How do we recover from a bad 9th grade year?

[FLHomeschool2000]

Question says it all. I have a very bright student who made some poor mistakes this year. Coupled with a major move and me having a baby--we are still finishing up 9th grade and she also just disclosed she has failed an on-line course due to lack of doing homework for nearly the entire semester. (I did check, but versus me viewing grades and checking the actual homework submitted--I took her word for it when she said she was doing it and completed it.)

 

I am not even sure what to do about her transcript and the emotions in me right now are swirling.

 

She has four courses that can be successfully completed. But that is it. She was in a theater production as well.

 

So I don't know what to do or how to turn her around.

 

The class she failed was one she wanted to take and loved. It was just an extremely poor decision. The class is over, so there is no "making it up". She will need to repeat the course. I don't even know of that teacher will permit her to and due to the cost, my usuajnf would prefer a virtual school option that is free.

 

This is the kid who got a 30 on the English portion of her SAT and *was* lining up as potential National Merit Scholar material.

 

But between her conduct this year and performance--I just don't know what to think.

 

Her time was wasted doing the class discussion boards, playing with her electronics and leisure reading.

 

At this point, I have her in a small kid's school desk in my presence to do her work.

 

What happens now?

I know where I have failed as a parent teacher. I am just having some anxiety over the repercussions.

 

Thanks!

[Ethel Mertz]

As SWB said this week in the online WTM conference, you can still give her the gift of time in her high school years. You might want to consider having her repeat 9th grade - or a portion of it. Have her do high school in 4 and a half or 5 years. You will still have 4 years worth of work to show on her transcripts.

 

I'm hoping some others who have BTDT will chime in with other ideas!

[FLHomeschool2000]

Would it be okay to utilize summers to give her the opportunity rather than calendar time? So still 4 years but with summer school to retake where she needs to?

[regentrude]

You have several options:

You can decide to give her an extra year and take five years to graduation.

You can school through summers and have her graduate "on time".

You can augment the four credits she earned by doing extra work and organize the transcript by subject instead of by year, so you can "make up" for a light 9th grade.

 

Whatever you choose, it sounds like she needs more supervision and parental involvement in her schooling. That is actually quite normal for teenagers. You need to check that she does the work for her outsourced courses. If she did not live up to the responsibility, she loses the privilege to work independently and has to work under your supervision.

 

ETA: I actually don't see any looming "repercussions". She can complete four credits. I would evaluate whether the theatre involvement merits a credit as well. You could have her make up two credits over the summer - so she'd have respectable 6 or 7 credits for 9th grade.

As for possible National Merit, none of this has any bearing on that.

 

And as for repeating the course she failed: you have different options of handling this. I don't see why she has to retake it (unless you are under an umbrella school that requires it or are required by state law). You can decide that this course was not for core academic credit but enrichment and simply not count it at all. Not everything a student does during the high school years has to end up on a transcript. You can decide that the online class constituted only a part of a home taught credit and have her do additional work until you feel satisfied to award credit for the subject from your homeschool.

 

[MomatHWTK]

In our state we can choose how to count credit hours, even in high school so your laws may require something different.  I am planning to loosely follow the state guidelines for counting a "credit hour" but take a two pronged approach.  If my child is enrolled in an online or other self-paced course that counts as a "credit" for a particular subject area, then when he finishes it he gets the credit.  If it is a class of my own making using a combination of resources, then we will try to follow the X minutes per semester rules of our state to determine when a credit has been earned. 

 

So, if it were me.  I would give her credits for the 4 classes she completed for the year and just continue to work toward earning the requisite number of credits needed for graduation.  In our case, missing one class would mean a loss of 2 credits for the year as our state seeks 40 credit hours for graduation on a 1 credit per semester basis for an average weighted class.

 

I would seek counsel from others in your state as to whether you will need to list the failed class on a transcript.  If it was an elective, you might be able to just write it off as life experience and not mention it at all- not sure how that works as I'm not at that stage in the game yet. 

 

For catch-up, of course use summer time unless you have other activities planned that are time consuming.  We school year round so it would be a total non-issue for me.  My oldest has some SN, so I absolutely plan to take advantage  of that extra time as needed so that I can lighten his school year schedule.  In college summer classes are often offered for the same credit as regular classes- the schedule is condensed and often the class meets more often each week or each class session is longer. 

