That still means around 60K students for California. I'm thinking back @Farrar to what was happening in CA in the second time period. 9/30 to 10/12. A lot of people did not withdraw until October or even later because they were trying to make it work. I think it was still quite up in the air if districts were returning, not returning. or promising to return soon. Remember school districts were filing plans with the gov't to be approved to open. The state was all over the place with requirements and then the whole tier thing rolled out. Since you didn't have to file a PSA until 10/15 and could still even pull out mid-year and file, I kept seeing waves around the October filing period, two months in, around Thanksgiving, then Christmas and then at the end of the semester.

It is possible to do SM 6A/6B in a semester's worth of time.

It is for us. The CSA we joined has a bi-weekly option which is perfect for us. We are in California so we get produce year round. The variety, quanitity, quality and flavor has been amazing.

Yes, nondenominational evangelical. We've been doing virtual and outdoor services with social distancing. We are in CA so in our area, churches have only been allowed to return to in-person in February after the Supreme Court ruling to allow 25% capacity masked (the state is working under a tier system). They have only decided to return to in-person at that capacity with masking after Easter. We have really expanded our online offerings beyond worship services. We've had the highest weekly participation this last year and the highest participation in our small groups which are online. We are doing a lot to engage in increasing our work and presence in underserved communities working with different community services, school districts, and local government. We've been able to put about 100k volunteer hours as church serving the community and put $650K towards Covid relief, community needs (like food pantry, housing, clothing, etc.), human trafficking, and global relief efforts.

I used it after BA5, SM5 and Jousting Armadillos before AOPS pre-algebra. It was really nice to spend time eploring math concepts outside of the normal sequence. I remember my son reading all the LOF pre-A books as well around this time. I think we were doing Zacarro's Real World Algebra as well.

Just wondering aloud whether or not the fact that this community is populated by homeschoolers that perhaps our/we is natural because you naturally prioritize that as part of your identity. I speculate that we might spend a lot more time as "we" than the average person spends more time functioning purely as individuals. To be honest, just "me" time is pretty low in my world.

Don't you wish there was a category that is apolitical evangelicalism? I resonate with what this pastor had to say in this quote: Perhaps most urgent of all, I want to avoid contributing to a crisis prevalent in our time, namely, the subordination of faith to politicized identities and partisan politics. It wasn’t always this way or this extreme. But increasingly, people in the pew derive their moral meaning from their politics. Instead of allowing their theological convictions and values to shape their political perspectives, many Christians now interpret faith through the prism of their political ideology. The preacher’s task is to help people focus on their religious identity ahead of their partisan identity, and not all language helps with this task. https://www.christiancentury.org/article/editorpublisher/politics-pulpit-and-my-pastoral-calling?fbclid=IwAR2hUdOIJJxUfKO5jO5Mb05fu4k35ebP6Q--9TJ4NgTwnMkaZQkSW84L4vA

I will say that homeschooling my son using AOPS (plus Beast and other math resources from earlier years) taught me a lot about mtah that I never had an opportunity to learn.

I readily admit that coming out of high school that I earned a 5 for AP Calc. However, I chose to take the Math 1 series which was geared for STEM and Econ majors over the 16 series which is a terminal calculus series meant for all other majors including business not continuing on with math. I did fine in 1A but by the end of 1B, I realized that I was not at all prepared to think at this level of math. I earned my A in 1B, but it was enough for me to see the writing on the wall because of who my peers were in those classes. Proofs were a long ago distant concept from geometry. So that pretty much spelled the end of my math education because I realized I would be playing catch up/struggling for something that would never be required for business majors. This also meant that I would have to opt out of the math intensive economics course sequences either that used calculus quite heavily. The time it would have required didn't seem worth it to me at that time because it wasn't critical to my major. It did show me how weak conceptually my math education was coming out of my high school (not particularly a good school since about 10% of the students went on to 4 year college). We had just that one AP class for my school which was about 2,500 students.

Also you should be aware that if you are petitioning to be on your local school team that they are not required at all to allow you to join. That is completely at the discretion of the principal and the head coaches. It has made all the difference that I was volunteering to coach, and that my students placed well at the invitational in the brand new event against the powerhouse schools - ones who have won at state and national SO.

You would not be able to do SO until you are no longer with your charter. If you are enrolled in a public or private school, you must participate on a team sponsored by your school. School teams are strictly prohibited from taking students who are enrolled elsewhere. Privately homeschooled students may only participate on the public school team for the school they would normally be districted to attend OR they may form their own homeschool team but you may not have students from more than 2 bordering counties participating. Homeschool teams may not have any students who are public, private or virtual. My privately homeschooled son was able to do this last year because I was willing to volunteer to coach. I coached two events and chaperoned a 3rd, and that was a lot of work. The material you have to be teaching at the middle school event level is at least AP level. I can tell you from experience that if you are trying to field a full team it means for 23 events for 15 students with 2 students per event. Every student has to take 3 events and one has to take 4. Students who were doing well in their events were putting in a solid amount of time every week studying at least an hour to an hour and a half a day on top of weekly practice sessions. I would say I was putting on average of 10 hours a week of my own time. I was developing material for a new SO event completely from scratch so I was doing a lot of research. Cyber/Virtual school teams can be formed, but I'm not sure how truly feasible this really is in practice though. The test only events are possible to prep for virtually, but any build or lab based events really need to be in person for practice with partner. From the way, the rules are written, it looks like you would have to be exclusively enrolled at said school similiar to the restrictions on school teams I mentioned above.

