Ben

Actually, that is not true. You can exempt your child from having to receive Hepatitis B vaccine in New Jersey on the basis of philosophical or moral grounds. You will find that in all states there are choices for parents, just as there are in the UK - but you won't hear about them from the schools. They will tell you you have no choice - both here and the UK. We were told in the UK that our children would not be allowed in the school system unless our children were immunized. We were told the same here too. It isn't true. You have a right as a parent to refuse the immunizations for your child. As long as your reason is valid. Nearly 25% of chilren in the US are not immunized for one reason or another.

britvic

CNN tonight has a program on the state of US schools.

honeymommy

Be aware if your child has had a BCG vaccination. All our kids had it before we left the UK, The problem with it is that it can show a false positive to TB. The school needs a negative TB in California before entry. If the heaf test shows positive then it's x-rays to prove they are clear.

From... http://216.109.124.98/search/cache?p...icp=1&.intl=uk


Why is BCG not recommended in USA?
In developed countries like USA, very few cases of tuberculosis occur. As BCG does not prevent primary TB or the adult type of tuberculosis no benefit will be derived by routine BCG vaccination in such countries. Hence BCG is not recommended in USA routinely.

Bearing in mind the amount of illegals in Cali... I chose to vaccinate my kids before we left the UK.... Turns out I was right to do so. My USA nurse training proved the statistics wrong, saw a number of patients with TB.


I went to the UK docs before we left and said... Can you give them EVERYTHING you can to cover them... Lot of jabs for them but definately worth it.... Plus it's free on the NHS... LOL

scrubbedexpat099

My step son went to a American School in the UK,

http://www.acs-england.co.uk/

Standards are very high, if you can work it and afford it before you move over then this might be a good transition.

franc111s

Great comments, thanks everyone. Interesting views all around.

I didn't mean to imply my son had my genes but he is exactly like me and the other son is exactly like mum (smart). Just a fact - I don't know why. Neither is spoilt, both are loving, neither gets in trouble, they are just as different in the way the handle work at school as night and day.

Funny because my son, whilst not very organized, he actually does well on his SAT's and even better on the new SAT's thanks to the new "essay" part - at least that progressed in the USA....

I am telling everything who thinks my son needs a shake up or councelling or whatever to fix this problem that I want to SCREAM out just how many different ways we have tried to fix his organisation problem. My wife and I spent 7+ years and have realised he is NEVER going to change. We are now working at rebuilidng our relationship with him and that's working fantastically and worth more than anything at this age. He has had testing (IQ = 120), 3 school counsellers (waste of time mostly). HE IS WHAT HE IS and CANNOT deliver what SCHOOL WANTS from him. He ONLY lacks organizational skills.

We used to be a lot more worried until we have met so many families with Children just like our son and it is wonderful to know we are not alone. It's actually quite scary just how many kids suffer from organisational skills from a very early age and despite years of trying, few end up with a child any more organized than they were from Day 1.

My point about Bill Gates was that he DROPPED out of school for similar reasons and YES he now does have many PA's BUT does that mean my son has to drop out of school first as a failure. Maybe I guess, yes. He will be successful though, he's very clever - if only disorganized.

Thanks for the kind words, sympathy and udnerstanding. You guys and girls are great....

mandpete

Well it's definitely the case in our school district. I did challenge it and they were adamant that any student coming from a foreign country had to be immunised against Hep B before attending school. They did allow my kids to attend school for a few days until they had had their shots but that was only because we had come from the UK and my kids were up to date with everything else. They also had to have a mantoux TB test shortly after starting school.

jjmb

Well, my son did the new SAT this last Saturday and whilst we were waiting for him outside, happened to say to the guy who we were talking to, 'I hope my son doesn't fall asleep like he does in class most days' ha ha. Son came out 5 mins later and one of the first things he admitted, he had drifted off for 5 mins after section 8. . Actually its no surprise, given he started at 8.30 and by the time he came out it was 12.55, absolutely ridiculous to expect anyone to concentrate for 4 hours and 25 mins, let alone a teenager who is normally asleep at time on a Saturday. At least he got all his senior year to get a better score which he will no doubt need.