 

ETA:  Repeating- all this is of course dependent on your state's laws.  :)

 

 

[Corraleno]

If the 4 credits that she did complete are not core courses with solid grades, then I would consider repeating 9th grade.

 

If they are core courses with good grades, then I would: (1) drop the failed online elective from the transcript, and tell her that she's used her one "Get Out of Jail Free" card and if she does it again, it will go on the transcript; (2) give her a half credit for the theatre production; and (3) have her complete another 1.5 credits over the summer, for a total of 6 credits in 9th. For the summer make-up work, I would do one credit in whichever of the 5 core subjects she's missing, and let the half-credit be a fun elective.

[FLHomeschool2000]

Thanks for the input!

It was not a core course. It was foreign language online. Unfortunately, it cannot be made up without repeating the course. We are not sure we will pay the course fee again. She went from an A at the end of the first semester to a

Cumulative F for not completing homework and not taking all quizzes. It really is heartbreaking.

 

But I suppose it is a lesson better learned now versus later. It was the second year of the language as well.

 

Her Core is Lit, Bio, Geometry, and World History

We will also have a Theology credit. I could create an English class specific credit with an essay writing course that she can take over the summer. I had tabled due to my ability to grade

the essays. But we have that and short story (IEW). Would that work as an English credit? If not, how could I round that out?

 

That would be 6 classes plus the half credit for Theater.

[regentrude]

Thanks for the input!

It was not a core course. It was foreign language online. Unfortunately, it cannot be made up without repeating the course. We are not sure we will pay the course fee again. She went from an A at the end of the first semester to a Cumulative F for not completing homework and not taking all quizzes. It really is heartbreaking.

 

I see different options:

1. give a half credit for the semester in which she did the work.

2. have her examined to determine whether she mastered Foreign Language Level 2 and award credit based on mastery, not jumping through assignment hoops (even college courses allow that option, if you ask up front)

3. Have her make up the work for the second semester over the summer and have her examined then.

 

Why does she have to have this particular course?

 

ETA: Seeing her coursework, I would be much less worried. She obviously has already completed Algebra 1 and Foreign Language Level 1. It is widely accepted to count high school level math and foreign language credits taken before 9th grade. A transcript by subject seems advisable.

[Corraleno]

Thanks for the input!

It was not a core course. It was foreign language online. Unfortunately, it cannot be made up without repeating the course. We are not sure we will pay the course fee again. She went from an A at the end of the first semester to a

Cumulative F for not completing homework and not taking all quizzes. It really is heartbreaking.

 

But I suppose it is a lesson better learned now versus later. It was the second year of the language as well.

 

Her Core is Lit, Bio, Geometry, and World History

We will also have a Theology credit. I could create an English class specific credit with an essay writing course that she can take over the summer. I had tabled due to my ability to grade

the essays. But we have that and short story (IEW). Would that work as an English credit? If not, how could I round that out?

 

That would be 6 classes plus the half credit for Theater.

 

Since it was the 2nd yr of foreign language, I would just put the 1st yr on her 9th grade transcript, and have her do the 2nd yr in 10th.

 

I'm confused about the English credit, though — you say she has a credit for Literature, but you need to add English? Did she not do any writing about the literature? "English" = literature + writing. If she needs work on composition, you can have her do that over the summer and just fold it into the English 9 (or whatever you want to call it) credit. (Is the IEW "short story" course you refer to Story Quest? If so, that is definitely a middle school program and wouldn't work for HS credit.)

 

That would give her 6.5 credits: English 9, Geometry, Biology, World History, Foreign Language 1, Theology (was this a full credit of 120-150 hrs, or a half credit?), and Theater (.5). 

[FLHomeschool2000]

It is a specific literature class. I was speaking of offering a specific composition class which focuses solely on writing. She loves to write. And I have seen such courses appear in the same year on transcripts.

[FLHomeschool2000]

The IEW courses were specific to the high school track. Not sure what course you were referring to.

