Elvis Presley I'm sorry, I can't quite make that out—it looks like you might have sent an empty message or just the word "says." If there was something specific you wanted me to look at or rewrite, just toss it my way! I'm ready when you are. So, if I’m following this correctly—and I might be overthinking it, typical me—parents of incoming first graders actually get a say in where their kid goes. It looks like they can choose between the local neighborhood school or heading over to the main district school that doesn't have the special education programs. 👍
Just a quick correction on that—so, Elvis Presley used to be their home school, but they actually split off from each other. Now both schools operate as their own independent main campuses and don't really have any connection left between them. 😉
Just a quick thought—they end up counting every single individual building within one school district as its own separate entity. You take one actual school and suddenly they've spun it into three, five, maybe even eight different entries... and just like that, you’re looking at 180 "schools" on paper 🤣
mellowskipper said:I mean, what is the actual point of making an elective language mandatory for fourth graders?
I think I misspoke there—my typing gets a little messy when I'm just squeezing in a quick message during a break. What I meant was that the second language, which used to be an elective, is actually becoming a requirement for fourth graders at the US Navy school. The "elective" part really just means the school gets to decide which specific language they want to offer—they can make it a school-wide thing or just apply it to certain grades.
Exactly. They’ll have a class of 15 students—honestly, that’s nothing to write home about. Real drama happens when they try to open two separate sections for 20 kids each, but only 27 students actually qualify with enough points. In those cases, you usually just end up with one single class of 27, because the rule of thumb is that you typically need at least 29 kids before it even makes sense to split them into two groups.
Honestly, it’s not even about that—about ten years ago, they were firing principals left and right because once those kinds of practices came to light, a whole bunch of them were just kicked out of their positions. But now, with this whole digital enrollment system, I can't even fly under the radar if I wanted to.
edit: The school sets its own minimum point threshold, but there's no way to go below it. And honestly, I have no clue if there are specific limits based on the type of school—like, if prep schools have one floor and vocational schools have another?
hiddenseal14 said:But if you actually bother to look, it’s clearly marked as A1 right there. Not to mention that A1 and A2 designations can be swapped around in different scheduling formats.
Honestly, I was under the impression that I was engaging in a discussion with people who had actually taken the time to study the official documents—or at least possessed the basic intelligence to distinguish between elective courses, extracurricular activities, and after-school programs.
When we talk about "A2 electives," it doesn't mean those are the core subjects; it refers to that specific portion of the A2 block that isn't mandatory for every single student, but is instead structured based on individual needs and interests.
And let me say this one more time: A1 encompasses both the elective and the standard curriculum. A2 is the supplemental block, which consists of both required and elective components. I truly assumed that at least these fundamental concepts were common knowledge.
For grades 5 through 8, the foreign language electives will stay just that—electives. It’s only being made mandatory for the 4th graders. If it isn't a requirement, it means it'll fall under those B1 time slots.
Carl Bishop2 said:I’m not quite sure how you're picturing rural life, but farming and agriculture aren't just left to people who stopped learning after middle school. In the US, about 95% of people under 25 have completed high school—so the vast majority end up heading toward the cities to attend urban high schools or colleges simply because most rural areas don't even offer those specialized secondary options.
Sure, they go to schools in the city, but they still live back home in the country—unless, of course, they need to go to a school that's way too far away, in which case they end up staying in a dorm.
Michelle Nelson4 said:I honestly feel there ought to be a minimum enrollment threshold required to actually form a class. We shouldn't be dipping below a certain number; if a specific program doesn't have more than, say, 10 students interested, they should probably just pivot to a different track. At the end of the day, resources are finite, and we really need to be using them rationally.
Of course, we also need to be regularly auditing the actual potential and market demand for these various programs. It would be incredibly simple to implement if the Department of Education actually had any initiative, but instead, it’s much easier for them to just spend every year begging the federal government for higher enrollment quotas—even when the population has dropped by, say, 20%—rather than actually conducting surveys in local middle schools to see what kids are genuinely interested in. You can't have a specialized program enrolling only three or five students for ten years straight and just pretend everything is fine. Meanwhile, on the flip side, we're seeing classrooms where teachers are stretched thin with 25 or more students.
