Posts by mellowskipper

It’s honestly quite impressive watching her perform ballet—all that movement and constant striking—it’s really something.

Putin and Lukashenko bundled together. I suppose we have to ask ourselves—what is two lives actually worth when weighed against millions?

Susan James said:Life is stressful, isn't it? That's just how it goes.
Standardized testing is definitely necessary, though.
In my opinion, it's actually the fairest way to do things. If you ask the people who complain about it, I’d argue it's much less stressful to take one test every year rather than facing one massive, high-stakes exam every four years.
For me, sitting for an exam where a student gets to see what they actually know (and what they don't) feels way less nerve-wracking than trying to peer into a crystal ball to guess which group of peers will be their competition for a specific school.

But I can't even wrap my head around which subjects they had in mind for this. Is it the holy trinity—Math, English, and maybe some other core subject? I assume it doesn't cover everything, so I really can't visualize how this works.

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The whole external assessment process at the end of the academic year always feels pretty stressful to me. I’m honestly not even sure if they actually factor those scores into college admissions or if they just look at them alongside the overall GPA. All I know is that every single May, this absolute nightmare begins—it's just constant, crushing stress.
And while we're on the subject, regarding contraindications for certain career paths: https://www.slideshare.net/BorisArai...ntraindikacija
There are quite a few links out there where parents can generally check if their kid's profile fits a specific field, rather than risking it later down the line. Or, they could just have a doctor run a quick check beforehand, assuming they're already confident about the grades.

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Susan James said:Plus, you've got those professors who hand out inflated grades just to keep parents or lawyers from knocking on their doors.
That’s exactly why we see such a massive flood of honors graduates these days.

The only real fix for this mess would be standardized middle school exams.
Though, honestly, does every single school in America really need them, regardless of where they are located?
I mean, is there even a massive rush to get into high schools in Columbus, or to become a carpenter in New York City?
Still, if we did implement middle school exams, they’d probably have to be national—standardized tests across the board. Maybe different levels, like A, B, or even C tiers.
That's likely why they decided to stick with entrance exams and kept them optional.

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Sarah Hall53 said:Honestly, half-baked comments have managed to bury several rulebooks—or at least their various revisions—before they even had a chance. It’s gotten to the point where some rules just quietly die off without ever actually going into effect, while others get scrubbed entirely or tossed in out of nowhere. I guess it really pays to weigh in on everything, just to make sure things don't drift too far off course.

God, I hope not. I can't help but feel like this whole thing is just some sort of pro forma consultation process.

This whole set of regulations is just going to be tweaked exactly where they want—specifically regarding entrance exams. Everything else people are so loudly commenting on and suggesting? It won't matter. None of it.
Honestly, I don't think any vocational high schools even need entrance exams at this point; we already know which ones everyone is fighting to get into. What's the point of an exam for someone wanting to go into forestry or carpentry? They can barely fit enough kids into the programs even with scholarships as it is—now they want to throw in entrance exams too. Just great.

Sarah Hall53 said:With the classics, they always dump you into both the beginner and the advanced tracks at once—but if you're actually getting credit for learning Latin, you have to be in the advanced class, so I guess that weird inequality kind of evens itself out in the end. ☕
The big issue is that only getting two credits for four years of a second language... honestly, that felt like a total violation of our constitutional rights. ☕

That’s exactly my point—I honestly don't have anything against giving them extra points. I mean, look, we have German classes here, but we also have computer science scheduled during the opposite shift... so if they’re going to award points for language proficiency, I guess you might as well do the same for tech skills, right? Maybe.
Regarding religious studies—I suppose that’s likely a prerequisite if you're looking to enroll in Catholic high schools, though I assume it doesn't actually net you any extra credit points in the admissions process.
What is your professional take on the concept of general success? I mean, if you ask me—and I suppose I am qualified enough to offer a perspective here—it’s such a nebulous, poorly defined metric. Most people seem to chase this idea of a singular peak, but I find that definition lacks any real substance. Is it wealth? Influence? Or just staying afloat without losing your mind? I guess it depends on how you view the trajectory of a career, though I tend to think we overcomplicate the whole thing—perhaps too much, actually. It's a bit of a moving target, isn't it?

