How We Homeschool in High School
Hi Kristen,
I've been a reader of your blog for a few years. I'm a homeschool mom of 4 from Washington state, and my oldest, 13, is getting ready to start high school next year. I always thought I'd send him to public school for high school, but now the time is approaching I'm not so sure. I've searched your blog to see how you homeschooled your son through high school.
I know the focus of your blog isn't on homeschooling, but I'm super interested in hearing how you made sure you planned and organized high school!
Thanks so much,
Jessica H.
Yep, I homeschooled Joshua through high school, and Lisey is about to graduate from high school this spring.
Sonia just started high school this past fall, and Zoe starts this coming fall.
So, we are definitely in a high school homeschool phase of life around here. 😉
I am part of a homeschooling umbrella group, which means that we report to this group at the end of each year to prove that we have done sufficient schooling for that year.
How do you know which classes to teach?
Our umbrella group gives us a form to fill out for each year of high school, detailing which classes we've done with our kids. The form itself lets us know how many credits of each type students need over the four years of high school and that makes planning easy for me.
Your local homeschool government office should be able to provide you with a list of the requirements, but this site also gives a rundown, state by state.
How do you keep records for high school transcripts?
We send in the high school record keeping form each spring, and the umbrella group then keeps high school records and provides a transcript, which is very handy.
If you aren't part of an umbrella group, your local homeschool office should be able to advise you on the way they want you to keep high school records.
Our umbrella group also sends an official diploma at the end of high school.
Did you use any outside instruction?
Joshua and Lisey both started taking community college classes during their junior year of high school. They just had to take a math and English placement test, and then they were able to enroll in regular classes.
Before enrolling in college classes, Lisey took two classes at a homeschool tutorial during her sophomore year. Sonia's in her freshman year, and she's currently taking two classes at the same tutorial. She will likely do that again next year before she starts at the community college.
I find that outside instruction is helpful for high school science classes, particularly because I am not naturally a science-leaning person. I'm happy to outsource that! And gathering experiment supplies for one kid is a little frustrating; a class is definitely more efficient when it comes to experiments.
Math is another common class to outsource. So far, my kids have done all their high school math at home with me (I am pretty good at algebra by this point!), but Sonia might take geometry at the tutorial next fall.
(I tried two different geometry curricula with Joshua and Lisey and I hated both. So I'm up for letting someone else give it a shot.)
I do think it's helpful to take at least a class or two outside the home during high school. I took no outside classes when I was in high school (such things didn't really exist at the time!) and it was a tad bit overwhelming to jump right into a full time college load.
It was manageable in the end, but I think it would have been great to get a little classroom experience first.
What curriculum did you use? Did you make up your own?
I did some DIY curriculum when my kids were littler, but I was not about to do that for high school. We used purchased curriculum for all of their classes in high school.
Was it overwhelming?
In some senses, homeschooling can be overwhelming when you have multiple students just because of the sheer amount of work.
But I didn't feel like homeschooling during high school was vastly different than, say, homeschooling during middle school.
(Since I know someone will wonder, Sonia's backpack is Jansport, from Amazon.)
Also, because I am a second-generation homeschooler, I was not feeling particularly stressed about whether or not my kids would be getting a proper education.
Since I knew that my siblings and I did well in college after graduating from homeschool, I figured my kids would be fine. And they are. Joshua and Lisey have been straight A students thus far.
*To be clear, we would not have considered it to be a failure for them to get something less than an A. I'm just pointing out that they were definitely prepared enough for college.
In closing, I'd just add that homeschooling through high school is not as impossible as you might imagine, especially if you utilize a tutorial or community college courses for credits you feel a little less qualified to handle.
1) I was very stressed out before this year because my oldest started high school. The year's not done, but it was so much less everything than I expected it to be. If fact, he became even more independent in doing his work, which was a help (because potty-training with my youngest has been far more of a struggle this year than teaching high school).
2)I think having the experience of seeing others before you go on and succeed is so important. I went to public school and taught in public school, but my husband and his 12 siblings were (and the last one still is) homeschooled throughout high school. Seeing their ability to succeed at any further education and become gainfully employed has quelled so many fears. Of course, you can't manufacture that if you don't have the example in front of you.
Thank you for sharing - it is encouraging for those of us whose kids are only now heading into HS. If you don’t mind, what curriculum do you use for language arts in HS for your kids?
My job brings me in contact with homeschoolers and I see lots of super smart, well-adjusted kids but I also see some people who are not qualified and should not be doing it. My question is how are those folks weeded out before it affects the child? I thought our county required yearly on-site testing at the local boe and one mom admitted to me her son didn't test out and wound up going to public school, but another family is clearly not qualified to be doing this but I'm not seeing any government intervention and wonder about the safety net for these kids.
I think it is normal to ask these kind of questions about homeschooling when you see examples like this. But most states do have oversight, and I hope that these bad examples don't cause rules that make homeschooling onerous to the rest of us. After all, certainly there are just as many examples of bad (and abusive) public and private school teachers. Unfortunately, in our fallen world, no net will keep our children perfectly safe.
