Heh, aurelia -- sounds like a candidate for the Ig Nobel awards, at least if he publishes it somewhere. :-)

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Tag is a great game for kids -- not too many rules, but enough that they get some sense of having to follow them; enough leeway to get creative (freeze tag, TV tag, etc.)

Flashlight tag! We played this in the woods all the time. One of my favorite memories.

I didn't stay up for all of TDS. I tend to catch it the next day. Our schools have been good for my kids needs. Brendon gets extra credit for his honors classes and could get more than a 4.0. Bobby gets double time and a quiet room to take his important tests because of his attention problems. I think both these rules make sense. They play tag and dodgeball, often and with enthusiasm.

Alias: SpyDaddy!!!!! Dr. Guy does a great job, but keep him outta Jack's skin. Ewwwwww.

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In college, grades should be determined by mastery of subject. But in high school? You can't fail kids in Special Ed no matter how poorly they do. They can make no progress over the year and they will still pass because you have to pass them.

I think it is a shame that we're inclined to look at high school as something that is almost assured to end because of a student's age. If a SPED student needs 7 years to learn what we think a high school graduate needs to know, and what the average student is able to learn in 4 years--I wish it were more expected that the SPED student would take the time he needs. I realize this is partially a pipe dream, because even if space and funds weren't an issue for public schools, not too many people are going to remain in high school for too long, after age 18, because they'd feel ridiculous.

I remember a kid who was a couple of years older than me, who ended up graduating with my class. I don't know what his deal was. He always seemed like maybe he was just a wise ass, but now when I look back, I think it's likely he had learning disabilities. It was nearly unheard of in my town, for a 20 or 21 year old to still be coming to school, the way he was. That's a shame. This kid luckily had the attitude and popularity to weather sticking around for a couple more years, and must have had parents who insisted upon it.

Is it fair to the kid who works through high school in regular classes or advanced classes when there's another kid who takes Special Ed classes and they have the same GPA? Depends on your definition of fair, I guess.

I don't know how it is handled today, or nationwide, but when I was in high school, GPA was used in two different ways--to provide two different rankings of students. There was just class ranking, based on a flat GPA. It only took into consideration the number of A/B/C etc. grades a student had. Then there was the weighted GPA. In calculating the weighted GPA, they considered the level of the course (honors; college level A; college level B; standard; special ed).

If I earned a B in honors Spanish, it was worth the same number of points in the weighted rank as an A in college A level Spanish. If I recall correctly, colleges looked at the weighted rank. I know my weighted rank was much higher than my unweighted rank.

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We had no weighted ranks at my highschool. I think the special ed comparison isn't so much an issue - for us the resentment came in with the other kids of perfectly normal abilities who chose not to take the IB and AP classes that were available.

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Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise? A world of ewwwwww.

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My high school had weighted rankings. We didn't have enough students to have different levels in every subject (foreign languages generally had only one class for each year, and sometimes French 4 and French 5 were combined into one class), but certain classes had honors levels, and there were some AP classes offered, and those would count for an extra .5 added to the grade. It usually ended up that the top 20% or so of the class would have higher than a 4.0 average, and they had to calculate out to about 3 or 4 decimal places to figure out who would be valedictorian.

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Huh. According to imdb, Katie Holmes is 26. And also the same height as I am, which at a rough guess makes her taller than the former Mr Nicole Kidman.

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I wish. My GPA would've been much better if we'd had that option.

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Now that I think about it, I think that the fourth and fifth year of any foreign language were designated as honors classes. There wasn't any non-honors option for those, but I guess they figured that, since we were only required to take one year, and most people stopped at three, they'd give the honors credit to people who stayed with it for five.

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The state of Florida sticking their noises where they don't belong again. They have already delayed the child 2 weeks and may end up delaying her until it is too late.

The plight of a 13-year-old Palm Beach County foster child, who is pregnant and wants an abortion, is pitting children's advocates against Florida's child welfare agency, which has custody of the girl and has asked a judge to forbid her from ending her 13-week pregnancy.

The Department of Children & Families, which has been responsible for the girl for many years, argued to a West Palm Beach judge Tuesday that the girl is too immature to decide for herself whether to carry the pregnancy to term.

DCF has done such a great job caring for her so far in her life. It has to be child cruelty to make this girl carry a baby to term. [link]

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