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I was just scrolling through the e-government portal, looking over some of the new regulations. It seems like there's quite a bit of a stir regarding those extra credit points for second languages—specifically the idea of using them for admission into language academies.
It actually makes sense, I suppose, but then you have to wonder why they aren't applying that same logic to computer science or technical high schools. Or even Catholic religious education.
The suggestion to scrap the GPA-based system is a decent one, in theory—it’s a solid idea—but let's be honest, that's probably never going to happen.

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I have never actually heard of such a regulation before. In specialized sports academies or those dedicated athletic tracks within high schools, I always assumed this was just standard procedure. As for regular public schools, I honestly figured it was just down to the individual teacher's goodwill—whether they felt like accommodating the student or not.
Having classes in the morning is generally a fantastic setup, especially for kids who are heavily involved in extracurriculars. It’s going to be a major deciding factor for our enrollment process, too. If we were stuck with an afternoon schedule, there would be absolutely no way she could make it to her practices on time.

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What you’re looking for is basically a pipe dream. Even in wealthy nations like the US, poverty exists—it’s an reality. Things are never perfectly equal or accessible to everyone, no matter how hard we try. Kids from affluent families simply have a head start. That’s just the way it is from day one. Beyond that, there are a million other variables at play.
And let’s be honest: poverty usually just breeds more poverty, and only a tiny fraction of people actually manage to break that cycle. Because of that, I don't even mind if kids from disadvantaged neighborhoods get a couple extra points for school admissions, or if everyone gets some kind of affirmative action. In fact, if the government wants to pay a coach to travel out to a Small town in the Midwest two or three times a week, then fine—more power to them.

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It’s just a fact—kids from wealthy families have more choices and better opportunities than kids from lower-income backgrounds.
Naturally, a kid living in a major hub like Washington, D.C. or Miami is going to have way more extracurricular options than some kid growing up in a tiny rural town out near Clayton.
And, I suppose, it's safe to say children in Sweden likely benefit from a more robust educational system than those in the United States.
But honestly, most of this isn't just about the school system itself—it involves a whole laundry list of other factors, not to mention individual priorities and how much a family is willing to sacrifice.
Regarding those regulations—personally, I think that specific credit should be awarded to anyone involved in verified extracurricular activities who actually achieves results in competitions. You know, sports, arts, science... or, if they can't make that work, they should just scrap the category entirely.

What I was actually getting at—and maybe I wasn't clear enough before—was the enrollment process for those specialized sports academies. I wasn't talking about that single extra credit point; I meant the maximum of 80 additional points students can rack up through their competition rankings. Basically, I’m referring to the specific schools and programs designed specifically for student-athletes.

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Is this specific regulation actually undergoing revisions right now?
Is there some kind of e-consultation process currently underway?

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northerntiger9 said:Regarding sports—it’s not exactly straightforward, and honestly, this whole scoring system should just be scrapped. It has nothing to do with being an elite athlete or how hard you work—unless, of course, luck is on your side.

The way the rules work is that they only recognize competitions organized by school athletic clubs. To put it bluntly: you could train track all you want and break a national record, but if your school doesn't have a coach willing to send you to the state qualifiers, you might as well be barking at the moon. On top of that, some sports only offer team events rather than individual ones, which means besides having a coach, you also need a handful of teammates who are actually good enough to win something that counts toward points.

Take our school, for instance—we have several kids who are national champions in their respective sports, yet the only ones sent to school competitions are the table tennis players or the soccer team. 😬

Actual club competitions are only considered for admission into specialized sports academies, and even then, you have to be highly ranked in the season standings with national-level success just to get a look-in. And because of the pandemic, it's been a mess for certain sports since competitions were canceled entirely—leaving them with zero results to show for it—while other sports managed to keep going.