Another thing that I've noticed is that my perceptions of what is acceptable and good have changed over the years. I had one idea when I was a public school teacher and thought that any good education MUST consist of A, B, and C. Now I realize that A, B, and C are not actually necessary; that real education can be completely different than how I once envisioned it to be. And this is not me lowering my standards; it's just a completely different understanding of education.
And, for what it's worth, while I can't get on board with expecting one child to be in charge of teaching the rest, I do have a child capable of educating himself by handing him books. I don't choose to do this, but it would work with him. And sometimes, I find my children wanting to teach the younger ones something; and I'm okay with that, too. I follow up to make sure understanding is there, and I don't require them to do it BUT every child is different.
Another caution I have is that people not require homeschooling parents to have X, Y, and Z in their own education. I hear so often, "Of course, you are qualified to teach your children because you were educated for it." But my mother-in-law has a high school diploma, and that, plus a love of learning and desire to teach her children, was all that she needed. That was more than 30 years ago, and today's homeschoolers have so many more options and help at their fingertips.
I agree with what Jody said. There are some bad nuts that fall through the cracks of homeschooling laws, despite efforts at oversight, just like there are some bad nuts that keep being allowed to teach in public school.
I think the problem is that if you try to get to a 100% success rate at weeding people out, you end up impeding the freedoms of the vast majority of people who are doing things well, and that's true whether you're talking about CPS or public schools or homeschools.
Studies do show that the majority of homeschooled students are, at the very least, as sufficiently educated as their public-schooled peers, so on the whole, it's not something to spend a bunch of time worrying about (even though there are worrying examples, like some of the ones you've seen.)
For the record, I do not support the idea of doing a lackadaisical job of homeschooling! I think homeschooling parents should work hard at educating their children. And I understand why states need to have oversight in place to make sure that children are being educated properly.
I do support and admire the families who are thoughtful and conscientious about homeschooling (and I personally know many who are), but I do disagree with the comparison of bad apples in public/private schools versus home school. When a child encounters a "bad apple" teacher in a regular school, this teacher is hopefully an exception among many good teachers who are balancing out the child's education, and the child will graduate to a different teacher the following year. In fact, I think the biggest strength of regular school is encountering a diversity of teachers and students and learning how to interact with all, and learning from different teaching styles.
If, on the other hand, a child has a "bad apple" parent teacher (and I have also known some), this has an impact on all subjects for the whole duration of their education. This is a real risk and responsibility that you have to acknowledge, as in enabling the complete freedom for parents to educate their children the consequences can be quite devastating and far reaching in the worst case.
I don't wish to minimize the effects any bad or abusive teacher might have on a child or say that home schooling is somehow inherently suspect either, but there absolutely needs to be accountability for both (and it sounds like many states have a good system).
I was going to say about what Kristina did, but probably with less tact. I shall also add that, based on what I see in addition to what I research, homeschooling shows more variability than traditional school: more outstanding exemplars and more abuses/failures. The relative lack of standards for homeschooling allows for both the extraordinarily positive and the extraordinarily negative.
I definitely agree that accountability needs to be there; totally with you on not wanting people to be allowed to do a terrible job of educating their children. It's just not fair to a kid to be subject to an inferior education.
Although I know this is not true of all public school systems in all counties and all states, there are definitely some public schools where the overall education is sort of a "bad apple" experience. I understand how my original comparison breaks down, though, as you said.
The bottom line of what I think is this (and I think we agree): that homeschoolers and public schools should both be held to high standards of education and student treatment, and wherever that's not happening, something ought to be done about it.
I agree that there needs to some accountability but at the same time I don't feel the government should have a say in how I decide is the best way to teach my child. Especially when the government is passing children to keep their 'grade' up. I live in Louisiana and for the most part, we have very little accountability until the high school years for homeschooling. Then if the child wants to apply for a state scholarship (TOPS), we start keeping track of credits and going through what we call government approved homeschooling. But even that is left up to the parent, basically, they want to make sure the child is getting the math, science, language and etc needed to progress into college. We base the readiness on ACT/SAT scores.
Our state is an example of the entire schooling experience being a bad apple. We are one of the lowest teacher paid states, most of our schools are failing, and the norm is to have one good apple out of a bunch of bad apples. I know many high schoolers here who are still at a 5th grade level in reading and more but yet they are getting ready to start their junior year next year because it's ridiculously hard to fail nowadays. The school system pushes these children through no matter how far behind they are in their skills and it's a disservice to the child. Our school systems no longer teach for knowledge and mastery of a skill but teach to test.
Also, the majority of homeschooled children do have a wide diversity of 'teachers' in their life it just doesn't look the same as a public school teacher would. My daughter who will be at middle school level next year is taught not just by me, but by her father in things like math and science (because he's so much better at it), history by grandfather because he has a natural love for it and can make it interesting, by people who volunteer at a local homeschool group meetup weekly, and by learning to converse with adults all around her as we go about our day. Instead of learning to 'fall in line' with what a teacher says because there are so many students and not enough time to interact with each one she's learned to question what shes told and have amazing debates and give her insights into things most 11 years would never dream of talking about. She can talk more about politics than most adults lol.
