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WADad
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Posted: Fri Aug 3rd, 2007 08:42 pm |
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| It looks like I will be transfering jobs soon (I'll have to become NJDad). Our youngest son will be starting 10th grade this fall. We figure that moving high schools in 10th grade is better than 11th or 12th, but I'd be interested in others views and experience in moving kids in high school. I assume that moving at the end of a semester is better than moving in the middle of the semester, but not as easy a transition as moving for the start of a new school year. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
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Consolation
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| Joined: | Mon Apr 9th, 2007 |
| Location: | USA |
| Posts: | 488 |
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Posted: Sat Aug 4th, 2007 12:24 am |
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I think moving at the beginning of the year would be infinitely preferable. And from my personal experience of switching schools before the start of 10th grade, it is going to be absolutely essential that you be prepared to strongly advocate for correct class placement, and not be put off by claims that honors or AP or other desirable classes are "full" already.
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binx
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Posted: Sat Aug 4th, 2007 12:46 am |
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Get as much info as you can about your new school district in advance. It's possible to move mid-year if the new school and old school courses line up (date wise) pretty well. But for year-long classes, like math or science or even foreign language, it could be really hard to come in then. Also, if one school is block scheduled and the other isn't, that would be awful to sort out.
If you can't move at the very beginning of the school year, I think even a month or two into it would be better than waiting till the end of the first semester. That way, your kid still has a fighting chance at catching up.
Socially, I think there is an advantage to coming into a new place a week or two late. The new kid stands out a bit - everybody knows he really is new, and just not someone they hadn't run into previously. Teachers are done settling the rest of the class into a routine and have time to pay attention to a single new student.
My D started 12th grade as a new student. The teachers just assumed she'd been there all four years like everyone else, and cut her no slack when she got lost getting to class, or didn't know the lunch routine, or things like that. She spent a lot of time explaining to teachers (or fighting for the chance to explain) that she was new.
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WADad
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Posted: Sat Aug 4th, 2007 01:26 pm |
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Thanks for the thoughtful replies. Moving in the first few months of the school year will be very difficult, as we will not be able to get the house on the market until September at the earliest and who knows when it might sell. And I don't want to be working on the other side of the country from my family for 10 months. We'll try to schedule some time to talk to the counselor at S's high school to see what his thougths and experience are.
WADad (soon to be NJ or NY Dad)
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mominva
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Posted: Sat Aug 4th, 2007 01:36 pm |
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Will your company pay for the move and temporary housing so you can all transition together?
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Consolation
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Posted: Sat Aug 4th, 2007 02:04 pm |
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WADad wrote: Thanks for the thoughtful replies. Moving in the first few months of the school year will be very difficult, as we will not be able to get the house on the market until September at the earliest and who knows when it might sell. And I don't want to be working on the other side of the country from my family for 10 months. We'll try to schedule some time to talk to the counselor at S's high school to see what his thougths and experience are.
WADad (soon to be NJ or NY Dad)
If you aren't going to be moving until the middle of the school year, you might want to consider finding a family with whom your son can stay to finish out the school year. A friend of mine did it, and it worked out well for her daughter.
Other options, such as a short-term rental in your new town occupied only by you and your son for a few months, would depend partially on selecting a specific town in advance.
Have you explored the support your company is willing to give? The last time we moved it was a corporate thing. My husband was put up in a local condo for several months while we sold the house. The deal was that if we sold the house ourselves before some date--I think it was about 2 or 3 months--we got a bonus. If it didn't sell, Coldwell Banker would buy it from us for an assessed amount, less a list of "repairs" that their inspector considered essential. [I say "repairs" because this was an antique house, built in 1790 and in unusually original condition, and they wanted to do things like put handrails in a precipitous staircase that was in pristine original condition. I told them that not only would I not do so, but I wouldn't sell the house to someone who wanted to do so. Another of their inspectors wanted to know why we didn't rip up the original wide plank floors which were bowed with age and replace them with something "flat." Luckily we sold it ourselves, because I was foaming at the mouth by the time I was done with them.]
