If you went to school in USA…

[Princesspuppy]

Sorry for the stupid question. But I am watching 10 things I hate about you and it got me wondering. Do schools in the US really have car parks for the students? And do the rich kids show up in expensive cars?

I would love to hear your experiences!

He’s a car mechanic at a place where lots of people bring high end cars, and his first job there age 16 was cleaning/detailing cars after repair. He did a LOT of moving cars around small spaces. He’d passed his test less than a month before.

And yes they also leave the nicest cars parked out front - there is a row of Porsches right by the front door :-)

I have had kids in HS in one of the most expensive school districts in the country and have never once seen a Lambo or anything close to that in the last 10 years of having kids in HS (unless driven by a parent) so I would say that that is certainly unusual. The car of choice is a Jeep or a Tesla here.

They leave the best cars out front (and park mine round the back where nobody can see it!!)

@BackToWhereItAllBegan Hah! - I can relate. I'm in Sarasota now and my Jeep (which I love!) is always parked out of sight so the Lamborghinis and Bentleys can take pride of place🙄What is with all the Lamborghinis down here?! It's a little...creepy.

My DS is a highschooler here in the US. The pledge of allegiance is broadcast over speakers into the classrooms every morning, but the kids don't have to recite it. DS said that a few kids do, but most don't.

Yes they get allocated their own spaces in some schools and then they all spend a day painting their own spaces in whatever design they want

I think it depends on the school. My DS's school has the same classes every other day. He has four periods a day, so he studies eight subjects in all (maths, English, biology, Japanese, PE, free period, engineering design, and history). Next year some of his subjects will change.

@EconomyClassRockstar

The kid with the Lambo has a Serbian father who owns fifteen different businesses in our city so the car is normal for him.

There are lots of kids with very expensive cars because we live in an area that has a large oil & gas industry headquarters and a very large medical center. There are also lots of very expensive pick-up trucks because I do live in Texas.

My high school in a different part of Texas and many, many years ago did not have such economics but there were plenty of kids who drove cars but they weren't luxury ones. I walked to and from school.

We had a car parking area for students where I lived in England, but only a few students drove to school. And this was in the 1980s.

Where we are now in the US, the school does have parking for students. There are buses that take the kids to school, but the timetable is very rigid, and if you have clubs after school you can't take the bus. Where we are there's absolutely no public transport and kids can drive from the age of 16, so many of them (not all) drive to school. The next town over from ours has buses and a metro, so most kids don't have to drive.

We live close to the HS, and one of my DDs used to roll out of bed at 7:45 for the 8:00 am start. She had time to pull on clothes, brush her teeth, wolf down a clif bar, and trot to school. It was a different story when we lived a good 30 minutes away on foot.

Oops! That's seven subjects, not eight. And they only get half an hour for lunch and no breaks between lessons.

@Marsyas

I grew up in Texas and we always did the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag every single day.

My children do the Pledge of Allegiance to the US flag but they also do the Texas Pledge of Allegiance to the Texas flag daily. Not all counties in Texas do it.

I do know that if the students are not US citizens, they are not required to recite the pledges but they must stand.

I know someone who used to let her kids sleep in their clothes, so they didn't have to deal with getting dressed in the morning!

My dd’s school runs an alternating day scheduling. Red and blue days. She has 8 classes in a semester. 4 meet on red days, the other 4 meet on blue days. She has to take some core classes and then has to pick electives that cover a variety of requirements. For example, she needs 5 tech credits and 2 art credits to graduate amongst. Different electives count towards different categories. It is much like the requirements for a U.S. liberal arts university degree in that you can focus on your interests, but must also take a little bit of everything to become a well-rounded person.

It was tne usual thing in that particular DMV in MO where I did my first test. The second DMV had a driving test specialist.

In the first DMV, not only did the policeman test the car's suspension to the hilt, he also carried his weapon. It was a blue collar suburb with a lot of junkyards, one of which had a sign hanging on the fence that said, "Protected by shotgun three days a week. You guess when."