They end up mashing different programs together. Like, you'll have five butcherry students and five bakery students—plus maybe two other tiny groups of five—all sitting in one room taking their general education classes together. Even if the class hits 20 students, they'd still end up splitting off into smaller groups for their actual specialized training anyway.
The thing is, it won't just be a quick 40-minute session once a week—it’s going to be structured. They’ll mandate one day for math, one for English, and then split the remaining two days among the other subjects. Your math teacher isn't going to be sitting there helping them finish their geography or English homework, and the English teacher certainly won't be diving into math or physics problems during that time. I see this heading in one of two directions: either after that 40-minute circus where the teacher is expected to somehow juggle grading homework while also trying to enrich the curriculum and provide extra support, kids will still end up with a mountain of stuff to study at home—or, we'll eventually be banned from assigning homework altogether. And then, by some strange miracle, everyone will act shocked when the average student hasn't actually mastered the material and isn't pulling those straight A's parents always dream about.
Kate Jackson4 said:Please, enlighten me... what exactly is "fair" about this scenario? ☕ Why on earth are students with lower scores moving forward?...
It’s because they fall into that top 5 or 10% within their own state, so they’re basically just competing against everyone else in their specific state. Then, once they hit the national level, everything shifts back to pure points. That’s how you end up with half the national competition being filled with kids from the Northeast, while nobody from the Midwest even shows up. And hey, I guess technically it's fair since it's based on the numbers. But honestly? It would probably be better if we just skipped the state-level stuff entirely for those rural areas where there isn't much opportunity for these kids anyway—just to make it crystal clear that only the kids from places like New York City or LA actually stand a chance at these things. ☕
Kate Jackson4 said:Not quite... ☕ because New Yorkers are the most affected... In NYC, being an excellent student isn't even enough, whereas in other parts of the country, you can get into high school even with a C average (I'm exaggerating, I think the cutoff is around 52 points)... The madness started when they abolished entrance exams, and now every year the score requirements for high school just keep climbing... It triggered a domino effect; parents pressure the kids and the teachers, kids end up with unrealistic grades, some schools have everyone pulling straight A's while others (the more realistic ones) don't, and naturally, everyone is frustrated...
They could, but it takes us an hour and a half to get from one side of town to the other anyway...
I explained it above; the insanity starts in first grade just to manufacture future straight-A students. You can't coast with B's for four years and then suddenly become an A student in fifth grade... 😁
In my opinion, the solution is implementing national standardized tests that account for at least 50% of high school admissions...
P.S. A professor from the local prep school told me they have a bunch of straight-A students entering high school who can't even add two fractions. This is our reality...
Man, you folks in NYC really do have some intense issues, and I'm not even talking about school admissions. Honestly, there's this level of bitterness and jealousy toward anything that might be easier or better in any other part of America, and it's getting kind of unhealthy. It feels like you'd rather the whole country deal with the same soul-crushing traffic jams you have, or the same crazy restrictions, and—of course—the same insane 70-point threshold for getting into a decent high school. Like, if two kids manage to squeeze in, fine, but why should they get in with a 60 when my kid couldn't even make it with a 69?! A few colleagues of mine recently had total meltdowns over the qualifying scores for regional competitions... it just doesn't feel fair that kids in rural areas like Nebraska or maybe parts of Florida can qualify with 45 points, while my students in the city are stuck because they only hit 47. I mean, apparently, according to them, the rest of America should just forfeit their regional competitions entirely just to keep things "fair." That would be the only way to satisfy them, I guess. ☕
Michelle Nelson4 said:Let's see how this debate usually plays out "Sick parents bullying their kids because a 3.8 GPA isn't quite high enough for them." "But isn't it actually the school system itself that sets these insane grade requirements just to get into a standard high school? That's what’s actually putting all this pressure on the students, right?" "Well, if you can't maintain a perfect 4.0, then maybe you aren't cut out for a prep school anyway." It's pure madness...
