Definitely check out UT Dallas. It has a very strong nerd culture. There is a good bus system. There is NO football team! That was a huge selling feature for my kids. Both of my older kids got full tuition scholarships there. They want your transcript. They don't want course descriptions. We had no problems getting in as hsers. All of my kids were hsed K-12 (except for 6th and 7th grades for my oldest). They all did dual credit in high school. Only my middle dd did an AP test and she only did AP Physics B and got a 3.

I normally have my phone automatically scheduled for "do not disturb" mode from midnight to 7am. Right now I have "do not disturb" turned off because one of my kids had surgery last week and once they go to bed at night, they are trapped in the bed until I come to help them get out of bed. I think it will be at least one more week before they can safely sit up from lying down. So they are supposed to text me if they need anything. It's progress. I was sleeping on the floor in their room for several nights after we got home from surgery. I know my two younger kids have their phones set to automatically go on "do not disturb" at night. I'm not sure about my oldest, but she generally doesn't hear anything during the night anyway. It was a challenge to find an alarm system that could wake her up.

At my high school, consequences can either be a reduced grade or disciplinary, but not both. After trying the disciplinary route, I gave up on that one. The disciplinary route just meant that the grade-level principal talked with each of the students and they all said they absolutely didn't cheat and they nothing happened at all. As far as the grading consequences go, I can give them a zero immediately, but I am required to offer them a retake. I can cap the retake score at 70 so that their maximum possible grade is 70. Generally they don't manage any higher than 50 on the retake.

I teach science at a public high school and cheating is rampant. We had a total of 9 sections of physics. I had the very last section. By the time my class took any of the tests, they already knew the answers. We tried doing two versions of the tests, but that wasn't good enough. I finally committed to writing additional versions (completely different from each other, not just scrambled answers for the multiple choice part, but completely different) so that we had 4 different versions. That took care of most of the issues with cheating on the tests. There were just too many to have a good chance of having the version you had memorized. By the end of the schoolyear, they would start to groan as soon as they saw my multicolored stack of tests/quizzes (each version a different color) and complain that it made it too hard to cheat.

I'm so sorry you are going through this. Mine appears to be a much better as an exhusband than he was as a husband. We haven't filed yet (been working on details), but I think we are about ready to. I'm just waiting for the lawyer to get back to me.

The orthotics combined with exercises from PT took care of it for me. I have to be careful not to spend too much time barefoot or I will start having problems again. I am a teacher, so I am on my feet 8 hours/day during the week. As long as I have good quality shoes (Brooks Ghost for me) and my orthotics, I am fine.

I'm going to try contacting the career services center at my university (5 hours from where I live now) and see what they can do to help with fixing up my resume. It wasn't a great career center when I was actually going to the school 30 years ago, but I figured I might as well look into it.

Has anybody used a service to help with their resume and job search? I've been watching the videos from Work It Daily. I'm really lousy at promoting myself.

Our retirement benefits keep getting cut and the medical premiums for retired teachers keep going up. We are on a different system from state employees. Their retirement program and health program is fine. That's what our legislators get. Anybody in education (and it's not just teachers, it's bus drivers and cafeteria workers and janitors too) is pretty much screwed in Texas. They keep saying they are going to put through a raise for teachers, but I'll believe it when I see it. They have promised a raise before and then not done it. Our teaching contracts have NO pay attached to them. They say that the pay will come from the salary scale that is published in August (we have to sign our contracts in early May). The health insurance plan was more expensive this past school year and covered less. The copays all went up along with the monthly cost. If a pay raise actually does go through, I am sure they will cut back health insurance even more to pay for it.

I am in Texas and our retirement fund is NOT fully funded. They keep cutting benefits. The grocery store where my middle dd works actually has better medical benefits at a lower cost than my school district does. Our ESL program is ONE teacher for the entire school. She is awesome! But she is horribly overworked. We used to have two teachers sharing the load, but now we have just one. We need to have at least 3. The district has cut teacher positions every year and our classes keep getting bigger and bigger. This isn't an issue unique to the school or district where I am teaching.

