I'd ask is whether she knows how to self-advocate effectively, and when and where to do so. If not, the plan needs to include assistance in learning these things, because that is ultimately how she will get through life without other people talking about her diagnosis behind her back.

Third edition TWTM says in the footnote of the first high school science page that "In high school, earth science gives way to a more intensive study of astronomy." I think this is to do with a fairly specific vision of neoclassical education, at least partly driven by a tendency for the most common high school science study materials to each be a year long. It is not at all a prohibition of earth science as a scientific study. The fact that you are asking whether the traditional trio of "big three" sciences is compulsory itself indicates that strict adherence to TWTM science recommendations may not be for you or your homeschool - which is perfectly acceptable. (Yes. You can have whichever sciences you like in high school, as long as they're done to the same theoretical and practical level as would be expected from high school - which is itself a somewhat flexible concept). "Natural sciences" means, "Any science that is not a social science and uses scientific method". So trying to use US History pre- and post-1877, human geography and sociology to get out of doing sciences wouldn't work, even though some subject-appropriate elements of the scientific method may be used in all of those courses (because the admissions office has a separate criterion for social sciences like those). Earth science is also known as physical geography, has its roots in physics (with involvement from both biology and chemistry), and as such is a valid high school natural science.

Herbs are good for retraining habits. Most of them are pretty resistant to rookie errors involving too much or too little water, you'll probably snip the leaves off before they need dusting and if you fail, you can immediately replace them with some more seeds because they're cheap and seed packs tend to have loads.

At this point, I think Coursera and other MOOC courses are more useful for proving sustained interest in academics in general, the subject in particular and mastery of the basics thereof, rather than as a replacement for college in an academic sense. While Google would accept a Google certificate for data analytics, the portability of such a certificate is not yet tested, and I would not expect it to be as portable as a community college certification. (For example, The Google IT Support one is considered a valid route to entry in the 1st Line IT Support Desk job I had - which was at a company with no connection to Google - but so was the equivalent of 12th grade education in IT plus proof of interest in computers beyond the prescribed curriculum. Only experience in 1st Line support/short-order programming, or a degree, was sufficient to get 2nd Line, and supervisory roles required a specific professional course in managing a service desk plus previous experience in a support role at that specific company). As a plan to combine with work elsewhere, it's a reasonable path. Aside from the possibility that Google or another company to which the qualification is portable might make a hire, it may also make it easier to access other options for improving employability. However, I think it is reasonable to consider it a bridging/stopgap measure (depending on what happens when it is done) that might pay off in its own right, rather than a strategy that would definitely work by itself. If doing this path, I'd recommend pairing the data analytics course with any other courses Google suggests from other providers, in whatever sequence makes most sense (the IT Support one is advised to be done in conjunction with the COMPTIA A+ Certification, and the Google course is designed to complement it). Edit: Also be aware that as this course may well provide ACE credits (the IT Support one is worth 12 ACE credits), doing it will prevent the year being retroactively treated as a "gap year", should college or community college become options again.

Some vaccines aren't cleared for under-18s, but Pfizer is cleared for anyone 16 and over. This may be a factor if supply is "lumpy".

*facepalm* You're right. It's possible to do that model provided, with the flips being used to indicate signing... ...but it should definitely be written as 2 x 3 books, -2 x 3 books etc.

(3+4)*5 = 3*5 + 4*5? Get 35 books. 3 books in one row. 4 books in another row. Do this 5 times, so you have your 5 groupings of 3 + 4 books. Move the other book groups, such that you have a row with 5 lots of 3 books, above a row of 5 lots of 4 books. The total number of books is the same. Thus, distributive property applies. (In practice, it would likely take more examples than just the one for this to be learned via this method).

I'd have said it's because negative is opposite to positive. At that point, it's possible to make an analogy using manipulatives. Take some books. If the front cover is facing up, they're positive and if the back cover faces up, they're negative. Start by having them all face front cover upwards, since we live in a world that uses positive numbers more often than negative numbers. 2 books x 3 books = 2 groups of 3 books = 6 books. No books were flipped, so they're all still positive. -2 books x 3 books... ....there's still going to be 6 books. But which way do they face? There is a request here to do the opposite of 2 books x 3 books once. So flip all the books over once. What do you get? All 6 books have the back cover facing upwards. Therefore, we have -6. -2 books x -3 books = -2 groups of -3 books. There is a request here to do the opposite of 2 groups x 3 books twice. So, flip all the books over twice. They are now all facing front-cover up, which means we have 6 books. So proof, via manipulatives, that a negative means "the opposite of positive" and how to know how different uses of negative signs affect the signing of the answer.

I think one potential factor is that the specific person/people who prepared the material might feel stepped over if other people end up correcting them, especially if those people are from a group that have historically abused the power they had over people in their community. If that feeling kicks in before the preparers even find out the proposed point of improvement, they won't receive it; they're still processing emotional fallout. If the preparer does not receive feedback, they can't act on it, which in turn prevents them from improving from that specific piece of feedback. It might perhaps be better to say "The important thing is that feedback is done in an effective way, and you/we are not currently in a position to provide that for these specific preparers on this specific point". As @kristin0713 states, there are other factors involved here as well about how the community works that would impede a hearing person outside the community's ability to give feedback that would be accepted in the spirit intended. Similar things happen in many different minority communities (and learning situations in general - how often do school essay markers ignore some weakness in a student's craft because that student isn't ready to receive that feedback yet, especially in places where an antagonistic relationship exists between students and staff?). It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whose implementation is more accurate/better, or (for the point I added) in suggesting anything about the group as a whole - just the needs of the particular person/people involved with that specific material.

Pretty much any PC or Mac from the last four years should be capable of this, provided you add a quality keyboard to it. (Desktops generally come with the keyboard; you will need to purchase this for a laptop). If buying the laptop, I'd recommend a cheap switched keyboard, as this is likely to last a long time even if it turns out that the computer is used to type on a lot. A cheap separate mouse is optional, but recommended from the outset. For a desktop, try whatever keyboard comes with it and purchase a better one if necessary. I would recommend installing Libre Office or MS Office, depending on your budget and what (if anything) you already have. Either will work well for what you want. You don't need an expensive computer for these uses.