It exists, but it is often covert. While this company got caught at it, there's a lot of this going on behind the scenes. This tech company posted a job listing qualification. Non-Asians. https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/company-pulls-Bay-Area-job-posting-Asian-15950197.php?fbclid=IwAR0yIn9FwwqiREKiKpBFO7LpJwerXKreeT-HVXr1Ox1i50A71tN6gh88iik

Within the Asian communities, all I can say is there is a lot of frustration.

@RoadrunnerThe sad trend in urban districts seems to be moving in the direction of removing programs for high achieving students. I am pretty sure that you are going to see gifted programs across the country being eliminated soon. This relates to your comment about Asian students in a lot of ways. Lowell eliminates merit-based admissions and goes lottery. Lowell is San Francisco's version of NYC's Stuyvesant. https://abc7news.com/sfusd-board-of-education-meeting-school-lowell-high-sf/10325219/ NYC is moving in the same direction: https://gothamist.com/news/why-are-nyc-parents-so-upset-idea-scrapping-gifted-and-talented-programs Boston is doing it as well: https://www.wgbh.org/news/education/2021/02/26/citing-racial-inequities-boston-public-schools-suspend-advanced-learning-classes

Maybe the issue is focusing on being too literal and thinking strictly of word meanings versus the concept that certain words and phrases actually come to embody certain ideas in a culture and society. This about the phrase social distancing. Its literal meaning of the word is still the same, but what it really means in this 2020 is something completely different than what it meant prior to 2020. The actual use of colored carries a lot of negative social and cultural history around racism that is not apparent unless you deliberately chose to learn about that history and why it is loaded. There are many words and phrases that people use often have no idea are quite loaded. For example, the term Chinaman. The use of this term is derogatory because it is used in the context of racial slurs. The literal meaning is correct and accurate if you interpret it as a person of Chinese descent and even though it was historically a compound word like Englishman. However, this term should never ever be used because it is the equivalent of the n-word for Asians. Even when you don't completely understand, perhaps you can take the point of view that in your personal lived experience you don't fully grasp why this is offensive. Then you have two choices 1) accept the feedback/counsel that this word is considered highly offensive by people of color/minorities/non-white communities and just stop using it, and 2) recognize that there is some history and knowledge that you don't know and you have a choice to either not learn about or do become educated about. People of color don't actually have a choice about having this knowledge because their lived experience and histories have already sadly educated them about "colored" and all that means. I hope these links might help if you want to learn more as I sincerely think you are open to becoming educated about this topic: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/03/30/295931070/the-journey-from-colored-to-minorities-to-people-of-color https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/dahleen-glanton/ct-dahleen-glanton-colored-email-reading-list-20200304-utx7geiwm5hupa3t7w6xr3xqn4-story.html

The majority of elementary teachers can't pass 8th grade level math proficiency says everything about the abysmal state of math education in the US. Pass being the operative word here.

I know some will not want to read this because it's Fox Business, but this is the only article I came across that comprehensively explains about security: who gets it, who pays for it, how much it cost, etc. I also saw in another article that Princess Diana refused security from the Palace and chose to pay for her own post divorce. Being a Prince or Princess doesn't mean you get security apparently. https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/what-members-royal-family-do-not-get-full-protection

This is exactly what happened to my sister's friend. I should probably have added she is an immigrant who came to the US for college.

Sadly, I know someone who was essentially lost custody of her children because she failed to get her own legal counsel, pled guilty on the abuse charges because she naively believed she could win her husband back - said husband lied to her about this and convinced her that pleading guilty would make it all go away, said husband convinced kids to lie to CPS and the police (one of the children has admitted on multiple occasions to my sister who chaperones monitored visits that they lied because of fear of the the dad). It sounds like the craziest story, but the state of WA apparently from what my sister says is set up so that it is favors the spouse who files charges first. This woman was so naive in retaining counsel and believing her husband's lies and failed to protect her interests. She completely ignored my sister and her other friends who told her she needed a lawyer and to stop believing whatever her husband was telling her.

That was my first thought as where...what happened to the comma. LOL!

I personally skipped SM6 and did Jousting Armadillos before going on to AOPS pre-algebra. DM 6-8 would cover pre-A and algebra over the series so that's a reasonable option if he enjoys Singapore style versus a straight textbook like the ones you mentioned. I did a stint with Jacobs' MHE in between AOPS PA and algebra for my son. Were you thinking of MM7 as pre-A? Any of the texts you mentioned are pretty good choices. I don't have copies on hand for Foerster or Dolcani (borrowed them from the library to look at), but Jacobs is pretty gentle and the first 1/3 is PA topics anyways. That seems like a reasonable way to start as well. I was thinking of using it for my son, but he requested to start AOPS Algebra. We are taking our time through that because I think it has helped to let things "marinate" for him as we work through the Algebra II topics that are in that text. I found that moving quickly was counterproductive to true mastery and understanding for him. FWIW, JA was not difficult, but it was pretty useful in getting him used to reading text and learning to organize his work clearly and logically.

When you were going through SM, were you using things like Intensive Practice or Challenging Word Problems? For a kid that is good at math, the TB/WB doesn't offer enough depth and challenge IME.

A fact check list from the interview. It was an interesting read. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9338421/Royal-revelations-test.html

FWIW, I did SM1 with my son at 4.5. I don't see why not as long as you keep it paced to where he is engaged and enjoys it. If you want to add in games, consider getting Kitchen Table Math and using those activities alongside.

I have reluctant writer over here. He worked through WWE and TC. We did IEW-SWI and SCC for a year, and I delayed starting WWS 1 until this year. I thought about doing it the year before and am so glad I didn't. Because writing was becoming a source of friction (common issue for many on here), I outsourced this to WTMA. I know there is no way that he would have been able to willing to keep up with the ramp up in output that comes towards the middle of the book. It would have been fine if we were doing it on our own at half speed though in 5th grade.