[at the beach]

:grouphug: Take heart. This is not the end of the world. AT ALL. It sounds like you have had a busy year with a baby and a move. She probably feels terrible. It can be really hard to keep homeschool teens on track with their academics. Many need oversight. Online classes are not the same as live classes that meet everyday or a few times a week. JMO. 

 

I'd consider modifying how I handle homeschooling with her (whether that means adopting a more informal schooling approach, being more involved, adding some college classes at some point, or…) because I would not count on this not happening again. IMO this is a team effort between you and your daughter, and I think it will work out more than fine in the end. 

 

I would remedy the situation about credits this summer just as you've outlined doing. I don't think it makes sense to make her redo 9th next year, especially when she already appears to be doing very very well academically and has all these credits. Congrats on the 30 ACT English, that's fantastic. I am sure that if her plan was to try for NM, she will be just fine if she continues to work at it. :) For English, if you are wanting a writing credit, I agree, you can do that separately. Have you ever looked at Write at Home? That is one online program I think most kids will willingly do even without much oversight--and it sounds great for a kid who loves to write. It is painless, efficient, and produces results. They give info on credits on the website if I recall correctly. You can also add in a PE .5 credit if she has done any physical activity. 

 

Don't beat yourself up. Enjoy the summer. Realize mistakes happen, but remember homeschooling is still wonderful and so is your daughter and so are you. Also remember homeschooling does not have to look like regular school and credits can accumulate by keeping track of the informal things kids do--like the leisure reading she did. Focus on having a positive relationship with her. Hope this helps. :grouphug:

 

[FLHomeschool2000]

Thanks a bunch!

[AK_Mom4]

Take heart. Some kids just need time to mature enough to work independently. DD21 was capable of working completely without oversight her SENIOR year in high school. DS19 was the same. DD14 will be working at her desk next to mine all next year for 9th grade - we both agree she needs supervision and oversight or she will cut corners. Not bad - just a maturity thing.

 

Now you both know and can change how it works going forward. There have been some great options upstream for dealing with the transcript. Give yourself a pat on the back for recognizing the problem and dealing with it before it gets any worse.

 

Hugs! Hang in there!

[ktgrok]

We had a VERY similar year here. Smart kid, got behind, screwed up. He's finishing Algebra 2 over the summer. He dropped Latin totally and we will redo it in the Fall. To make up for not doing Latin this year he is getting a half credit in "Outdoor Education" for which he took the hunter safety class our state offers online for free, a skills day required for the hunter safety class taht was all day on location at a shooting range, and took the test to get his hunting safety card. He's also doing our state boater education course online and will take the test for that. When he's done we will count all that plus some time on Grandpa's boat as 1/2 credit. And he's gettting a credit for mythology for reading a few different myth books, taking the National Mythology Exam,and watching some movies based on myths, discussing how they did and didn't match up to the original myths. Health would be another option you could easily do over the summer, having her read some different books, watch some documentaries, etc. Lots of options. 

[brookspr]

You can always give her a grade for the class instead of using the grade given by the online school. Did she learn anything in the class even though she did not do her homework? If you feel that she learned the material and would be capable of moving onto the next level class (regardless of whether the online school feels she is) then you can still give her credit for the course. You could also have her go back and do homework assignments that were missed if you feel that would help. Quizzes and homework are not the only ways to show your student has learned something, so you can be creative in figuring out a way to see what she did learn and if you can give her a grade and credit for the work she did do.

 

If she just didn't get anything out of the class, then I think you just start over with the same class or a different one and try again. Before doing that, though, I would try to find out why she didn't do the homework or take the quizzes. I would be hesitant to pay for another class if the student couldn't formulate a plan to remedy the situation and make sure the same thing doesn't happen again.

 

 

[Grantmom]

I agree that this is not wasted.  I always think about how colleges have shortened terms where they do an entire class in four weeks, where the class meets every day for 5 or 6 hours, and that is the only class you take.  If you tackle 2 extra credits like that, you could get two done in two months.  There might even be a college foreign language class over the summer where you live, if you have a CC or other college nearby.  

[MysteryJen]

This is why summer school was invented. I would put year 1 foreign language on the transcript. If she re-takes the class, it will go on the transcript the year she takes it.