So... yeah.

Edit: I see only one comment above, so let me clarify once more—kids who compete in state-organized events through official bodies (like US Ski & Snowboard, United States Tennis Association, USA Track & Field, etc.) do NOT receive any points.

My little girl is stuck in this exact predicament right now. She wants to apply for a sports academy, but she plays a sport where there haven't been any sanctioned competitions since the pandemic started, which means she has no points to her name. I was told there's nothing we can do except file a formal petition to try and transfer her mid-year.

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Sarah Hall53 said:My colleagues over at the local high school tell me the funniest stories—it’s honestly kind of wild. They say the best part is when students who were supposed to use special placement vouchers or priority admissions decide to just play by the rules and compete during the regular enrollment period using their standard GPA. And then? They actually get in. So you end up with three kids enrolled via those special pathways, and then suddenly, three or four more pop up out of nowhere—you don't even realize they're part of the specialized programs until after the first round of exams is already over. 👋
Then there’s the whole situation where you’re stuck in a classroom with six or seven students who have significant learning accommodations 👋 all while dealing with these massive $1.25 increases in student numbers per hour—and don't even get me started on the pay. You only get extra compensation for the priority placements, and even then, it’s capped at the first three because federal regulations won't let them pay us for more than that—so if you hit a fourth, you just don't see a dime for it 👋

That’s exactly how we were planning to handle enrollments, but now I'm being warned that if we do that, a whole bunch of kids with IEPs might miss out entirely since there's a cap on how many IEP students can be in one classroom, so apparently it's "safer" to stick to the standard enrollment process.

Karen Richardson3 said:If you're talking about elementary school, I'm pretty sure the standard is three per grade, though in my kid's class, there were actually four.
(Just a side note here—one student in that group has a specific diagnosis that makes schooling a bit more complicated, plus their family has some serious pull, so it feels like they're basically being handed high grades through Intel accommodations, which the other kids have been noticing since first grade.
The other three kids in that group struggle a bit more academically, and since they don't have that kind of family influence backing them up, their grades are honestly pretty low compared to the others. 😁 )

The reason I say there were four is because it was one of those massive classes where a bunch of rowdy kids were just causing total mayhem. Eventually, having four kids with Intel accommodations became the perfect excuse for the administration to finally split the class into two smaller groups—it’s much easier for them to justify a split by saying "we can't manage this many special needs students at once" rather than just admitting they couldn't handle the chaos. 😁 )

I was thinking about high school, though—is it true that the limit is 3 per class?

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placidcrane102 said:Not me. What are you even talking about?

Restricted.

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Patrick Martin said:do you even know what an R rating actually implies?

get yourself a glass of water ready—you might find yourself choking on it. ☕

Well, I assumed the R was tied to those Parental Advisory warnings. You know, nudity, swearing, drugs... But yeah, I suppose it could obviously involve some killings too.
As long as there aren't any guts or anything like that.

Is this actually horror?

Karen Richardson3 said:I’ve been lurking in some of those local mom groups on Facebook lately just to keep an eye on where things are heading.
It feels like every single parent whose kid is labeled as "hyperactive and super smart, but just doesn't fit this standard school curriculum" is being told they need individualized learning plans.

Another big thing popping up—mostly with the little ones—is all this talk about "sensory issues." If a kid won't eat certain foods, suddenly it's a sensory processing disorder and they desperately need a therapist.

I’m actually starting to develop a bit of a grudge against your profession, 😁

When it comes to high school graduation requirements and college admissions, I've basically checked out. I watch my little one making progress with such minimal effort, and honestly, it feels like the whole system is just beyond saving.

To be real with you, I care way less about standardized testing or the grading inflation we see with honor students than I do about them bringing back practical stuff like home economics, actual technical trades, and real PE. I couldn't care less about the academic fluff they're cramming down their throats.

Wait, did I read somewhere that they're enrolling three different IEPs per classroom now?

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