I am currently a high school science teacher. I've been teaching in the public school system for five years. Now that I am getting a divorce, it is urgent that I find a different job. I can't handle another year in the classroom. Conditions for teachers went way downhill this year and next year is going to be even worse based on what they are telling us. I would, of course, love to get a job that pays more than teaching, but I will take one that just matches my teaching pay so that I can get out of the classroom. I can't take a pay cut, but I am willing to work for the same pay in a field that actually has advancement opportunities. I've been hunting for another job since January. I had two interviews with Houghton Mifflin and I thought that was going really well, but I didn't make it to the third stage. Aside from that I've had phone interviews with two other companies that didn't go any further than the phone interview. I have a BS and MS in Physics, but I graduated in 1989, so my degree is very much out of date. I am certified in Special Education, Secondary Math (7th-12th), Secondary Science (7th-12th), and ESL. What I have done all of these years is mostly teach. I hsed my kids from K-12. I tutored high school science and math through a tutoring service. I was a contract physics author for Sapling Learning for six months writing online homework problems. I have been teaching for 5 years now in the public school system. I was a high school special education teacher for the first 1.5 years and have been a general education science teacher for the past 3.5 years (IPC, chemistry, physics, forensics). I also coached the UIL science team this year (made it all the way to state!) and have been an active sponsor of the campus GSA for the past two years. I've been applying for instructional design, curriculum development, and corporate trainer positions because I actually have the qualifications for those types of positions. I'm starting to run out of time to find another job though. There is one week left of this school year and then there are 9 weeks off before we report back for the next school year. I don't want to start the schoolyear and then leave. That really isn't fair to the students. I need to find another job before teachers report back to work. I haven't even had a company ask for a phone interview since late April. I'm considering going through a coding camp program, but they all appear to cost upwards of $10,000 and take at least 6 months. I would still need to have a nonteaching job while going through such a program because teaching is so all-consuming. I also really don't think my psyche can handle another year in the classroom. There is only so much you can take of being treated like garbage by students, parents, and administration. I have some really great students, but they are very much in the minority. I know what they have proposed for my teaching schedule for next year and I am scheduled to have half of my classes be with behavior problem students. Any suggestions?

I had a long discussion with my youngest just before their 21st birthday. They wanted to get out with me and get a Mike's Hard Lemonade. I don't drink at all. I haven't had any alcohol in about 25 years. I don't like it. I don't like what it tastes like. I really don't like what it feels like. It just isn't something I am interested in ever having. If you took all the alcohol that I had over the five years that I actually tried it and poured it altogether in one jug, you might end up with half of a gallon. My soon-to-be ex-husband is an alcoholic. My 21yo is very well aware of all of his issues. I kept trying to figure out how to be supportive of them wanting to celebrate their 21st birthday with a milestone while also letting them know about my fears in regard to alcohol with a genetic tendency towards alcoholism (lots of alcoholics in STBXH's family). I finally ended up talking about it with them the week before their birthday and we both ended up satisfied. They completely understood where I was coming from after having seen years of the effects of STBXH's alcoholism. They said that they already had a list of rules that they had made for alcohol consumption (because of course this particular child of mine would have already thought of that). They are also on medication that is not good to mix with alcohol, so that severely limits "safe" amounts of alcohol. Their list of rules: (1) no more than one drink at any particular time (2) never have a drink alone (3) never have a drink when feeling sad/lonely/depressed (4) no more than two drinks in a month (5) only have a drink with people you feel completely safe with (6) never take your eyes or your hands off of your drink (whatever it is) in a group setting to prevent something from being added to it

Thanks for all the input. One of the neurologists on our insurance who is also taking new patients specializes in MS. I'm going to have her contact his office to see about getting an appt.