Last edited on Mon Aug 6th, 2007 01:18 pm by Consolation
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binx
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Posted: Sat Aug 4th, 2007 02:12 pm |
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If you know what school district you will be moving to, can you contact them about a "general" schedule. That is, what classes would the typical 10th grader at your S's level be taking? Such as, chemistry or biology? Is there a PE requirement? Health? What books do the courses use? What are they reading in language arts?
Then you can either make sure your S's current school's schedule lines up with it as much as possible, OR you can consider homeschooling or on-line schooling that matches the new school. Anything you can do to make sure your S is inline with the new school will help.
Conversely, there may be a way to keep your kid in his current school for the whole year. My S did half his senior year via Internet, and half living with a relative in our previous school district. [Edit: cross-posted with Consolation - same idea!]
Moving mid-year is of course not unheard of! So schools all have ways of dealing with it. These are options, but if your S has to move mid-year, it will work out! And He has two full years to make up any slack from this year. In fact, there may even be summer school to pick up some slack. Our district offers certain courses in the summer, such as health and PE, so that kids have more room in their schedules during the school year. It is not "remedial" in any way, but tends to attract kids in the arts - who need more room in their schedule for music, theater, visual arts, etc, and still want to take a language.
Which reminds me -- make sure your new school offers the same language your S is currently studying, or have him switch this year to whatever the new school offers. That way, he'll still get 3 years.
Last edited on Sat Aug 4th, 2007 02:13 pm by binx
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Mezzomom
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Posted: Sat Aug 4th, 2007 05:20 pm |
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WA(fornow)Dad, I moved for the first time in my life when I was a sophomore in high school, and I still remember very clearly the things my parents did to make the transition easier. First, at my request, I did NOT start my new high school at the beginning of the year/semester. I plunged into my new, much larger high school in November, and it was very obvious that I was "the new kid." As Binx pointed out, there are advantages to sticking out a bit, but the important thing for me was that my parents listened to my request and worked to honor it.
And that's probably the most important thing they did through the process...they talked to my sister and myself and found out what our priorities were for the move. It was a bit more complex for my sister, who had already graduated from HS (and wasn't attending college), but their approach of including us in the decision-making changed the process from "my dad's making us move" to "our family is moving". Granted, this was in the early 70s, when family's tended to be more "top down" in their structure, so my parents' approach was more novel than it would be today, but it worked well for us.
I thrived in our new location (although, from a social perspective, not necessarily at my high school); my closest friends ended up being from my church, and we all attended a variety of high schools. But I learned I was a lot more capable of adapting than I thought, and since it was my mom's first move ever out of her state of birth, my sister and I pledged to never whine about it since it was so much harder for my mom. I think that if kids feel the least bit empowered in the process, most will take the ball and run with it.
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scoop
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Posted: Mon Aug 6th, 2007 12:14 pm |
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| WAdad, I agree with the other posters who said being the "new" kid can be a good thing. I have moved seven times, not all with kids. I always insisted that my kids should finish out the school year at their current school, my husband even started in job overseas 5 or 6 months before we moved over. Looking back, it was probably not necessary. Socially, it would have been easier to make friends during the school year instead of at the start of the summer when it was harder to meet people. We moved back when D1 was starting seventh grade and she experienced the same issues mentioned by Binx. Teachers assumed she had been their all along and she did not get the support she might have gotten had she stood out as being new. I know several students who moved here during their sophomore year and all did well academically. You have gotten some good advice here. I want to wish you and your family the best as you prepare to move. I am often asked which place I liked living in the most. I can't really answer that as wherever I am at the moment has been what I like! Has your son changed schools before?