I'm in another state now, and I have never heard of any driving tests done by police, though I'm in a major metropolitan area, and I don't know what goes on in rural areas.

I am a Brit in the US my youngest DS is 16 and has already been driving for a few months, he parks near the school as the parking spots in the parking garage are reserved at the beginning of the school year due to being in a big city. He has to be at school at 7:40am so DH often drives him to school because he is so tired in the morning and the HS is one about 30 mins from our house and I pick him up or a friend gives him a ride home. The rest of the time he drives himself around. He has a girlfriend and they went to Junior Prom last night although he couldn’t drive her, as in our state you must have been driving for 6 months before having anyone under 21 in the car.

At his school they have block periods, so each class is 90 minutes long and they have A and B days with different schedules. His school is unique in that they all have one class called Collegio with two teachers team teaching, which is a blend of English (literature and language), history, social studies and theology so they cover large periods of history looking at the history of ideas, political movements etc. it’s more like a college class, but they all do it for 3 years of school.

I am trying to remember my timetable but it was ridiculous.

it went something like:
tone (start of school + prayer over the tannoy
tardy tone (have to be seated in class)

classes were:
Drivers Ed
American history

• chapel

life of Christ Golf (phys Ed, I did golf and weightlifting)

• lunch

earth science (biblical) honors English

I mean that's horrifying! Maths? Geography? History? Science that isn't according to Christ?

(Also, art, music, DT?)

So you do your subjects every single day 5 days a week so instead of say, art twice a week for 2 hrs- you do it every day for an hr for a semester or half a semester. It’s block scheduling. It means you can get totally immersed in your subject and also that by the time I was 15 I never had to do maths again as I’d done all my maths credits.

Science topics were a bit shaky. Anything where Jesus could be invited in, well, Jesus was there. So all history/science/politics/English etc all very Jesus-y. We also prayed before every class and at the end of school and before every sporting fixture.

I was actually called in for extra religious education as they got wind I might have an enquiring mind.

Having lived internationally, I think the best thing about the US and most other country education models.is that you can fail the year. It's unheard of in most places to be able to progress without having done the work. I'm talking about friends and relatives kids in the UK who would simply not participate because they didn't like something or found it stressful. It's especially useful when you have shit parents because it means kids can actually see the opportunities available to them to actually put their head down and work. Of course allowances are made for other circumstances, that goes without saying but in the main, it makes being a twat less cool which is always a good thing.

@Chewyspree - I'm guessing this wasn't a public school or one affiliated with a mainstream Christian religion? (I.e. Lutheran, RC).

My DCs went to the local public HS (completely secular) and had a very different curriculum from yours.

Science topics were a bit shaky. Anything where Jesus could be invited in, well, Jesus was there. So all history/science/politics/English etc all very Jesus-y. We also prayed before every class and at the end of school and before every sporting fixture.

Definitely not a public school in the US. Some type of private Christian school maybe?

@FeltedDogs

Yes, the tracking system you often find in American high schools means you can rise or fall to different levels or stay on the same track. You don't just advance with your age cohort regardless of performance.

My local HS offers summer school for kids who have failed a semester in a core subject like English or maths, or for kids who want to do a year's worth of maths in six weeks (4 hours daily) and get onto (for instance) a track that will lead to calculus in senior year even if they started out in general algebra as freshmen.

My DCs were in class with kids of all ages in most subjects because everyone was on a different path through the curriculum. 14 year olds could find themselves in a class with bearded 18 year olds. They kept age groups together for PE and obv drivers ed.

I guess the T Birds and Pink Ladies had failed final year a LOT of times 😀

I went to a college in the uk as opposed to 6th form and we had a massive car park so I don't think that's particularly unusual? We all had bangers pretty much though!

Really interesting thread!

Could someone please explain fraternities and sororoties (sp?) in University? Do you have to join one? Do they all really live in one big mansion like in Legally Blonde? What's the main advantage of joining one?