So far my 23yo has been to the regular family practice doctor, the ER, a neurologist, an orthopedist, and an occupational therapist. It started off with some numbness (she described it as reduced sensation) and tingling in her right hand and forearm. She had been gaming heavily that week and had even taken the week off from work specifically to play a videogame that had just been released that she has been waiting several years for. She went to the see the family practice doctor, but didn't mention the gaming. The doctor wanted to do some bloodwork, but I have to be there for that since she has a very very strong vasovagal response. She passes out and convulses for several minutes after a blood draw or an injection (this has always been true for her and is terrifying to watch even when you know to expect it), so she can't go on her own for it. I arranged to arrive at work late three days later so I could take her for the bloodwork. The day that we were supposed to go for the bloodwork, she woke up terrified because the numbness was not just her forearm anymore. It had spread to her entire arm and her torso as well. We went to the ER. They tried to do an IV, but her blood pressure dropped like a rock as soon as they had the needle in and she kept convulsing. After 5-7 minutes, they pulled the needle out and her blood pressure and heart rate recovered. They did get bloodwork while it was in, but nothing was unusual. They got us an appointment with a neurologist for the next morning and sent us home. Over the course of that day, the numbness in her torso went down. The next morning, it was mostly back to just her forearm and hand again. The neurologist said that he couldn't explain why the other numbness had happened, but the numbness in her hand and arm must have been carpal tunnel from the gaming. He didn't see any need for any kind of testing since it appeared to be going away on its own. Later that day, she showed me her mattress because she said that it had become uncomfortable to sleep on. Her mattress was caving in. We bought her a new mattress which arrived two days later. Two weeks later, there was still some numbness in her arm and her torso, but not like it had been before. We talked to the family doctor who recommended seeing an orthopedist. The orthopedist didn't know what to make of the torso numbness, especially the "band of tightness" she described as happening sometimes. The numbness was happening in both arms, not just the right, and she said her fingers were feeling kind of stiff. She described some particular sensations she was feeling in her hands and the orthopedist said her description sounded like cubital tunnel syndrome because of the side of her arm and the particular fingers it was affecting. He set her up to see an occupational therapist. He didn't have any explanation for the torso numbness but was hopeful that OT would help for that as well. The OT didn't know what to make of any of it. She gave her some exercises to do. Some of them seemed to help. Others appeared to make it worse. The OT dismissed her after several sessions. Through all of this, there has been no loss of strength. Now we are not sure where to go next. We are looking for another neurologist. We already had a 5-year journey to get an Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome diagnosis for our 20yo. I started looking into it after people on this board mentioned it to me. It still took time because there isn't a single test for it. Everything else has to be ruled out first. The geneticist gave that diagnosis 3.5 years ago. In all of our googling, the thing that keeps coming up is MS. That's terrifying. No doctor has mentioned it at all yet.

I don't understand where you are getting the idea that hormone therapy was proposed as a solution to suicidal ideation. That is not what it was about at all. Think about another case. A teen wants to have reduction surgery. The mother supports it. The doctor supports it. The father opposes it. Although the teen has been having issues with chest size for several years, he just doesn't want reduction to happen. Suppose there is an upper age at which the surgery is no longer as effective and the teen is already at that age. Are you going to tell me that you think the father is the one with a rational argument here? This is also a permanent change of the body. This is not a whim on the part of the teen or the mother or the doctors. The teen has been struggling with this for years and has been living as male and the father refuses to acknowledge that.

