I would have had such a hard time not accidentally backing up and stepping on her foot, then saying "Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't see you!" I'm a jerk.

I would be really concerned about this. This is not a good track for anyone aimed at anything higher than a community college. I would only consider it to be the correct placement if he were still struggling with pre-algebra. I would advocate very strongly for him to be placed in a standard one-year algebra class.

Really, there is NOTHING wrong with not starting math until the kid is 5 or even later. Nothing nothing nothing. Just pick something that YOU can work with (and if you don't like manipulatives, feel free to not get a program that involves them!) and do it at the pace your kid is comfortable with. You are not behind. If a kid is the type of kid who could have been doing grade 2 math in K, well, I would expect him to plow through K-1 math pretty rapidly, but you absolutely don't need to feel *behind* because you didn't start him at 3.

Sure you can. You just can't expect any sort of concession of defeat. But this is for your DH: http://xkcd.com/386 :)

Can you re-sell them? Even if you don't make back what you spent, at least you might get *something* back, and get rid of them, and not have to look at them thinking about what a mistake it was.

I really wouldn't change programs if you know you're going BACK to Saxon in a year. I'd use whatever his school would have had him use. This will give him the best foundation for being on the same page with the other students in his grade.

Math year-round. TT is not the strongest program, but a student who completes and understands TT will be much better off than a student who fails to complete or fails to understand a stronger program. Frankly I think they will be better off than many of the PS students, who have "passed" programs which are technically more rigorous based on magical extra credit at the end of the semester. Since he has struggled with math before, it might be a good fit for him. If he makes it through precalc before the midpoint of his senior year, at that point you should have him take a placement test at any local college available for dual enrollment and start wherever he places.

1 was sometimes classed as a prime a while ago. There's a discussion as to why it no longer is here: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PrimeNumber.html -- note that some of the publication dates in works that have classed it as a prime reflect more recent reprints of classic texts, such as Hardy and Wright. As a side note about the parity of 0, it is an even number. There's a REALLY interesting discussion about misconceptions involving the parity of 0 here -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parity_of_zero#Education

Did she do both biology courses or just one? I think if she did both she should be okay for college.

The biggest reason daily work is assigned credit in high school and college is because many students won't do it if it isn't worth points. Then they will fail the exams because they haven't practiced. I think the model of requiring work to be completed and corrected if wrong, but basing the grade on exams, is far superior, but if implemented in most non-selective high schools or universities would cause astronomical failure rates.

Thanks! I wondered where that had gone (but clearly not enough to figure out it was still a setting). :)

Yeah, exactly. I'd rather scroll past a bunch of likes than a bunch of posts that quote the post and say "what she said". I would have just indicated my agreement with a "like" but they're invisible! See! :p

No. The placement tests can give falsely high results for students who have been using Saxon. Testing through is fine. There are 23 tests, right? So if she takes one a day and aces them all, it'll take less than 5 weeks to finish 6/5 and get to the beginning of 7/6. If she doesn't ace them all, well, you know where to start doing the lessons in 6/5.

+1. I'd rather see it replaced with a 'rate this thread as useful' button, and if it has enough 'usefuls' it gets a star. Kinda like chili peppers on RMP.

She's not quite 7? I wouldn't worry about this at that age, it's a great use of a mental strategy. As long as she doesn't have access to a calculator for daily work, I would expect them to become ingrained through repetition.

It is very common to skip those chapters. Quite frankly it is not uncommon for students to not see sequences and series until they get to Calc II/BC, because that chapter is so commonly skipped in both algebra 2 and precalculus. They will be taught from scratch in calculus at the CC. I cannot say what TPS will do. I *would* preview the sequences and series material prior to calculus II if his precalc class doesn't cover it, simply because calc II students tend to find it VERY confusing when it's their first pass through the material. I'd also run through the limits chapter of the precalc book (if there is one) over the summer, again, simply because many students find their first exposure to limits confusing. But that is a whole year off, and solidifying his algebra and learning trigonometry is more important at the moment.

You can access the fine arts syllabi that NY state uses here: http://www.p12.nysed.gov/ciai/pub/artscatalogpg.html I was going to look at a few but my connection is crappy and it tells me it'll take 16 minutes to download, but even if you don't use them, this will give you some ideas as to how the PS students satisfy this requirement.

College algebra + trig (two semesters) will be very close in coverage to an average high school precalculus. I would expect it to cover somewhat less than a rigorous honors high school course and focus heavily on fundamental skills. However, it will prepare him adequately for the calculus course at the same CC.

This reading list is making me feel uneducated :D

You don't need to do geometry if you are using the traditional Saxon but Saxon Advanced Math is too challenging for many students to complete in one school year, so most are more like alg 1, alg 2, adv math first part, adv math second part and begin calculus. ETA: Further comment on using Advanced Math in a school year -- http://usingsaxon.com/newsletterpage-2013.php#0213

Specifically, California declined to approve courses that were taught with YEC material as satisfying the a-g requirements for entry. I believe this is still true, although they are getting worse and worse about letting homeschoolers satisfy those requirements anyway. I have heard that some Canadian universities (McGill was mentioned) have declined to accept homeschoolers who used Apologia into science courses. It's in post 18 of this thread: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/521507-secular-or-christian-bio/

It looks like the first year of a two-year course. Can you search the school's website for information, while you wait to hear back from the counselor?

She probably hears a lot of "well, I hope I don't need YOUR services soon!"

Saxon's placement test is designed for people who haven't used Saxon and can easily result in falsely high scores for students who have. Based on your statement about her not being able to work problems from other algebra books I really don't think she's understood it. I would re-do algebra with a different curriculum.