The start of anything new can often be confusing and overwhelming. We’ve only had seven actual days of high school so far, but with everything we’ve navigated during that time, it seems like we should be well into the year by now.
Let’s begin with the mornings. High school starts at 7:23 am, so we initially set our alarm for 5:45 am to make a 6:43 am bus. Waking up daily with a 5 on the clock is a hard adjustment. It’s dark. It feels so early. I am exhausted all day (caffeine intake has doubled). Now, they did tell us at orientation to let our teens wake up on their own as they are old enough to use an alarm and should be responsible for themselves. I don’t think they’ve met my boys, who sleep through alarms, through the light Dan turns on when he tells them it’s time to get up, through my second wake up call to them 10 minutes after that… therefore, Dan and I will be getting up in the fives for now.
Once he is up, Ryan is extremely motivated to be ready on time for his bus (which comes right to our house) and plans his morning routine so he make it. However, on Thursday, the bus never came. After it was 10 minutes late, we called transportation, who informed us the bus actually did arrive, waited, and left when no one came out.
“What time did the bus get here?” Dan asked, confused, as Ryan is never late.
“6:35,” the person on the phone told him.
What??? Apparently, transportation arbitrarily decided to change Ryan’s pick up time because 6:43 did not give the bus driver enough time to pick up all of the kids. Dan politely told them it would have been nice to know this, especially given Ryan’s anxiety when the bus never showed. (To their credit, they sent a van to get him right away that day.) We are now getting up at 5:35 am to make this new bus time.
Moving on to gym… Despite us telling Jordan to get to bed early, he cannot seem to fall asleep before 10:00. On Thursday, Jordan came home with a cold and low-grade fever, which I attributed to his lack of sleep.
“If I still have a fever tomorrow, I want to go. But you can pick me up after third period, which is gym,” he said.
Yes, you read that correctly. Jordan was planning his day around gym. On Wednesday, we had received a note from the gym teacher letting us know if a student misses gym because of an absence or because they forget their uniform or swimsuit (9th grade boys take swimming the first half of the year), they have to make up the period. Now I am all for physical fitness and I think my boys could use a lot more of it, but make up an entire gym class?
Our options for gym make-ups are: during a study hall (neither boy has a study hall this year); during an extension period (which happens once or twice a month – I don’t really understand this part of the schedule yet); or – wait for it – at 6:25 in the morning during zero period (don’t even ask what that is)! As you can imagine, none of us want to wake up any earlier, so we are all extremely motivated to make sure Jordan and Ryan are in gym and prepared for it with their swim trunks. Of course Ryan has gym on A and C days and Jordan on B and E days. These letters actually coincide with different days each week, but I’ve been on top of it for the last seven days. I think that’s worthy of a high five or a cheers to Mom moment. (Ok, being realistic, I’m taking bets for how long it is until we lose track of the schedule and someone forgets his trunks!)
Jordan has also experienced culture shock where homework is concerned. This is a kid who I don’t think cracked a book at home during his entire middle school career (he managed to get his work done at school each day), yet got great grades, so I couldn’t complain. Now he comes home and works for hours. Last Wednesday, he had an orthodontist appointment after school, followed by a school theater meeting in the early evening. He was visibly stressed about not having time to do his homework.
“We’ll be home from the theater meeting before 7. You have all night,” I told him.
“Do homework at night?” he gasped, horrified.
“Welcome to high school,” I said.
The orthodontist said Jordan could get his braces off in eight weeks. However, since he would have to miss school if he did that, he is choosing to wait an additional two weeks so he can get them off on a half day. Wow. If someone told me a few months ago my son would voluntarily delay getting his braces off so he could be in school all day, I would never have believed them.
Despite the homework stress, Jordan has identified multiple activities he wants to join, which are all extensive time commitments. On the one hand, it makes me happy he wants to get involved, but on the other hand, of course I’m stressing out about it from a scheduling perspective.