She can do a summer course. Maybe one on study skills and time management. :) Like the intro to college courses.

 

I am on my 3rd 9th grader and though the current one has done the best, he dropped the ball slightly and has struggled mightily to catch up. His summer school session will only last 2 weeks.

[FLHomeschool2000]

After some research and thought--I have opted to do the following...

 

I looked up our local

Grading scales. Her grade that I would consider an F is actually a D. Either way, I plan

To included it. The rest of her GPA is sound. This allows for accountability. I had an odd thought that it would be a great character building source for admissions essays or other life lesson sharing opportunities.

 

It prevents a gap year from

Being present on her transcript. It allows

Her accolades for this year for that course to be included so that they don't go into a black hole

Like the never happened. (For example, she took the NLE and scored enough for an honor.)

 

I just did not feel comfortable making it disappear. Especially after checking some admissions requirements today for general research purposes and finding one school wanted all courses attempted to be listed.

 

It is her freshman year, so I don't foresee this be if an admissions deal breaker is the rest of her record is excellent.

 

Does this sound okay?

[katilac]

After some research and thought--I have opted to do the following...

 

I looked up our local

Grading scales. Her grade that I would consider an F is actually a D. Either way, I plan

To included it. The rest of her GPA is sound. This allows for accountability. I had an odd thought that it would be a great character building source for admissions essays or other life lesson sharing opportunities.

 

It prevents a gap year from

Being present on her transcript. It allows

Her accolades for this year for that course to be included so that they don't go into a black hole

Like the never happened. (For example, she took the NLE and scored enough for an honor.)

 

I just did not feel comfortable making it disappear. Especially after checking some admissions requirements today for general research purposes and finding one school wanted all courses attempted to be listed.

 

It is her freshman year, so I don't foresee this be if an admissions deal breaker is the rest of her record is excellent.

 

Does this sound okay?

 

I totally agree with this method. Right before reading this, I was about to post that you should use extreme caution when deciding to not list outside courses - some schools do request and require that you list all high school courses taken. Foreign language may not be a core course but it's definitely an academic course. 

 

She'd certainly have an excellent chance of getting away with it, but is it worth worrying about? Is it worth the chance of her slipping up in conversation and having the school look askance at her? To me, it is not. If a school requires that all courses taken during high school be listed, then that's what we're doing. 

[katilac]

You might also check your district's policy on retaking a course. I know that some schools here have a policy of letting students retake certain courses to get a higher grade - they can only get so much higher, an A is out of the question for sure, but it gives them a chance to learn the material and diminishes the hit to their GPA. 

 

I have no idea how it would look on a transcript, but if it's common in your area it might be worth checking into. 

 

I think it's great for your dd to learn that, yes, she failed a class, and yes, there are repercussions, but guess what? She will still have plenty of opportunities, and the world will keep on spinning . . . 

[MerryAtHope]

Better for her to learn this now than later! I failed a course in college, retook it, and ended up getting a B the second time (and understanding the material much better!). The college I went to showed on the transcript that I retook the course, but only factored the new grade into my GPA. So, if your dd will continue on in her foreign language, I would certainly consider it reasonable to let her retake the course and try for a higher grade. Don't be too hard on her or yourself. This is a good learning experience. High school students can be very mature at times, but most will still need a lot of oversight (and just when we think maybe it's not necessary, they seem to do something to remind us it is!). They are still growing and maturing--let her learn from this mistake and just move on.

[Tsuga]

Tough situation and it doesn't mean you failed as a teacher though I'd feel the same way.

 

I do not think it's appropriate to change the grade. You paid for an external group to evaluate her and she should face that. I completely agree that this is a far better lesson learned now and redoing the grade would be dishonest (even to a D) and unhelpful.

 

That said, if she re-does the class, then you can write over that grade, and if it's only her second year in the language, she ought to.

[G5052]

I had to regroup earlier this month after I realized that 10th didn't completely go like I expected either.  We had a rough year with long work hours for me, and my student had five months of tough medical issues. Algebra II with Saxon bombed here, especially at the end.  There were just too many interruptions and gaps in understanding.  I thought we were OK because they earned a B in Algebra I with Saxon.  I had planned on rigorous chemistry for 11th, but it's a no-go without solid algebra.

