Homeschooling During a Pandemic

Homeschoolers have this all under control. Right? After all, we’ve been teaching our kids at home already. Some, like my family, have been teaching our kids at home for well over a decade. But even for us, this is new territory. My family has always done more of our homeschooling outside our home than in it. We’ve been heavily involved in at least one homeschool support group, 4-H, library activities, our local congregation, and more. Just because we’ve been called homeschoolers, doesn’t mean that we actually stayed home a lot.

On the other hand, my family has homeschooled through crises before. Based on my own experiences, our first actions–once it was clear that we needed to stay home for a while, maybe quite a while–were to drop lessons for a bit and instead set about making our home work better for us. Setting the stage to make this work.

How Are High School Credits Determined?

Figuring out how to grant high school credits seems daunting to some homeschool parents, but it’s not as difficult as many imagine. There are several different options for figuring out credits. Parents can mix-and-match them, using one method for one class and another method for another class. Or pick a favorite and stick with it.

A photo of one of my forms to track hours

High School Documents

For students graduating as Florida home education students, there are only two documents required by law, but you’ll likely want to have several others to be prepared for the future.

Required by Florida law:
1-2. Letter of Termination and a final evaluation should be sent to the school district. These two documents legally end the home education program. Prior to July 1, 2018, only a Letter of Termination was required if the evaluation deadline hadn’t been reached. The addition of a final evaluation was made so the home education office could answer if someone (such as a college or employer) asked if the student finished homeschooling successfully. The home education office will be able to verify that the education ended in compliance with Florida law and a positive evaluation should anyone ask.

Writing Course Descriptions

What are they? Why keep them?

A few years ago, when I was tutoring a public school student, I saw pieces by Shakespeare, Mark Twain, O. Henry, Dickens, and a variety of modern writers in the high school literature book. I also saw something shocking. Not only was this shocking material in the textbook, but a local high school teacher had assigned it to students. I’m sure most parents had no idea that this is what their child was studying and would be upset if they realized it. After all, how could reading stories by Dr. Seuss–the same stories read when their child was four years old–help prepare their child for college? Had high school standards really dropped that low?

Most high school English classes never finish their literature books. Their teachers pick and choose what they’ll cover. That’s true in public schools and homeschools alike. While most never think to question what’s taught in a typical public school, college admissions officers and employers alike might question the quality of education received at home. Course descriptions are one way to help show what your child’s been taught.

High School Graduation

Two of my teens will graduate from high school this year. They’ve both always been homeschooled and will graduate as homeschoolers. That means graduation and all of their high school records are up to me. The oldest will graduate this month. So, I’ve been busy getting ready.

Here’s what I’ve done so far:
1. Polish up the transcript.
A transcript isn’t required under Florida law, but it’s a document that a high school graduate should have. It might be needed for college entrance or by a company considering hiring the graduate. In fact, I was asked to produce a copy of my own high school transcript for an employer more than a decade after graduating from college even though I had a number of graduate school credits.

The School Violence Problem and School Policies

A group of Sandy Hook parents put out a video that has ignited debate in some homeschooling groups that I’m in. Some blame guns for the issue. Some talk about mental health. No one else seems to talk of the school policies that, in my opinion, create the problems.

One of the reasons my kids have always been homeschooled is that before they were born I was a public school teacher. I worked in many of them because I kept thinking that each one had issues that were too much and changing schools would help. Eventually…

Going to School

My homeschooled five-year-old wants to go to school for two weeks. Or ten weeks. Or, at the latest count, it’s up to 16 weeks now.

So we started today–after spending the morning working on his science project on bats. He pulled up a TV tray table and put a chair by it. This was his

Project-Based Learning?

“I’m looking for curriculum to help my child get into [a particular university program].”

The woman got upset when I suggested that she might let him spend a lot of time working on projects related to his specialized interest. She seemed to think that was only for younger kids, not for high school students interested in a rigorous academic program.

Kindergarten: Laid-Back Style

New homeschooling parents worry about are they doing enough or which curriculum they should use or numerous other details. Having seen the journey through from start to almost the finish with my older kids–who are both now taking college classes after having been homeschooled from the beginning–I’m much more relaxed about it. It’s rather like those who’ve potty-trained a couple of kids and figure out that the next child in the family will potty-train when he or she is ready and there’s no need to stress over the details like they did with the first child, so the journey’s much easier on everyone involved.

Normalizing Homeschooling

A friend worried that her son felt he was weird or unusual since he was homeschooled. He’d been pulled out of school because of issues in the school, but like most kids, blames himself and thinks he’s somehow not good enough for school. The fact that he doesn’t see many other homeschoolers around wasn’t helping. I think it really helps to show kids, as much as possible given your own situation, that homeschooling isn’t that unusual. Normalizing homeschooling can make the child feel better about himself. But how do you do that?
Some options that come to mind include: