lansbury

Depending on the circumstances at the time of the daughters birth, before the law change in 2003, she may not need the father or the courts permission at all.

Jerseygirl

Please tell us more as this subject crops up time and time again.

lansbury

As it is prior to December 1st, 2003 if the parents were not married when the child was born the father does not have parental responsibility, unless there is an agreement to that effect. No parental responsibility, no permission required. A child born on or after that date the fathers name has to be on the birth certificate and he then has parental responsibility and permission would be required. If in doubt always best to seek advice from a lawyer recommended by Reunite International.

Also the child is 15, once she is 16 no ones permission is required anyway.

Jerseygirl

Interesting. Thank you.

petitefrancaise

As JJMB wrote I moved over with my kids almost 3 years ago when the elder 2 were 14 and 16.

14yr old went into 10th grade and started his 4 year high school studies without too many issues. His GPA is very good but not at the very top of the range simply because so many of his peers had already started accumulating high school credits in the last year of middle school. He has had plenty of time to fulfil all the graduation requirements and will graduate high school next year. He has absolutely no intention of going to university/college in the US so we're looking at EU universities for him.

Elder daughter arrived at went into 11th grade. She's done very well BUT the school district absolutely refused to give her any credit or GPA for her studies done before arriving in this school district. She had to take credit by exam for most subjects just to be allowed to go into an appropriate class level. Her GPA never reflected the results she got and she was at a disadvantage when applying to US universities. She's doing really well at university now but I wish I'd known more about the school district policy of not giving credit for previous out of district studies. My daughter did nothing but work that first year here, she's great and just got her head down and got on with it, you need to think about whether your daughter will want to do this or whether she's just going to get really pissed off with you about it.

Your daughter may well be classed as an international student if you want her to study in the UK. This is something you really should be clear about. US universities are expensive so if you haven't been saving up for it and you think you can just pop back to the UK for her you might be in for a shock.



You need to identify a school for her to go to (USNews does a fairly good annual national ranking of high schools) and then have some discussions with the school counselling staff about what their policy regarding out of district academic work is, what the graduation requirements are and how your daughter would achieve it.

kodokan

Ouch, PF, not even allowing credit for former studies is tough.

My son did 9th grade in AZ, and is now in a new high school in OH. They've credited him against the graduation requirements for the 6 subject credits he got in 9th grade, and the Algebra 1 credit he did in 8th grade.

As far as I can tell (by trying to replicate the numbers on my own spreadsheet), the grades he got in 9th grade are being counted into his overall cumulative GPA, but the grade from Algebra in middle school isn't (but still counts as one of his math credits, although he'll get a further 4 in high school anyway).

It took me a bit to work out, because his old school did a simple A=4, B=3, with everything stepped up one for a weighted class; the new school does 4 for an A+ or A, but only 3.75 for an A- (90-92), and they only give 4.5 for an A in a weighted class. I think I've worked out how they're calculating the GPA, but I'll be more sure when he gets another semester report card.

I don't yet know how it'll work for class ranking - I think this comes on the end of year report card - but I guess it'll be the same, taking his current cumulative GPA based on the 9th grade stuff but not the 8th.

But this is a long way of explaining, OP, that every school district will consider these things differently, and firm enquiries need to be made before signing a rental contract anywhere.

PF - did you choose for your 14 to go into 10th; wouldn't he normally be in 9th? Or did his birthday happen to fall in an odd way?

Wintersong

This has all been extremely useful for me, actually. My girls were born here and are now in 1st and 4th grade, but I was a teacher in the UK before I moved over, so my head is very firmly entrenched in the world of KS3, GCSE, AS and A2. One more year of elementary school then my eldest is off to middle school so I've started trying to get my head around different requirements, AP classes, GPA and how it all works. The explanations you guys have given have been the most straightforward and easily understandable that I've seen so far. I assume it's because the people I've spoken to have been Americans who grew up with the system and don't know what the UK system is, whereas you guys have seen both and can explain the differences. Many thanks!!

kodokan

I was exactly the same Wintersong, finding it all an incomprehensible alphabet soup. We arrived with a 6th and 2nd grader, with 6th being the final year of elementary. When he moved to 7th and middle school, after the first semester I made an appointment to go see the counselor, explained I was from the UK and didn't have a clue about the system, and could she walk me through it in relation to my son and his academic progress to date?