Look, if you literally have to kill yourself just to hit the GPA needed for enrollment—whether that's a 3.2, a 3.5, or a perfect 4.0—then honestly, you probably aren't a good fit for that track to begin with. Does that make sense?
Plus, nobody is stopping New Yorkers from just applying to a high school in a different city where the GPA requirements are lower—since everyone seems so incredibly bitter about the cities where you need a perfect 4.0 just to get in. ☕
And thirdly, I still haven't had anyone explain to me how high school admissions are somehow responsible for all the hysteria regarding GPAs and those "honor roll" certificates people obsess over during the first four years of middle school.
I did a little digging myself—just trying to wrap my head around the numbers. Looking at the 2018/19 academic year, there were 58,726 students enrolled in their first year across all higher ed institutions. Fast forward three years to last academic year, and that number drops to 36,460 by the third year. It isn't quite a full 50% drop, but it's pretty close to that ballpark. And honestly... when you compare how many people started university programs six years ago versus how many actually made it to their fifth year last year? The results are even more depressing.
Honestly, even with that current 30%, about half of them don't even finish college—so what's the actual endgame if we push the high school graduation rate up to 50%? Are we just looking at a massive wave of young people who have passed their SATs but still don't actually have a trade or a career path?
The whole ordeal of chasing points just to get into a decent high school is pretty much a big-city headache—mostly concentrated in places like NYC or Chicago—but honestly, kids all over the US struggle with the pressure to maintain a perfect GPA. And let's be real, everyone is obsessively hunting for those top grades and honor roll spots even back in elementary school, even though they aren't actually applying to any specific schools until much later.
Honestly, I think modern society is a bit much sometimes—it’s almost an insult how they don't just let people stay blissfully ignorant or uneducated if that's what they want. Imagine how peaceful the world would be if everyone who preferred staying clueless was actually allowed to... well, stay that way. ☕ not.
Look, I’m saying it again—it isn't actually the school system itself that's doing the damage to kids' health, it's more about what parents end up doing to their children because of the pressure from school. You really think it's the teachers telling a kid that a 4.8 GPA is somehow "bad," or is it actually the parents who refuse to let them breathe unless they can post those straight-A report cards all over Facebook to show off?
For the OBŽ list, you really ought to include two more local schools—August Šenoa Elementary School and Mladost Elementary School. Honestly, August Šenoa has been struggling with enrollment numbers for years now because they share their district with Mladost and another school, Cesarić. And since Cesarić sits about fifteen spots higher on those rankings that actually weigh SAT scores, it’s pretty obvious why parents tend to gravitate there instead. Then there's Mladost—they’ve basically been the pioneers for experimental programs since the seventies. But when this specific program was first proposed? They shot it down immediately. It took a whole series of "informative" meetings—first the principal meeting with the founder, then people being pulled aside individually by the principal for some serious brainwashing, and finally a public vote where everyone just raised their hands... and wouldn't you know it? Suddenly, most of them were all for it. Color me shocked.
The second rumor I've picked up is that most of the schools deciding whether to join this experiment were facing direct or indirect threats of having their classroom counts slashed. You have to remember, we're talking about small rural schools where the existence of an entire classroom often hinges on just one or two students. Principals were essentially promised that if they signed on, their approved number of classrooms would stay steady for the next four years—which basically implied that if they *didn't* join, their classes would be cut (creating these weird technological surpluses). If they could merge a first grade and a second grade class, they'd do it. Instead of approving two first-grade rooms during enrollment, they'd only approve one. Or they'd mash the first and second grades together into one overcrowded room that's bursting at the seams. Whether this is actually true or just talk, I don't know, but I've heard those stories from a few different places.