 

So I stepped back and decided to spend the summer reviewing Algebra I with Life of Fred and signed them up for Geometry with a teacher I know using Jacob's Geometry.  We need to get away from Saxon and have someone else teaching math with me monitoring.  I love math and am a STEM professor, but I can't teach math to this kid.  Math is easy for me, hard for them, and we can't speak the same language in math.  Problem admitted.

 

Then we'll do Algebra II again after Geometry, likely also with another teacher.  So we might not get as far as I had hoped before the end of high school, but math is a core subject that I want to do right.  I switched to a transcript that organizes by subject, and I'll figure out how to get enough math credits in after we see how Geometry goes.  It may involve some summer work, but we'll see.  This is my kid who wants to graduate a year early, but mine go to the community college first, so that might still work,

 

I also switched to a different choice for Chemistry.

 

I do contract work and was unhappy in April that my main customer has to cut my hours back in the fall.  But now I see that as a good thing because my teen needs more of me and that contract had some fixed daytime hours.  And last week I picked up a contract with one of my other customers without fixed hours that makes up the difference.  So win-win in the end.

 

I don't think you failed at all.  You did what you thought was best all-around, and now you have to regroup.  That's real life, and it's great that you realized the problem and are working on a plan.

 

My public school friends have had a few of this lesson-learned issues too, trust me.

[freesia]

I don't have an opinion on what you should do, but I just wanted to commiserate . Our year did not go exactly as planned, either. I have a bright boy who seemed to go into some kind of hormonal slump of not caring or wanting to try. It turned out his vitamin d was low, but most of it as maturity. He spent hours making up work because he'd waste so much time . Then he'd be upset that he had no free time. I did provide oversight, but ended up micro-managing which was not good for our relationship. I'm going to use the summer to regroup and figure out how not to let his performance feel so personal to me. It is so hard to watch him underachieve, but the past posters are right-it's better for him-and her-to learn it now.

 

So. You are not alone.

[FLHomeschool2000]

But if my child pulled a poor grade and I concealed it, why should she get the benefit of that and possibly take an admissions slot from a udent who did not blow it.

 

As for the grade, I will follow up with the teacher, but I asked her (my kid) about the grading scale. It is not listed anywhere on the website. She says they don't have one since homeschool families use different ones. She just issues the number.

 

I think adopting the local grading scale

Is best. We were using the 90-100 anyway. She is just issues the number and I am NOT changing that. It would just count as a D here.

 

I cannot get past a top school in our state expecting all course work attempted. If they retab the GPA, they retab it. But if I include both courses (initial and retake) they won't be misled. No doubt my child learned. But one of the greatest things she can learn is to overcome a mistake by owning up to it.

 

I had a mistake in college and almost lost a scholarship. The bad grade(s) stayed with me throughout my college career. (They were C's, but still.)

 

I don't like the message it would send by removing the course. As we will not be applying to Harvard or MIT places, I don't see the harm. Perhaps others see what I am not seeing and would do differently.

[Carol in Cal.]

I'd call it 8th grade and start over.  Lots of parent put their kids into kindergarten a year late, and by high school no one knows which is which.

It would look bad on a transcript to have 5 years of high school, so I wouldn't do that.  Just ignore this year, and start over with a new ninth grade.  No college is going to look at middle school stuff anyway.

[katilac]

I'd call it 8th grade and start over.  Lots of parent put their kids into kindergarten a year late, and by high school no one knows which is which.

It would look bad on a transcript to have 5 years of high school, so I wouldn't do that.  Just ignore this year, and start over with a new ninth grade.  No college is going to look at middle school stuff anyway.

 

Bolding by me: this isn't completely accurate. Some colleges do ask for grades from certain high school courses, even if taken in 8th-grade or lower, just as others ask for grades from every high school course taken for credit in the final four years (so if you are in full time high school but take a correspondence course, they want that grade). 

 

I have no idea how common this is, but I know I have seen it. It may never come up, but the thought that it might would be enough to make me include it. 

 

Adding an extra year of high school for one failing grade seems pretty extreme to me. My oldest is a rising senior, and she is chomping at the bit to graduate, lol. No one's sanity would survive her waiting another year. 

