Posts by Sarah Hall53

They exist. I can't say there's a ton of them out there—honestly, my memory is a bit fuzzy—but I could probably rattle off four or five right now if I had to. Maybe two or three over in New York City (could be more, who knows?), one down in Miami, and one in Seattle...

I mean, honestly... where do you even start? Around here, things are just way too laid back. You’ve got kids who spent five whole years studying German in middle school, but then they just claim they're total beginners—and nobody bats an eye. They sign up for the absolute introductory classes and everyone just rolls with it. There’s zero verification, zero oversight. The German teachers are losing their minds over it, but hey, nobody’s really stepping in to help them out or fix the system.

It actually reminds me of my cousin—she was such a sweetheart—back about ten years ago. After spending eight straight years studying German as her primary foreign language, she went to enroll in high school and decided to switch things up. She picked English as her main focus instead, but since there wasn't an advanced track for German available, she ended up being placed right back into a BEGINNER class. It was just... well, it was a mess.

rowdypanther12 said:Okay, let me give you an example using my daughter. Are you saying she isn't "prep school material" just because she couldn't maintain an A in German without extra help?
Keep in mind, neither my husband nor I know a single word of German, so we can't help her at all. She was one of the few kids in her class actually taking the language, with absolutely no support at home.
So, how is it that she’s suddenly able to pull an A without any tutoring now? She's totally caught up, and she's doing it all solely through her schoolwork.

That is just ONE subject out of how many?
Bill Clinton is talking about kids who get tutors for three or four different subjects, while the parents are frantically studying right alongside them just to secure what I call those forced straight As.
And then, with those manufactured grades, they'll enroll the kid in a prep school, a vocational academy, or some intense four-year technical program, only to spend the next four years struggling with Cs while the parents are swearing (and maybe even filing complaints against) unreasonable teachers who set the bar too high.
But honestly, it’s not that the teachers are asking for too much—it's more that you might be confusing your own personal ambitions with what your kid is actually capable of.

Even back before the internet was even a thing—I didn't even have a TV in my room, mind you—I still couldn't catch a wink of sleep until well after midnight. And predictably, I’d be a total zombie by morning. Every single day.

Yeah.

So, there’s actually some real science behind why teenagers stay up all night rambling and then can't seem to drag themselves out of bed until 10 AM—it’s not just them being difficult, or stubborn, or constantly glued to their phones and notifications. It’s actually down to what's happening inside their bodies. Basically, melatonin—that stuff that tells our brains it's time to crash—doesn't even start kicking in for them until around midnight. It’s totally different from little kids or us adults, whose systems start signaling "hey, go to sleep" much earlier, usually around 10 PM.

I mean, looking at how much the number of cars on the road has exploded over the last thirty years—probably like five times more than before—it’s just massive. It really chokes everything up and slows down the flow of traffic, and honestly, it even ends up gumming up the works for public transit too.

Did I ever actually say this was about the city I live in? No, I didn't.
And did I say it was some unsolvable factor? Not at all. I just said—well, honestly—that it just didn't sit right with me.

Man, he really had some brilliant ways of dealing with the smartest person in the room—I honestly have to tip my hat to him.
Back when we were figuring out his college major, since he was totally lost and didn't really know how to approach me about it, he actually went to a buddy of his at a local staffing agency. He asked him to pull a list showing exactly how many unemployed English professors were out there versus how many job openings there actually were for foreign language instructors—right in the middle of the school year. Then, he just left that printout sitting on the table for me to find when I walked in, without saying a single word. Man, THAT was a massive reality check... it basically took my naive idealism and smacked it right in the face with a giant pillow.
If he hadn't done that, who knows if I’d even have a steady career today, fifteen years after graduation. I ended up landing a gig teaching two different languages just the day before my final thesis defense.

rowdypanther12 said:I don't think she'll have any trouble picking a school that works for her from the 10 or 15 options within an hour or so of our house.
If she’s absolutely set on going to the campus in Palo Alto, I'll make sure she spends two weeks during the break getting used to waking up early and making that commute. ☕
But if she still insists on Palo Alto after that, then fine, let her go there.

So, my dad—bless his heart—decided I should enroll in this winter math intensive program right near the high school I was eyeing. It was only supposed to last a few days, but honestly, by the second morning, I already knew... like, I just knew deep down... that there was absolutely no way I was dragging myself out of bed at 5:00 AM just to make it to class by 8:00. I mean, come on. So, I ended up dropping the language track entirely and just signed up for the local general high school nearby instead. Much better. 😂

From what I gather, if students didn't actually take a specific subject required for their college major while they were in high school—like, say, taking chemistry during freshman year at a business prep school—they're basically on their own when it comes to studying for those entrance exams. They just have to teach themselves everything from scratch.

Well, things work pretty much the same way here in the States—you can actually jump from any four-year vocational program straight into taking the SATs and heading off to a university. It’s also possible if you finish a three-year technical track to just tack on an extra fourth year to get that high school diploma, sit for the exams, and then move on to college. Actually, I think if you enroll in that fourth year immediately after finishing your third, it might even be free? But hey, don't quote me on that, I could be totally off.

Scott Booth said:Losers?

It's pretty easy to slap a label like that on a 14 or 15-year-old kid who just wants to pursue a career that doesn't fit some narrow, middle-class definition of a "respectable" job.

A talented chef, a skilled carpenter, or a great barber... these aren't just hardworking people. They’re intelligent, creative, and honestly, they often possess qualities that set them far above the average American.