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WADad
Member
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Posted: Mon Aug 6th, 2007 06:53 pm |
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| Thanks for all the advice and input. We have moved several times, though we have been in Washington State for 9 years. Before we moved here we lived in 4 different houses in 3 years so the family has some experience with moves, just not recently. So my youngest son did change schools but it was going from kindergarten to 1st grade so that experience is probably not that helpful except to remind him that he's done it before. His older sibs have done OK -- both have gone or are going to Swarthmore....
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Consolation
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Posted: Mon Aug 6th, 2007 07:39 pm |
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WADad wrote: His older sibs have done OK -- both have gone or are going to Swarthmore.... I'd say that's better than okay!  Your kids are very resilient in comparison to mine: he reacted negatively to changing location and schools at the age of 4, and it took him a while to find his place when he changed schools again after K. He has steadfastly refused to consider any more changes since then!
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Wstrdg
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Posted: Tue Aug 7th, 2007 09:31 pm |
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WADad,
I'd suggest you request the latest curriculum planner/catalog from your new high school. If you're not sure of the particular school, narrow it down to a district, if possible, or a handful of schools. Look at the graduation requirements, and the pre-reqs for classes like AP's and honors, both now and in grades 11 & 12. Someone else mentioned foreign languages, and that's important, too.
My son transferred into his current hs in grade 10, along with his sister in grade 9. She definitely had the easier time, as far as schedules go. The social studies requirements have his schedule out of whack for few years, even though he'll graduate with more advanced history than most of his peers, thanks to what he took in his previous school. The problem courses are those one semester, school district unique classes like Health or Geography. One semester of a required course can really throw your schedule off, if you didn't take it as a frosh like everyone else.
And someone else mentioned PE, too. If your kid plays competitive sports, and wants to qualify for "independent PE," you may need to collect ltrs of rec from coaches, etc now, and begin your petition process.
If your son faces that situation, ask about "testing out." Look up the state graduation requirements; if it's not a legislatively-manadated course, the district may be more lenient, altho that didn't work for us!
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pencilnpaper
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Posted: Fri Aug 10th, 2007 12:57 pm |
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My daughter started a new school her Sophomore year. She was not particularly happy about it, but it turned out better than expected. She just said yesterday to a visitor, that Sophomore year was tough, but that she LOVED her Jr. & Sr. year.
All the same advice as the above. We worked hard w/ the new school to make sure it was a smooth transition. She took a course over the summer to catch up to the level of the new school. She also doubled some courses her Sophomore year for the same reason. The new school was not more advanced than her former one; they were just on a different curriculum schedule.
Be prepared for a lot of comparisons the first year between new and old. That fades, however.
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Kayleigh_9109
Member
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Posted: Sat Aug 25th, 2007 11:40 pm |
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I switched schools last year Sophomore year. We moved between the summer of 9th and 10th grade. I wasn't happy to say the least, but that's a personal thing. This school is extremely small (7-12, less than 600 students total), and even though I moved in the beginning all the students DEFINITELY knew I was new, and most of the older teachers did as well. My brother who was in 7th thrived here, he's more outgoing than me too. I had to deal with a lot of Drama ( mean girls is a good example, just not quite as extreme) and I wasn't used to having everyone know my business in a small school.
The good thing about the small school is that you aren't ignored like you can be in a big school, but I still prefer a big school.
Back to something that is relevant.. I'm still sorting out my issues with my guidance counselor. We've had a lot of problems with him honoring my previous credits because they didn't have the class (Theatre in particular.) Also he had never heard of block scheduling supposedly and didn't want to honor my multiple math classes and almost wouldn't let me take Geometry and Algebra II at the same time. There were also some classes they required Freshman Year that I may have to take Senior year now (Computer Apps). So I would ask what classes they required Freshman year, that way you can squeeze them in ASAP...
Good luck!!!!
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Sun Aug 26th, 2007 12:39 am |
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| Kayleigh, Thank you for sharing your personal experience. I'm sure WADad will appreciate hearing your thoughts first hand - and your advice about checking on courses now to avoid potential problems later is very good advice indeed. I hope that you are more settled in your school this year then you were at the start of last year!