Finally, let’s talk about Ryan’s classes. This is the first year where Ryan has had a different teacher or aide with him for nearly every class. He takes three classes in the autistic support room in the morning and is mainstreamed with an aide for four classes in the afternoon. That means there is no one consistent individual who can answer our questions – and we’ve had many. Most had to do with the homework – where to find it and what Ryan actually has to do or study vs the rest of the class as many of his classes are modified.
The district has a portal called Schoology, where teachers post assignments and students can work on them and turn them in. On a few days, when my parents or my aunt were with Ryan after school, they would help him do the Schoology assignments. We would then learn he should have been doing a modified assignment, which could be found in one of many possible locations – in Google classroom, in his email, or in one of his seven folders in his schoolbag. Also, some of the assignments listed on Schoology were actually done in class, but that wasn’t made clear.
You’re probably thinking, why don’t you ask Ryan what he has to do? We’ve tried. Example conversations:
“Ryan, what do you have to do for this Spanish poem project?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were there. How do you not know?”
“It was a few hours ago. I forget. I don’t want to think about school anymore.”
Or
“Ryan, it looks like you changed your Google password. What is it?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Well, we can’t get into your account and do homework if you don’t remember.”
“Good, I don’t want to do homework. It was a long day and I want to relax.”
Between all of the e-mails to various teachers trying to make sense of everything, and with one project due last week and two quizzes this coming week, I was pulling my hair out by Thursday night. I started thinking about how we could make this process less complicated. What we needed was one document everyone could access on a daily basis to let us know 1) what Ryan did in class; 2) what his homework is for that day; and 3) where to find it. In that same document, Dan and I (or any family member working with Ryan) could ask questions and the appropriate teacher or aide could answer.
Since every teacher works with Ryan on his Chromebook (similar to a laptop) at some point during the day, I decided to create a Google document (doc) for all of us to use. Dan and I can also easily log in at any time to update it and see what’s been added. The intent is for this to be the first place we look for information, and Ryan’s teachers can direct us to other sites from the Google doc, as needed.
Dan, who has never used Google docs, was amazed as he logged in on his phone and watched me updating the doc from Ryan’s Chromebook in real time. (Cue song, “A Whole New World.” Seriously, if you’ve never used Google docs, it makes working on a project with multiple people so much easier.)
I sent the doc to one of Ryan’s aides and his autistic support teacher and they loved it. Ryan’s aide added a table to make it even easier to follow, and when Ryan came home on Friday, it was filled in and questions were answered. Whoo hoo! We had a solution!
Friday night around 10:00, Dan found me in bed, about to pass out.
“You look exhausted,” he said. “Do you want me to turn out the light?”
“If we put on something good on TV, I can probably rally till 10:30,” I told him.
Yep, it was a wild Friday night in the Singer house. And we haven’t even had a full week of getting up in the fives yet. Imagine how fun I’ll be after one of those!
Only 66 schools days until winter break!
Great blog! And I’m very impressed with the Google doc you created! Very organized! High School is going to be lots of fun! I hope the bus came on time today! 😩
Thank you! And yes, bus was right on time!
I’m exhausted just reading this, besides living it. As usual, you have captured the “slice of life” of beginning school with great style and humor.
Thank you! I was exhausted writing it!
We managed, after much back and forth, to get a basic Google sheet last year. But we did not have editing capability and the teachers were not consistent. Schoology and the fact that the teachers all use it differently was our nemesis last year. We’re very relieved not to be dealing with the district this year.
And don’t sweat the gym thing. There are only a couple of specific periods early on that have to be made up. Otherwise it just means they don’t get 100%. Mine still got an A, despite missing a few days due to illness, and failing to have his gym kit with him a few times.
Thanks for the advice on gym! I didn’t realize you left the district. Where are you now?
We are still here but freshman year at the high school was so awful that A has moved to a private school this year, and so far is thriving. We are hoping to sell the house next year and move closer to his school, which is on the river between Conshohocken and Manayunk. The driving is already getting old.
I’ll message you 🙂