Adam Diaz67 said:My bad, I didn't explain myself very well. I meant technical trade schools. You know, like those vocational programs near the industrial districts or the ones out in the outskirts—what people locally call the sticks. Generally speaking, trade schools still carry that same old stigma among folks. It’s almost like there's this weird shame attached if a kid decides to pick up a specific craft and just get to work.

Even at places like West High, nobody ever really looked down on them or questioned how good the training was.

Look, I’m not trying to put labels on anyone's career path or anything like that—that's really not my point at all. It's more about the actual makeup of the student body—you know, how kids are actually funneling into certain schools and specific majors based on the way things are structured.
Usually, you’re looking at three-year programs, but then there are those four-year vocational tracks that people swear are a breeze to finish—though they aren't exactly "high demand" or anything, so you don't see massive crowds signing up. They just tend to attract a very specific crowd of students... you know, the ones who were barely scraping by in their regular classes (or, honestly, the ones who...) I’m just sitting here thinking about everything—it’s one of those days where my brain feels like it’s running ten different tabs at once—and I kept coming back to how much stuff just stays the same, even when we think things are shifting under our feet. It’s funny, really. You spend so much time worrying about the big, loud changes, but then you realize the quiet, steady parts of life are what actually hold everything together. Anyway, I don't know... just a random thought drifting through my head while I've been staring at my coffee. Just felt like putting it out there. Some kids barely even scrape by through middle school—they just don't have much of a connection to books or anything academic. Honestly, some of them can't even be bothered to read a single sentence, but they’re all too familiar with things like cigarettes, drinking, getting into fights, and that kind of antisocial behavior that you just don't want to see in a kid...
Just imagine—you take about twenty kids like that and shove them into one classroom, then take twenty more classrooms just like it and cram them all into the same school building... honestly, you’re basically setting up a high-stakes competition to see who can be the most obnoxious, rude, and just plain uncivilized. It’s bound to happen.
And once a school finally earns its reputation—you know, after all that hard work to actually get people to respect the name—it changes everything. It’s like when a small-town diner finally becomes that one spot everyone in town talks about; you can't just go back to being the underdog once you've made it. I don't even know how to put this—it’s just one of those things, you know? Like, some things are just... like that. There isn't really a better way to say it, I guess. Just kind of sitting here thinking about it all. Schools today... man, it’s just so incredibly hard to recover once you're stuck in that system and try to become anything else. It feels like a cycle—the kind of students who actually want to learn, you know? The ones looking for real knowledge instead of just looking for trouble or causing chaos—they aren't exactly the ones gravitating toward these specific programs. It's a tough spot to be in.

I didn’t say we absolutely have to delay things because of that. What I meant was that we shouldn't be pushing kids into early enrollment—which, honestly, seems to be the trend with everyone around me lately.

I said ON AVERAGE.
which basically means there's always going to be those outliers—you know, people who just don't fit the mold—on both ends of the spectrum, so we could honestly spend all day arguing over anecdotal stories if we really wanted to.

remember what that esteemed Secretary said about hiring psychologists...

Susan James said:You don't actually have to wait that long just for an evaluation, and the public school medical staff can issue a referral (and honestly, they should). There shouldn't be a need to pay out of pocket for private specialists.
Actual treatment is a whole different story 😢

If a school identifies a problem and recommends an evaluation, but the parent doesn't follow through, the school is required to notify the relevant NASA office.
Often, they don't bother because, besides the awkwardness of confronting the parents, it just means more paperwork for them—especially if the child eventually needs an adjusted curriculum.

It’s a similar situation with preschools; they’re supposed to detect issues, refer the parents, and notify NASA if the parents don't take action... they tend to be a bit more proactive, but unfortunately, the kids who most desperately need those extra screenings and treatments are often not even enrolled in preschool programs.
So they just head straight into elementary school without any prior support or treatment...

I guess it really just depends on where you're living. Out here in the more rural parts of the country, you can end up waiting months just for the processing alone before you even get seen.

Well, that’s honestly the whole point of why the questions are framed that way—you can't just copy-paste your way through them. And I think that’s exactly why they bother reading them in the first place... because you actually have to think, you know? You can't just regurgitate some textbook answer.

Carl Bishop2 said:How many years ahead are we talking about when it comes to these early enrollments? I mean, what’s the actual limit on how much earlier a kid can start school?
My nephew actually got turned down because he just wasn't emotionally ready—and honestly, looking back, it was probably for the best. He would have been starting at seven and three months.

Usually, you can enroll them anytime from being 6 years and 4 months old up until the day they turn 6 right when school starts. Generally, if they're younger than that, the district won't budge.
Mine is looking at starting at 7 and 4 months... so I'll be spending the next few months praying to every deity under the sun that we can make some actual progress on her respecting authority and, you know, not insisting on having her way every single second of the day.
I'm going to regret this so much when she actually hits that first day of school.

Michelle Nelson4 said:My daughter started seventh grade at age 12, and honestly, she hasn't hit a single intellectual roadblock with the curriculum; if anything, ☕
I’ve never really struggled with schoolwork myself, even though I actually started a bit younger than she did. By today's standards, she probably would have been held back a year during enrollment.

That’s just an anecdotal example, though. We're talking about the average Joe. Just because you, me, or our kids happen to be outliers with high capacity doesn't tell us anything about what "average" actually looks like. And the whole education system? It’s built specifically to cater to that middle ground.