She was SO helpful. She got out the middle and high school course of studies catalogs, and explained to me all the 'gotcha' points - the places where an unknowing student/ parent might suddenly discover that they can't now do X, because they didn't do Y a year or more ago. In his school district, the big gotcha was the accelerated math/ science - kids in this did a brisk pre-algebra in 7th alone, then did Algebra 1 in 8th rather than the usual 9th. Having completed Algebra 1 meant they could move straight into Biology instead of the usual 9th grade General Science.

So by 10th grade, a kid could be one year further down both the math and science tracks/ course structure, which means that kid is much more likely to have completed all the core courses and be taking APs in those subjects in years 11 and 12. But I needed to know this in middle school, as the speeded-up 2-in-1 year in the plan is actually 7th, during pre-algebra.

If you have kids who usually get As in math and science, and they're not already tagged in some sort of pullout or G&T class, it's worth finding out if these subjects are accelerated though middle and high school (they usually seem to be) and how to get on the track. In my son's middle school, placement was solely achieved by taking the CoGAT numerical reasoning test, and scoring a percentile ranking of 85 or above. But this is an extra non-standard test that the child would only be entered for if the parent requested it. All the other parents seemed to know this, and had been requesting that the elementary school test their kids annually since about 3rd grade, in order to maximize their chances of one year hitting the magic pass rate and being able to ask for the accelerated stream once in middle school.

Coming so late to the party, we hit lucky with an accommodating counselor, who - halfway through the accelerated 7th grade year - looked at his first semester grade, spoke to his math teacher, and boosted my son into the speeded-up class anyway on probation that when he took the CoGAT during the next available round in a couple of months, he'd achieve the necessary score (he did, although since he was running an A by then, I think they'd have been fine with him staying there anyway. There often seems to be a lot of 'once you're in, you're in' with these accelerated or honors streams).

petitefrancaise

We were not at all "lucky" with counsellors.... the high school one was a first class bitch, disliked by all ( I found out later) and luckily she was fired after our first year here. Luckily for others, too late for my eldest daughter.

My youngest entered 6th grade a year early because she had already finished primary in France. The math placing at that time has continued to be a nuisance - now she is about to enter high school and the only way for her to get into a decent level math class is to take algebra 1 over the summer online. Not a big problem since her dad is an engineer, her big sister a math/cs major and her big brother will be studying physics. She will be well supported through it....
Many kids take summer classes to "catch up" a level or re-do a class that they didn't do well in. The local community college provides them either online or in person.

Kodokan you were right to pick me up on the 10th grade for my son, my error, he started in 9th grade.

So, to the OP - it is possible to bring your daughter over, watch out for pitfalls along the way as described by us but .... and this is my opinion based on seeing a few similar situations to yours, it may not be the wisest course.

Putting aside the legal issues regarding bringing your daughter to the USA,(you have to deal with them though) she may well have to work very hard, you are taking her away from her best friends at a tricky time, from all she knows and identifies with and also away from her father. A lot of us have problems with homesick kids anyway but you have an added issue and if her father is not totally on-board with it all, believe me your daughter can make your new life very, very hard indeed.

As a last note, my kids settled relatively quickly into their new lives here. I am absolutely sure that most of that was due to the schools we chose for them - both middle school and high school have very large numbers of new immigrant children from families like ours. My youngest's best friend is French and has been living in the USA since she was 4, before that she lived in Norway.. My son's best friend is from Bulgaria, here since he was 6. My daughter's friends came from all over. In other words, they were amongst like-minded kids.I'm not sure it would have gone so well if I'd stuck them in a village school equivalent here..

Owen778

Our eldest is in 6th grade, which is the first year of middle school in our district. Their accelerated math class begins with taking "Level 1" math in 6th grade, so they get half a year ahead in 6th grade and another half year in 7th, so they're ready to take Algebra I in 8th. They offer a summer school for kids who want to move from on-level 6th grade to level 1 7th grade. The school has more than half the kids in the accelerated stream.

We had a presentation at the school a couple of months ago to explain this. They can also pick up other high-school credits in middle school, including advanced art, foreign languages and, I think, some of the technology options. These details are specific to Texas, though may apply elsewhere.

kins

This is really useful for me too, albeit a bit late. I hadn't realised you could get your child studying a year ahead in middle school (we were told you can't, even though I later found out some students were), so my oldest was bored the entire time, even though she was doing all the G&T options.