I don't understand why there would be any objection to the court's ruling. The father has had years to do that research. His son has been living as a boy for several years and he still refuses to accept that. Those of you who are arguing that it's not right that the father is being overruled don't seem to understand that if the father's side is taken, then the mother AND the teen AND the medical professionals are ALL being overruled. Choosing not to do anything is making a decision and that decision is to completely discount everybody except the father. I don't see why you would think that he should be the ultimate authority. The judge didn't take authority away from the parents. Any decision he made would have favored one parent over the other. He chose the one that was on the same side as the teen and the medical professionals. Either choice that the judge made would be overruling one of the parents. I don't understand why some of you think the father is more worthy of making the decision than the mother is when the father stands alone but the mother is backed up by the teen and medical professionals. One of my kids has been on HRT for 1.5 years now. I wish we had known before puberty was over. Nonbinary is a lot harder to figure out than trans.

I was in college from 1985-1989. My cost for the entire four years of my undergraduate degree was $5000 for in-state tuition. The cost now for in-state tuition at the same school is $6000/semester. So a single semester now costs more than eight semesters did thirty years ago. I was able to make enough money working a full-time temporary job in the summer to pay for the entire year of tuition and had a little left over to pay for books. I worked a part-time job during the school year that was just 10 hours/week and that was able to provide me with the spending money I needed for gas and food and supplies. While the minimum wage has slightly more than doubled since then (it was $3.35/hour), the cost of college has octupled! To pay for one year of college would take 1655 hours at minimum wage, which is 40 weeks of working 40 hours/week. So if you can manage working a full time job while also going to school full time, you can still pay for college as you go. But that is NOT realistic at all. You can work part-time while going to school full-time or work full-time while going to school part-time, but it would be incredibly difficult to work full-time and go to school full-time for four years straight.

I am looking for a fitness tracker, but my primary need is for something wearable that will measure my pulse. I would really like something for under $50, but I don't know that there is something reliable that will do that. Fitbit is what I hear so much about, but those are expensive. I'll do it if that is the best option though. What is your suggestion?

I used both as supplements when I taught high school chemistry and physics class at my house. I sent the videos to kids who missed class. If you order the cd-rom from Georgia PBS, you will have a complete course with lesson outlines, pacing, assignments, labs, quizzes, and tests.

I recommend the georgia public broadcasting physics course. It's a solid high school level course.

Saxon is an entirely different methodology from TT. Instead of reinforcing what she learned in TT, you might find that you completely throw her off the bus. If your goal is to ensure that she has enough practice to reinforce what she is learning, then Aleks as a backup resource is a good idea. I don't like Aleks for teaching, but I do like it for finding and filling in gaps and misunderstandings. If your goal is to raise the math score on the SAT, then she needs SAT practice, not some other math program. The best way to prep for the math portion of the SAT is to work through a ton of practice tests and go over EVERY missed problem to see why it was missed. Working with a tutor is a good idea. It will pay off. I spent $600 on the SAT prep program my oldest went to. That was a LOT of money, but it raised her SAT score to the point where she got a full tuition scholarship and she wasn't anywhere near that range before taking the prep course. It worked so well for her that I did that same course for my other kids. They all had much higher scores after doing the prep program than they did before and it paid off in terms of scholarships.

During the schoolyear (I'm a ps teacher), I take 1mg of melatonin every night to help my brain stop spinning in circles. I don't need it in the summer. Sometimes that isn't enough by itself and then I use an app on my phone called mysleepbutton. That nearly always does the trick if the melatonin isn't enough. It gives my brain something else to do instead of getting stuck on what I need to do at school the next day.

I think it's awesome. You have no idea how many of the kids in my high school are sexually active. I would far rather they be able to get condoms from the nurse than do without. I hope the nurse gives them several and not just one. Being able to get condoms from the nurse is not going to make a student decide to start having sex, but it might prevent a teen pregnancy.

I was treated by a podiatrist. He had a series of exercises that I needed to do and taped my feet every week. I had to wear night splints for several months as well. After he had gotten the problem to subside, he got me some custom orthotics. I get a new pair of orthotics from the foot doctor every 3-5 years. I have to be careful not to spend too much time out of my shoes or I start having problems again.

I don't know what employers are looking for in a Linked In profile. Any recommendations for resources to look at to update my profile?