4Real Forums: Help! I just don't get grade levels

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High School Years and Beyond
4Real Forums : High School Years and Beyond

Topic: Help! I just don't get grade levels

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Amanda
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Joined: Jan 21 2006
Location: Pennsylvania
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Posts: 116

Posted: Jan 15 2010 at 9:52pm \| IP Logged

I posted some months ago about whether I should have my ds (now 7th grade) take 5 years rather than 4 to do high school. Someone else (sorry, can't remember who at the moment) recently asked about "holding back" her son and starting high school a year later.

I can't figure out what the repercussions of each decision would be. My concerns about my ds are these: 1. He has Asperger Syndrome, is very immature, and will probably need some extra time to grow up and develop executive skills before he can handle full-time college; 2. He has so many interests, and I'd like to let him explore them during the next several years rather than putting him on a forced march through required high school courses. He is not the kind of kid who will be able to set his own high school goals and follow through (at least not for a few years).

I know some scholarships aren't available if a child doesn't go straight to college from high school. I'm not thinking so much of a "gap year," though, as slow but steady homeschooling, with lots of rabbit trails, until he is almost 19 (his birthday is in June). What would I call that?

If I decide to call it repeating 8th grade rather than taking 5 years to do high school--can I really "hold back" a child who will already be doing some high school level courses in 8th grade? I mean, lots of kids do algebra in 8th, and so will he. So then in his "second 8th grade" he would be doing geometry, which is sometimes a high school sophomore class. Would that seem odd?

Also, I'm not sure how much flexibility I would have as far as the school district is concerned. I'm in PA and the district decided he was in a certain grade (third, at the time) based on his birth date. At the moment, he's in a cyber charter and so is a public school 7th grader. How does one reassign a child's grade level in a situation like that? (We do plan to homeschool from next year on, as we did for grades K-4th.)

I hope my confusion is clear.

Thanks!

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ekbell
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Joined: May 22 2009
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Posts: 747

Posted: Jan 16 2010 at 3:21pm \| IP Logged

If I had to give grade levels I'd likely plan to be stating that two years were spent on one of the highschool years, likely grade 9 or 10.

I personally took five years to finish high school as did most of my peers planning to go to university rather then a community colleges.

Where I lived at the time (Ontario, Canada) you could spend an extra year in high school in order to take more advanced courses. Before my day this extra year was simply called Grade Thirteen, but when I was in high school it was called the OAC year (Ontario Academic Credits).

So I took grades nine, ten, eleven, twelve and then an OAC year (or an university prep. year).

I think it worked well for us.

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