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Lupine
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Posted: Wed Aug 29th, 2007 10:07 pm |
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I think that I'm a bit of a contrarian here. While I'm sure that lots of schools give accurate information, I've seen other newcomers get wildly inaccurate information out of political correctness or general lack of knowledge on the part of the school staff.
Four suggestions:
1. On your own, get a copy of the school's graduation requirements as well as your state flagship university's entrance requirements. Is your child on track to meet all of these requirements? For example, the University of Colorado requires at least one semester of Geography. This isn't a course that high schools elsewhere necessarily offer, and our high school students take it as freshmen.
2. Get a copy of the school's course catalog, and work through it very carefully to figure out the potential course pathways that might be of interest, particularly in math, science and English. Be very prepared for your meeting with the counselor.
3. Figure out some local parents who might be helpful in helping you understand the lay of the land at the new high school. Ask your RE agent for some recommendations of people to speak with, use your new community's newspaper website to search for articles about the school, or find the online minutes of the board of education meetings and see what parents have spoken about what issues. This can take some work, but could end up being very, very important.
4. Bring a copy of your student's transcript and a copy of the prior school's course descriptions and high school profile to the initial meeting. Yes, your old school probably sent them along, but it really helps to have them handy when the official one can't be found. A list of the associated textbooks for the courses already taken could be helpful, as well as the literature used in the 9th grade English course could help substantiate the level of the prior course.
At our high school, a new student and his or her parents have a one hour meeting with the counselor to analyze the existing transcript, plot out a schedule for the year, and then try to fit it into the courses that are actually available given schedule constraints and already full sections. This isn't as much time as it might seem, and the more preparation you have going into it the happier you're likely to be coming out of it.
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binx
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Posted: Thu Aug 30th, 2007 01:27 pm |
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Lupine, you have some good points!
When we were entering D into her senior year, I was prepared that the school would probably wish to take the path of least resistance. So ahead of time I downloaded their graduation requirements and course descriptions from the county website. Then I photocopied the index of all her current books (to show subject matter. Of course, they were all in German, but at least I had them, if I had to prove anything.)
Then I set about "matching" her courses taken with the courses required by the new school. In some cases, I was able to show that she had had the subject matter even when she didn't have the course. For example, German schools don't have a separate health class. They do have annual PE, though, where some health concepts are explored. They cover sex, alcohol and drugs, etc. in biology. They explore "family" in religion and social studies. The only thing D didn't have was anything related to driver's ed and anything related to "dating". Even so, they gave her credit for health and she didn't have to take it.
Since I used a system-wide course listing, she was even able to be given credit for courses not offered at her particular HS since they were offered elsewhere within the school system.
When I walked into the school and handed the counselor her German transcripts, he looked "concerned" (bewildered, confused, panicked....) Then I handed him a translation of the courses, and how I thought they matched up with local requirements. He said, Wow, This is great, and proceeded to accept what I gave him without question. Path of least resistance.
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WADad
Member
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Posted: Tue Sep 4th, 2007 10:13 pm |
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Thank you to both binx and lupine for some great suggestions. We are still in the general planning stages and have not really narrowed down the school districts/towns where we might look. The first priority is to get our house ready to put on the market. Fortunately the Seattle are market is still OK, but who knows anything with the recent developments in the mortgage market.
WADad
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WADad
Member
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Posted: Sat Dec 15th, 2007 10:39 pm |
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Here's an update for those who commented or followed my earlier question about transfering in 10th grade. We have sold our house in the Seattle area (closing is next Tuesday) and have purchased a house in Summit, NJ, with the purchase closing shortly after Christmas. We will be celebrating the holidays in a suite hotel near Summit. Our 10th grade son will be coming back to Seattle for 3 weeks in January to finish out the semester. Once we get settled I will have to change my handle to NJDad.
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scoop
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Posted: Sun Dec 16th, 2007 01:41 am |
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| Congratulations on selling your house and best wishes on your upcoming move.
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