I guess my point is this, yes there are extremes on both ends of the spectrum for both public and home schoolers but 95% of us fall square in the middle. 🙂
I worked outside the home (still do) the whole time my kids were growing up, but I companion-taught, I guess you could call it, by supplementing what they got at school with little lessons of my own. I bought some good informative books that the grandkids are using now, and would show them little experiments, have them do math with me while shopping or cooking, etc. I think it's fairly common for parents with kids in public school to do that. Or at least, I hope it is.
I don't mind homeschooling at all, as long as the parent is actually committed to doing it -- I know one woman who said her mother's version of homeschooling was to hand her a book and tell her to figure it out and teach her younger siblings the subject. Of the homeschooling families I know, some of the older kids chose to go on to school, public or private, while some chose to finish schooling at home. I wouldn't have minded homeschooling if I could have, except for teaching chemistry. I hated chemistry.
It is good to look at requirements for where your child might like to go to school, because they vary widely from state to state and different types of schools. Some may be above the requirements for your particular state.
If your state doesn’t require an umbrella school, you can easily create your own transcripts. It is good to start in 9th grade rather than waiting until 12th! Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) has a lot of resources, like requirements for your individual state and high school resources, including information about transcripts. Also, many companies sell diplomas and graduation gear so that you can have a very official graduation celebration if you choose.
As a homeschooling family of littles (Kindergarten, Grade 2 and a 2yr old), this gives me encouragement for the high school years.
Right now we're taking things one year at a time. I'm not sure if we'll be homeschooling in high school, but I love to hear from families that homeschooled the whole way through successfully.
Outsourcing some subjects sounds like a fantastic idea! In our province high school students whom homeschool can also take a class or two at their local high school. This helps students get that classroom experience, experience independence, and proper teaching for that subject that parents feel less equipped to teach.
Does anyone have anything to add about their method of assigning grades (not just credits) for high school?
For a subject that has tests, such as math, I generally base it on the average of the tests. I figure the tests are a pretty accurate representation of what they've learned in the lessons.
For something like P.E. or music, it's a little more discretionary, so I figure you have to use your best judgment.
Obviously when my kids are taking classes at a tutorial or at the college, the grading is pretty easy to figure out!
My sister has four home-schooled boys. When the oldest two got to high school and discovered GIRLS!, they demanded to go to their local public high school. They both did well in HS, completed some college and each now owns their own successful business. The next one went to a charter school that was a combination of study at home and in a central location with others. He also works a non-traditional job and does quite well for himself. He was also the first to marry. His wife works in her mom's business. The youngest is a bit more complicated and did a combination of everything. They all turned out fine.
Hmmm - is there a connection here - home schooling followed by successful business ownership? It probably helps that they have developed good habits over the years and are self-starters.
My younger two were homeschooled all the way thru. Took classes at the Community College for their last 2 years of high school and were advanced placed for their 4 year schools. One is about to graduate with her BA (3.0 GPA) with no debt, and the other is on track to finish with his degree with very minimal debt (he lives away at school so extra costs were a factor).
My oldest child was only hs-d a few years and spent the majority of his time in public school. He has learning disabilities that are NOT obvious (dyslexia and processing issues). He didn't go to college at all, but has a good job and is a productive, good man. One might consider that a parent is tryinig to HS a child with not obvious challeges and that can appear that they are failing at HS-ing but that the PS option is worse for their particular child.
I've seen good/bad parenting and good/bad teaching, and even good/bad "being a human!" - we might all consider that the vast majority of people are trying the best they can and there is no one-size-fits-all for any method of education or parenting or life for that matter.
A little grace goes a long way. 🙂
I missed this post yesterday. I'm a fellow homeschool mom, but my kiddos are 6 and under. High school is a long way off, but I do have experience as a former high school teacher. The education you are providing your kids is similar to our plans.
We hope for our kids to do some public high school classes (mainly band/orchestra/choir), some distance learning, some self directed learning, and some University classes (because we live in a college town). If we piece it together right, they could have an associate's degree by the time they graduate high school.
The public school I taught at had an associate's degree program, and about 70 students a year finished it while many others took some classes. All of those students had quite the eclectic schedules to complete high school and college at the same time. I suspect they're lives weren't much different from many homeschool high schoolers' lives. Freedom of education is wonderful in all its various forms.
I should proofread. "they're" Cringe!
Wow. I just realized how long I’ve been reading your blog. I remember when Zoe started “Kindergarten”! The years do fly by, don’t they?
With my own son starting in the fall, I bought the BOB books on your recommendation. What a great investment! He is sailing through them and I am so proud.
I am a second grade teacher, so I will be taking my children to the school where I work instead of homeschooling, but I just want to say that I admire your approach to schooling. I have no doubts that your children will be self-sufficient, lifelong learners. Great work, Mama!
Bob Book are just the best! I'm so glad that they're helping your little guy.
Awesome information! I’m a certified teacher and professor in Virginia, we’re relocating to California and I’m hoping to home school my seventh grader. I’m sure I’ll have tons of questions as the time draws nearer, just reading and enjoying for now!