Math acceleration in Oakland high schools?
Hi all,
If you have advocated for an incoming 9th grader to accelerate beyond what is advertised by OUSD, please share how it went! I've read all the FAQs I can find, and emailed an administrator (waiting to hear back), but would love to hear first-hand experiences. Were you able to get the school to give credit for Geometry completed in 8th? Was the kid able to move right into Alg 2 or Alg 2/Math Analysis Compressed? Any tips?
Situation: Kid is taking both Algebra and Geometry this year (8th grade), plus simultaneously doing an online course (Math 1 Honors), just for the enjoyment of it. Kid isn't competitive, is not trying to rush ahead for a STEM major, and is not pushed by parents. In fact they are more an art and literature person, but stumbled into a love of math in middle school. Kid is a very strong student. Current teacher recommends starting high school with Alg 2/Trig. Kid is feeling depressed at prospect of repeating 8th grade math and not learning anything new.
Please, no opinions on acceleration in general -- just looking for your experience. Appreciate it!
Parent Replies
I have 2 kids at Oakland School for the Arts (OUSD) and have had no problem at all with acceleration. Both kids took precalculus in 9th grade and continued with math classes through local junior colleges. OSA gives students "Early College Credit" period(s) they can use to take college classes while in high school. My daughter completed almost all her college GE requirements this way and looks forward to starting college with a year + of credit (without having to take a bunch of AP tests). The pre-high school math classes are not on her high-school transcript, but she received "placement" credit and we just noted them on college applications. I believe that other OUSD schools also allow concurrent enrollment: https://www.ousd.org/high-school-linked-learning-office/for-students-families/dual-enrollment/concurrent-enrollment, and this might be your best bet for acceleration. There are plenty of online asynchronous math classes offered through the Peralta colleges, and ratemyprofessor.com can give you an idea of which could be a good fit for your kid. Good luck with high school!
My son went to Hillcrest then Oak Tech. I mention this bc I suspect different schools have different rules(?). He did Alg 1 in 8th, then Geometry in 9th, and was bored and wanting to accelerate. I wish we'd allowed him accelerate in 9th grade. He lobbied us for months, and at the start of 10th begged to do Alg 2 through Laney or College of Alameda. We caved and somehow got Tech to allow this. That meant he completed it in 1 semester. Then he did Precalc via College of Alameda the next semester. Then through Tech he did AP Calc AB in junior year and through UC Scout did AP Calc BC in senior year (a weak class btw). His close friend accelerated in 9th grade and was doing math 2 years beyond calculus by senior year, and is in a great engineering school, so it's worth it to push if your child loves math. Mine went into Life Sciences at UCLA and they make all those students retake calculus bc they teach it a special way, so it wasn't as critical for him to go further than BC. He's found the UCLA math easy, which has been nice. Remember that you actually do NOT need your high school to grant permission to do ANY community college class in CA - but they may not elect to add it to the kid's high school GPA and transcript. But it WILL be included when the colleges your child applies to sees all the transcripts and calculates their GPA independently, as all colleges do. We know kids who earned AA degrees and did LOADS of community college classes while attending Tech - and were admitted to Ivies. So it's possible, but I bet it was a battle for the parents.