Is Portland over?

Quote: missedhervee

One out of every 1000 black people in Portland was murdered in the past year.

https://www.wweek.com/news/city/2021/08/11/black-portlanders-are-more-likely-to-be-murdered-than-their-peers-in-cities-better-known-for-crime/

Quote: Mission146

You may well not have had one. Individual states can generally set whatever graduation requirements that they wish, as far as credits and testing are concerned.

Those credit requirements sound roughly similar to the ones that I had. I may or may not have went to school in a state that required two years of a foreign language, but as I understand it, some states/districts have no foreign language requirements. Pennsylvania, for example, does not require a foreign language, but I did not go to H.S. in Pennsylvania. In my case, it might have been the second school district itself that required it as opposed to the state because the state doesn't seem to require it now; that said, I graduated H.S. almost twenty years ago.

Anyway, they are pretty arbitrary. For instance, I only required two total credits of either PE or Health; I ended up taking more than that as I like exercise anyway and will take the, "A," average padding.***

I wouldn't exactly call the day fluff (except senior year). I'm going to try to think back to High School in my mind and see if I can roughly remember a semester from each year...

Freshman:

Composition 9
French
Metal Working, Woodworking & Electronics
Physical Education
Geometry
History 9
General Sciences 9
Computers

Sophomore:

Accounting I
Language Arts 10 AP (Different school, so it was called something else)
French II
Physical Education/Health (half and half)
History 10 AP
Coordinated Sciences 10
Business Technology
Algebra II AP

Junior:

Accounting II
Language Arts 11 AP
French III
Public Speaking
World History AP
Marketing
Radio I
Pre-Calculus

Senior: (This is the coast to a diploma and make sure to hold GPA year---all easy classes!)

English 12 AP (Different school again!)
Creative Writing I & Creative Writing II
Civics and Government AP
Business Management
Environmental Science (The EASY one!!! This school required THREE Science credits, the buttheads. I'd never coasted to As in science before!)
Spanish I
Driver's Education
(Volunteer Period in lieu of Study Hall---LD Room)

What sucked was that I would have graduated a semester early, except I needed another half credit in Science. Can you imagine if I would have taken a real Science class, like Chemistry, failed and then had to repeat my Senior Year (carrying a near 4.0 average, mind you) because I need half of a science credit?

MISSION: What's the easiest science class?

VICE-PRINCIPAL: Why? You're a perpetual Principal's List student from (other school), if our AP classes were weighted the same way, your GPA would actually be higher than a 4.0.

MISSION: Yeah, screw that. I suck at Science and I want to get out of here unscathed. What's the closest thing you have to a free A?

VICE-PRINCIPAL: Environmental Science class, but that's mostly going to be kids who are barely even going to graduate. Probably one-quarter of the students in that class are going to repeat their senior years.

MISSION: Awesome, sign me up for that one.

***Looking back, I guess I only did two total credits of PE and/or Health...I'd have thought I did more than that.

Quote: Gandler

Maybe fluff was a bad word, I just meant in terms of graduating. I stayed busy all day. I only ever had one study hall, I think junior year, I took Spanish I and II my first two years, and for some reason I thought it would be fun to take Greek or Latin (I think it was Greek because it was only briefly offered) junior year, and whichever it was I was in it for like two weeks and just realized that it was not for me, and dropped, and since I did not *need* language credits I did not worry about changing classes.

Science I was in a similar boat (biology I did well in, but I hated chemistry, and had no desire to attempt the physics route), so I think I took Oceanography and Astronomy junior and senior year respectively.

I had band every year as a class, so that filled one of my slots (and was also an automatic A just like Gym). I think "History Through Film" was a fun class where we just watched a movie every day and then took a test on it (movies that followed US History, so I think the Patriot was the first movie, and then you eventually make it to WWII and Vietnam movies). There were certainly some fun electives.

The only two AP classes I took were AP Psychology and AP World History. I think I got As in both, but I only actually took the exam for Psychology so those are the only AP credits I accrued in high school (for whatever reason I got lazy and just did not bother going to the exam for World History, I think they were on Saturdays near the end of the year so there may have been a conflict). In retrospect, if I knew then what I do now, I would have taken all AP classes (they were not challenging, they vastly inflate your GPA because they are heavily weighted, so even if you get a B in AP History its better for your GPA than getting an A in Honors History, and you can basically graduate HS with a free associates degree). In fact in many ways AP classes may be easier, because they are based on a college semester worth of materials (like 2-3 months), and instead you have the whole year (like 10 months or however long a school year is) to cover the same materials, and for the credits you only have to pass one exam at the very end (and I think have a certain grade in the class, like at least a C).

Quote: missedhervee

One out of every 1000 black people in Portland was murdered in the past year.

https://www.wweek.com/news/city/2021/08/11/black-portlanders-are-more-likely-to-be-murdered-than-their-peers-in-cities-better-known-for-crime/

Quote: missedhervee

There used to be an exclusively black section but the white millennials have gentrified / reclaimed most of it,

Quote: missedhervee

It's a common scenario across the country, EB: young whites reclaiming black areas which are located close in to center city.

Quote: missedhervee

Portland doesn't have slums.

There used to be an exclusively black section but the white millennials have gentrified / reclaimed most of it, causing a diaspora of many of the blacks who once lived there.

Most blacks now live east of 82nd St., in east Porland / Gresham, mixed with whites and Hispanics.

I suspect many killings are over the newbies trying to establish their turf.

The reality seems to be that Portlanders, liberal to a fault, really don't much care about black on black crime, so long as it doesn't affect them: just like most white Americans.