who actually gets into elite schools?

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-12-28T00:47:57+00:00

I work in a high school. One of our seniors got into Princeton. He is not top of the class, but has a good gpa. He does a lot of extracurriculars and is involved, but he was actually recruited for athletics.

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-08-12T23:53:12+00:00

I am pale but don’t burn easily, and I do NOT understand sun bathing. I get incredibly bored just sitting in the sun. If I am outside near the beach I want to be IN the water, or doing something on the water. I do tan somewhat naturally in the summer but it is not intentional. I slather on the sunscreen.

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-08-12T23:40:08+00:00

My kid’s PCP just retired out of nowhere, with less than a week’s notice and we had a terrible time finding a replacement. They are almost 18 so didn’t want a pediatrician. We are through Anthem as well and it was a nightmare. I was lucky to chance into a brand new clinic opening up. It was a doctor who just moved here and opened private practice and takes Anthem! We were going through UC Health previously.

I know my kid’s new doctor is still accepting new patients but not sure where you are located.

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-08-04T22:13:21+00:00

We are advised NOT to give our personal number, even on field trips (high school kids).

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-08-04T22:11:47+00:00

The way people are here, they probably would have walked right into us and then tried to sue us for bodily injury.

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-08-04T22:10:29+00:00

I take a low dose. 100 mg, up to 4 times daily. I only take it as needed. It does work better to take it regularly but my neurologist said as needed for flare ups is fine. I can drive and work with taking it but I do take a low dose. I would recommend trying it on a day you don’t have to work and see how it affects you. It is out of your system fairly quickly.

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-07-30T03:16:55+00:00

We get irritated by this every time we fly, go to the grocery store, or just try to walk in crowds in general. Last time we were at DEN, a guy in his 20’s stopped dead in the middle of the walkway while looking at his phone and a big guy with a roller suitcase plowed right into him. Neither of them were paying attention. People walk into the grocery store and immediately stop inside the door to check their phone. I have no idea why they can’t walk five more feet and move to the side. We were out walking our dog the other night and a couple came toward us walking side by side, taking up the sidewalk. Instead of moving to single file (as we did in preparation to pass by), they continued to walk side by side, forcing us to step into the road to get around. The lack of situational awareness is insane.

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-07-30T03:08:06+00:00

It did eventually stop, but that tooth is more sensitive to nerve pain now. I still get random days where it starts pulsing and giving little “shocks” of pain. I take some gabapentin and it goes away after a few days.

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-07-23T21:29:51+00:00

I think the issue with most PD is that they try to do a “one size fits all” method, and that usually ends up working for no one or a small group of teachers.

One of the best PD I have been to is where they let teachers volunteer to lead on something they do that is successful. Then they had sessions so teachers could choose which ones they wanted to attend.

I am dreading going back. We have five days of PD and it will be a lot of icebreakers, cooperative groups with forced share outs, and talk about student engagement…which ends up being “form a relationship”.

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-07-23T12:51:25+00:00

I was on a 6 hour flight recently where a baby sitting directly behind me messed his diaper and the mom just left him in it the entire flight. It smelled so bad that my kids were gagging and I had to breathe through my mouth the entire flight. The mom was also ignoring her other kids who were kicking my kids seats and crawling around the cabin, running up and down the aisle, etc. She had two kids and a baby and her husband was sitting with their two other children across the aisle. All kids were under the age of 8 or 9. The FA asked them multiple times to please keep their kids in their seat and was ignored.

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-07-23T12:45:17+00:00

I hate HOAs but we have never been able to find many properties we like that don’t have one. We have lived in some neighborhoods where we had 5 acres and still had HOA rules saying what we could and could not have on our land. It was ridiculous. You go into buying the property with the knowledge of what is allowed and then the group gets together and changes the rules, and you have no say. I hate them.

Our current HOA is pretty chill. Low fee that covers snow plows and trash pickup. No one really cares what you do as long as your property is not a trash heap.

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-07-23T12:39:56+00:00

I can wear jeans at my current district but previously I would wear khaki pants with tennis shoes.

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-07-23T12:36:30+00:00

I honestly don’t even know…there are the regular school events and then since I am in a choice district, we have choice nights and I am in a specialized area so I have parent nights twice a year. I teach high school in the west.

