Anticipating a move from Pleasant Grove to Bluffdale this summer, we went ahead and registered the kids for school up in the Jordan School District.   They are still registered for PG next year too in case we don’t get moved like we have planned on.

Caitlin

Caitlin completed 9th grade this year, which in Utah is at the middle school.  So she is now ready to move onto the higher education I suppose.

PGJH had a fairly well run routine for getting kids registered.  Caitlin wasn’t thrilled with her registration at PG High however.  There were a number of classes she wanted to get into that were unavailable by the time she was allowed to register.   She got into the core classes she needed, but the electives she wanted were filled.

I went over to Riverton High School a few weeks before the year ended to get her registered.  After handling the paperwork they gave me the login info to get her into classes for next year.

Surprisingly Riverton had all of her desired classes available except for photography.  She got into Physics, Digital Media, and Sign Language as well as her core classes.   I’m not sure if Riverton just has more teachers for those electives and that is why they were open, or if she lucked out that not as many people at RHS wanted those classes.

I think she is looking forward to the new year and moving into High School.   She turns 15 this summer, so personally I’m not ready for her to be a High School student.

Joshua

Joshua had an interesting year.   He started the year in 8th grade in MO and ended it in 7th grade at PGJH.   At his request, he’ll be going through 7th grade again next year.

His birthday is in late July.  That means that by Utah deadlines next year he should be one of the youngest 8th graders.  He doesn’t particularly like being one of the youngest, and so holding him back a year would make him one of the oldest 7th graders.  But because his birthday is so close to the deadline he the age gap isn’t any different.  By that I mean he is just as close to the 7th graders in age as he is to the 8th graders.   So socially it isn’t a big deal.

Academically he is plenty smart enough to have stayed in 8th grade all last year and move into 9th this year.   But because of the homeschooling time, and the time lost to fires, he does have some gaps in his knowledge.  He’s smart enough to move ahead, but he’d rather not.

So next year Josh will be in 7th grade, again, at South Hills Middle.  Because it is 7th grade there isn’t a lot of variability in his schedule like there is in Caitlin’s.  He’ll be where ever the 7th grade puts him.

Sports

A portion of his decision making in that regard was athletics.  He loves sports.  And while he is intelligent enough to move ahead, physically he knows he couldn’t compete athletically that way.  Being smart doesn’t make your body mature or grow any faster than anybody else.   That takes time, and he’s willing to spend that time (an additional school year) letting his body mature so that he has a chance to compete and play on sports teams.

Julie and I were torn on this.  We both value academic education very highly.  If he’d stayed ahead he could have graduated High School at 16.  If he moved up with this class he’d finish at 17.  By moving back he’ll finish at 18.   But that isn’t HIS goal.  And it is HIS life, so we will support his decision on how he wants to spend it and what goals he wants to chase after, even if it isn’t what we would choose.

We’ll compensate by getting him into concurrent enrollment, summer college courses, or other alternate education options.  There is no reason that he can’t excel at both academics and athletics as so many others have done.

Elementary School

All of the other kids are moving up a year as expected.  We’ll even be having a new one enter the system.  One of them did express some hope of doing homeschooling again.  So it is possible that we’ll have at least one at home with us.

I’d love to keep them all of the elementary kids home as I really, really don’t like public schooling.  At all!   But that might need to wait until we are more settled in.  As soon as we are I’d love to keep the kids at home around us.

 

And so that is what we have planned for next year’s schooling.  With 6 of 8 going to school the house will feel very empty I’m afraid.  Wish us luck!