There was an interesting report today from Indiana University saying that High schoolers in general were ill equipped to deal with the challenges of college education.http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/2135.html

Having seen the struggles my daughter's fellow students go through, I would agree. The only one of her friends on target for actually getting his degree in 4 yrs is the one who has no social life and spends all his spare time on the PC. All the others are a year or 2 behind, on academic probation or have changed major at least once since starting. Add to that, the fact they have all in the past year (not my daughter, she still has another year) reached that golden age - 21. Most nights are spend in the bar, rather than studying. Happily, my daughter is on target to graduate in 4 yrs, so her brother and sister better smarten up!

All of these students had good GPA's when they started and good SAT scores when they started, so where did it all go wrong? From the beginning I suspect.

Elisabeth, my daughter, has loved the challenge that college has given her, unlike the high school here which she started as a sophomore in 2000. In Scotland, she had been used to using her brain working on projects, which required her to do her own research in addition to the work she recieved in class. Here she was given worksheets to work from which require little or no effort on her part. In science, experiments were carrying out by the teacher, if at all and everything else was taught from the blackboard. She couldn't do physics as she didn't have the other required sciences such as IPC, Chemistry and Biology, despite having been taught physics for 2.5 yrs at high school in Scotland.

I have another daughter who has been in the US system since grade 7 and I am appalled at the level of work that is required of her in general. I really have mixed emotions on how she will cope at college because at the moment, she makes little or no effort with her work despite being in the top quartile of her school year. As for my son, we might be able to see how he might cope this summer as he is doing a couple of dual credits at the local community college. It will be interesting.

rochdalediva

What got me was the "extra credit". My sons' schools would give extra credit for the most bizzare things: bringing in a box of tissues; cans of food for the food drive; baking chocolate chip cookies (yeah guess who did that one); making a stuffed mole (for Chemistry class, apparently a mole is a scientific measure). All certainly added to the learning experience !! Ok I know I could have made a stand but grades get them into college here no matter how they're earned.

AdobePinon

I was rather unpopular with some of my students because I never gave extra credit.

New in NY

As far as I know (and I might be wrong) New Jersey only has medical and religious exemption, meaning you can't object to vaccinations on philosophical/moral grounds. In the case of religious/moral reasons it has to be against all vaccinations, you can't have a religious objection to Hepatitis B vaccine and get the tetanus done.

rincewind

I think I just received font poisoning

candy wy.

don't worry, just go to the pharmacy. I am sure they will have a cure for it..

rincewind

Don't have medical insurance. Guess I'll just have to wear some shades and hope it all goes away.

Englishmum

I live in New Jersey and initially I wasn't very happy that my son had to have the Hep B vaccination (despite the fact that we'd lived in SE Asia for a few years prior to moving to the States where Hep B is prevalent) because Hep B is transmitted via blood to blood or sexual contact and I thought that a TB jab would have been of more importance. However, the nurse at the surgery said that very few High school kids are virgins by the time they graduate and certainly during the time they're at college and in the heat of the moment they don't always use condoms....

As an aside, all of the children and families at one of our township elementary schools had to have a heaf test .....one family had a live-in housekeeper from South America (rumours went around that she was an illegal) and she tested positive for TB.

I'm actually alarmed about my sister's stance back in England. Her eldest son has Asperger's syndrome (a form of autism) and she is convinced that he contracted it after having the MMR vaccination. His little brother (18 months younger) had his jabs and this was done before the older one was diagnosed with Asperger's and he's fine. My sister then had a little girl - and my sister wouldn't let her have any jabs at all and like her eldest brother is on a gluten-free diet. Abigail is now aged 4 and hasn't even had a tetanus jab, so when she visits my mum the cat has to be put out of the way in case it scratches Abi. My mum is very annoyed with my sister....she's wrapping her up in cotton wool and being over-protective. Like other parents who haven't allowed their kids to have any vaccinations, they're relying on most of the main population having their jabs to protect them. The problem now in the UK is that the take-up rate is declining so there are worries that there may be epidemics in future...

AdobePinon

No, but they will have a subscription-based medicine to 'manage' it.

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