Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Homeschool Transcripts

Hi, was wondering what you do re: keeping track of what you do in HS so that DC gets credit from schools down the road. Around here, if I want DS8 to return to a private school, I'm not sure they'll accept our CyberEd Science or Destination Math course without the CTY seal of approval. Seems a lot of money to spend just for the CTY name. Not sure the automatically generated progress reports will be accepted. Or do you combine those with achievement or placement tests down the road?

Figured it would be helpful to have this info before we really start. So any advice for a newbie is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

You might call and ask a local school what's involved. They may require testing to let him in or something like that. We take the CAT or the ITBS each year, and I suspect that helps "prove" competence.

At least around here, I know a number of people whose kids have moved back and forth between HS, public school and private school, depending upon the child's needs at the time, so I know it can be done without too much hassle. Private schools might give yuo more grief than public, since the public schools pretty much have to let your child in. The private schools may not want to deal with it if they have a full student body even without your child.

I would take a close look at your state's code for education. I actually called my state rep's office for information on partial hs regulations and they were very helpful.
I read both the state's code and the school board's actually policies when looking into this.
It's important to know what factors are measured for promotion to the next grade.
I would think you could make a reasonable argument for material mastery if you have your child take whatever test the school uses each year, like the ISAT, here.
And maybe see if you can get someone in the school district help you to find information. Maybe you'll get someone nice who will be willing to help to make sure you get the right info.

Realistically, the public schools have to take em back, right? If you live in the district and pay taxes.........

Yes, here if you pass one of the approved tests (and it doesn't have to be the same one the school uses) OR you get your portfolio approved, then you're accepted back into public school. The state law is pretty clear about it, and the public schools seem to accept it without much hassle.

But private school is another ball of wax...They may accept the same set of quals, or they may not. I still think you'd have to ask the private school, state law or no.

But, realistically, Questions, if you do decide to put them in private school, I don't think you are going to have any issues finding one that would be thrilled to accept them.

Officially, here (in NC), the public school has to take you, but there's no guarantee of placement no matter what you do. They could put a 15 year old in Kindergarten if they wanted to. I've never heard of it happening, but they make no promises. Other than that it's basically up to the principal, and then some will accelerate and some go strictly by age. Also in our particular district there are no gifted services other than in-class differentiation until you've been in the system for a year, no matter what kind of proof of giftedness you might have...

So... long story short, it will depend on the principal whether a transcript helps or not, and what will "pass" and what won't.

From what I've heard of the private schools around here, a handful of them are really serious about individualizing education (with a battery of placement tests in the first couple weeks of the fall semester). Others are very resistant to admitting kids who aren't a good fit for the classes already there.

I haven't done any kind of "real" transcript for anything before middle school/ high school level, just because it's so curriculum-dependent that I think it would be hard to transfer without a curriculum-specific placement test... but hopefully by Algebra it's a reasonably universal designation, and for that I'm keeping a detailed record that I could use to build a transcript if we end up needing one. I'm hoping that by the time DS might actually go to public or private school he'll have at least one AP exam behind him... but other than that I think our best bet is out-of-level standardized testing, like the Explore and in a year or two the ACT. If we did put DS in school, one of the private schools that emphasizes individualized levels and placement tests would be my preference.

Thanks, but not the case around here. They have ridiculously competitive admissions and some of it doesn't have to do with the kids. Plus there are alumni children and faculty children competing for the same handful of spots.

In our state, there are no requirements for HS. I have no doubt that our school district would take him back and put him in his age-appropriate grade. And then here we go again...