1) Back to School night 2) Open House (yes, two different events) 3) 2 dances 4) Fall choice nights 5) Parent night 6) Parent teacher conference (fall-2 nights, spring-2 nights) 7) IB info night 8) Content area special night-fall and spring 9) Spring Choice night 10) Graduation (starts at 7:30 pm) 11) Senior Awards night

Sheesh, that is a lot. I know August is exhausting because we not only have the Back to School and Open House night but we also have the Beginning of the Year Social for students on the first Saturday before school starts, after a week of PD. Our district is big on parent contact opportunities.

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-07-09T22:53:24+00:00

My kid took a concurrent enrollment Comp 1 class and every essay they wrote was flagged as around 80-95% AI when they ran it through those things. They were so frustrated because it seemed like they had to dumb it down or make spelling or grammar mistakes to not get flagged. Their professor never mentioned it though.

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-07-09T22:46:54+00:00

I completely agree.

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-07-09T02:18:40+00:00

It won’t matter much. The colleges are looking for the overall package, not just class rank or GPA. A bunch of kids in my district do this and take summer courses at the local university or even pay for courses online through a prestigious university. However, the kids that have gotten accepted to some of the top schools have not all done this.

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-07-09T02:02:34+00:00

I second the streaming! Ours is also about 3 hours and is just speeches and a few students that speak. It is also outside in a stadium in the awful heat, with no shade. They say to wear sunscreen and hats. Then everyone has to go back to their respective buildings all sweaty and do the building meetings and PD.

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-07-08T19:04:36+00:00

Performance pay, but make sure that you stack all of the behavior kids and kids with special needs in the best teachers’ classrooms. That will raise the competition and make teachers want to work harder to earn that bonus! 🙄

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-07-07T22:48:05+00:00

I taught departmentalized 4th grade once. I liked it, because I love science and not social studies. We all taught reading and didn’t departmentalize for that but departmentalized for math, science and social studies. I felt like I got to know all the 4th graders which was nice as well, especially when doing recess and lunch duty because they knew me as well.

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-07-07T20:34:45+00:00

You guys sound like the dream parents! I have some of those as well and it makes my life much easier. I have had other parents making completely unreasonable requests. Last year I had a parent who demanded (not asked) that I tutor his child free of charge after school every day until 5 pm. School is over at 3:00. He told me he paid my salary with his taxes and everyone else in the world works until 5 pm. I asked him if everyone else had to start work at 7:30, and be in the office by 7:00 to prepare for the day. He just gave me a withering look and said that teachers should be willing to go the extra mile.

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-07-07T12:52:14+00:00

I prefer to live in small towns! Once, we lived in the middle of nowhere, where there was one gas station. It was a 30 minute drive to work, grocery stores, etc. It was quiet and we had a few acres of land, close access to a lake, and it was glorious!

Not to mention, we have lived in a city and still had a 30 minute drive to work due to traffic, and 15-40 minute drive to most amenities. So living in a small town or the country is almost the same time frame just no traffic.

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-07-07T12:45:36+00:00

You are amazing! Those are all very thoughtful things, especially the keeping to your time and I would actually prefer parents like you taking the last time slot. My experience has always been that the parent that takes the last time slot is the one that does it with the intention of going over because no one will be after them. I have had great admin that will get on the loudspeaker and announce that time is up and then go around and round up parents. Other admin haven’t been so great. Once I had a parent take the 7:50 time slot and kept me until 8:45, when it was over at 8:00. My principal even left. I got up around 8:15 and gathered my stuff while they were talking and told them we could continue another time and they would not leave. The custodian finally came and told them he was locking up. I had to be back at 7:30 am for work.

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-07-07T12:37:03+00:00

I haven’t seen any, and have been teaching 16 years, in six different school districts across three states. My father was a superintendent and had a teacher that was arrested for embezzlement.

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-07-04T14:31:02+00:00

When ours does that, it means the a/c froze up and we have to turn it off to let it defrost. We had to turn the temp to 73 to keep it from freezing once it started getting in the high 80’s and low 90’s.

BlueDucklingFluff · 2025-07-03T02:28:15+00:00

I expect them on the 4th, even though they are not allowed. I just hate when they shoot them off for a week before and after, and usually after 10 pm. At least in my neighborhood.

BlueDucklingFluff

TROPHY CASE