 

Freshman year is the very best time to fail or nearly fail a class. Admissions definitely looks at a D in freshman year differently than they would the same grade in junior year. She can still graduate with an excellent GPA. She can still get into an excellent college. She can still get merit aid. 

 

Keeping the class on her transcript is not that big of a deal. Let her know that failure is not fatal. 

[FLHomeschool2000]

I'd call it 8th grade and start over. Lots of parent put their kids into kindergarten a year late, and by high school no one knows which is which.

It would look bad on a transcript to have 5 years of high school, so I wouldn't do that. Just ignore this year, and start over with a new ninth grade. No college is going to look at middle school stuff anyway.

She is already completed 9th grade and 100% of it was high school work. I would not consider an extreme measure over 1 class when she is well above a 3.0 without and over a 3.0 with it.

 

Colleges will consider work completed on Middle school as high school credit of it was high school level. She already took 1 math and 1 foreign language.

 

This is exactly as it was when I was in school 26 years ago. It does not look like 5 years of high school on a transcript. Rather it looks like an advanced student took some credits early. The early credits do not calculate in the GPA, though.

[FLHomeschool2000]

*completing, not completed.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

A couple thoughts.

 

When we have been in similar situations, I tried not to make my kid take all of the consequences for what resulted from failings on both our parts.  There have been times when one of my kids didn't put in all of the work they should have or that they said they were.  But sometimes I was not doing my due diligence as parent and homeschool supervisor/teacher either.  Young teens are not known for their advanced qualities of self-control and self-motivation.  Wanting to hide evidence of neglecting a course rather than deal with the repercussions is also not uncommon (in teens or adults).

 

While I don't like the idea of just rewriting the grade or brushing away the failure, I also think that it would be acceptable to replace the grade by retaking the course - either the actual course or repeating or making up the course content.

- You said the first semester grade was an A, while the end grade was an F because of being incomplete.  Could it be listed as Foreign Language 2A and 2B for a half credit each semester and separate grades for each semester?  Could the course be listed as incomplete until your dd meets the requirements for year 2?

 

If the final grade was actually an F, does that mean that she doesn't receive credit for the course?  In that case, retaking the material may well replace the grade of the first course.  Or you might include the grade of any course attempted.  I think that either way, you explain your gpa calculation practice in the profile you write for your homeschool, which is typically submitted along with a transcript and (sometimes) course descriptions.

 

I was trying to find some  public school policies for grades after retaking a course.  I'm not finding too many of them posted online, but did find this one, which I found interesting.  It's for Dearborn MI.  I'm not totally sure what all of the letters stand for.  What I did find intriguing was that they recognized that there were different ways that a student might recover from failing a course.

 

https://dearbornschools.org/articles/211-graduation-requirements

 

Retaking Classes

Students who fail a course and then retake the course (either through their regular day schedule, ASAP, or summer school) and receive a passing grade will have their E grade changed to "M" (repeated class) with no credit. The grade of the repeated class will be included in the calculation of the GPA.

Students may retake a class that they previously passed. The lower grade of the two classes will become an "M" grade with no credit. The higher grade will be reflected on the transcript and will be included in the calculation of the GPA.

Students who receive an E in a course and then complete the course through credit recovery will receive an "R" in place of the "E" grade (credit with no grade).

Students who fail a course and then pass the test out exam for that course will receive a "G" grade for credit with no impact on their GPA. The E grade will remain on the transcript. If the student fails the test out exam, the test out exam results will not be included on the student's transcripts.

[FLHomeschool2000]

I just want to say that I was pregnant and had a baby due. While this is not her fault and I did not visible check the grading website, I point blank asked her regularly about it. I didn't just leave her to her own devices.

 

I do accept a modest percent of accountability. I just point blank never realized or thought to physically check the grade. I had done it prior. But with her solid A after the first semester, just didn't think it necessary for it to ever be a thought bubble.

 

 

I did look up grade forgiveness polices but could not find any. I may look up the University one just to see how they handled it for their own students.

[FLHomeschool2000]

(Me having a baby is not her fault, just to clarify.)