She's now in 9th grade at a science and math magnet high school, and it's so different. After she was offered a place (for which she had to take the SAT) they did placement testing, and immediately pushed her up two grades in Math. So she's currently studying what she would have studied in junior year had I kept her in her current school. She filled in the missing bits (eg Geometry) by doing office hours with her math teacher and Kahn Academy.

She has had to do the basic science class in 9th grade but she now has a program mapped out that will get her AP Physics and AP Chemistry by the end of junior year, then some advanced classes in senior year.

She's doing this without much help from us, partly because we don't understand the system and partly because she's at a boarding school.

I guess what I've learnt from this is that school systems vary in how flexible they're willing to be to accommodate the needs of very capable students.

petitefrancaise

Yes, the algebra 1 is what my daughter is doing over the summer so she can start in the autumn with geometry at high school.

She's also got credit for her spanish.

kodokan

My daughter is currently in 6th grade, the first year of middle school here. There's definitely an advanced or accelerated math class that operates for that grade, but she's not in that track (it's not her strongest subject, and she was already a teeny bit traumatized from having to move states and suddenly go into middle school when in AZ she would have had one more year of elementary).

If she suddenly develops an aptitude for math - actually, it's more attitude, if she suddenly develops a desire to start trying rather than treating school as some giant social club... - then we'll do whatever is necessary to re-track her, as PF mentions: a summer class, a tutor, etc. I would like her to be bumped up if possible and if it's within her abilities, partly for the opportunities it'll give her later in high school, and partly for the... let's say teenage peer group control - my son (a very driven, academic type) is greatly looking forward to going into a pure Hons/ AP Junior year and finally ditching all the Gen Ed requirement classes full of unmotivated, disruptive kids who don't do any of the assignments or contribute in any positive way.

Her middle school also starts everyone (outside of remedial reading) off with a foreign language credit, as they need at least three to graduate high school. She'll be able to pick from French, Spanish, or Mandarin in 8th grade. Although Spanish is arguably the most useful, especially for many public-facing US careers, part of me would be fascinated if she picked French. She went to a French-speaking school in Switzerland from ages 4-7 and was fluent, but now at 12 has forgotten virtually everything (but retains a stunning accent). It's be so interesting to see how it came back if she took up the language again.

kodokan

My son's middle school only offered Spanish as an 8th grade language credit class, but the high school was very accommodating about his French placement (he too is a former fluent speaker from his younger days). They happily agreed to place him straight into French 2 based purely on my asking for it. They even offered French 3 placement if I thought it was appropriate, but I thought that might be a stretch academically - he hadn't spoken it for 3-4 years, and had never experienced it being taught as a foreign language, which is a different style of learning.

And I thought socially it might be too ambitious as it'd be placing a single Freshman, new to high school, in a class full of Juniors; he wasn't a very confident public speaker at the time, and I thought he'd be very reluctant to say anything out loud in the class. Moving up one year has worked fine; he's had the confidence boost of always being one of the strongest in the class, whizzed through the homeworks and garnered easy As to boost his GPA, and will be able to go through to French AP, the highest level offered at the school anyway (he won't be focusing on languages in college).

He sees his easy French success as payback for all the years he spent in Switzerland doing schooling in a non-native language, and having to work twice as hard as the others

Wintersong

Both of my girls are extremely bright, so I definitely need to know the best route to a good college - it's very good to know that it starts in middle school, as I was assuming that it wouldn't really get going until high school.

At our elementary, they do GATE testing in 2nd grade, with the NNAT2 test. My youngest hasn't taken it yet, but my eldest scored 99th percentile. Unfortunately the elementary doesn't really do anything much with that info - it's basically a one size fits all education and she doesn't get any different work or any accelerated placement. I honestly have no idea what they do with the info in middle and high school, so that's something I need to look into.

The only thing I've really found out is that the high school doesn't offer enough AP classes for the best colleges, so the high school kids go to the local community college to take classes there in order to get their GPA up.

Sounds as though I need to speak to a counselor at the middle school sooner rather than later. Once again, thank you SO much for all the info!