Monday, November 8, 2010

Getting started on high school records


This week's Blog Cruise question:  How do you handle high school requirements/transcripts, etc.?

Well, I don't officially have a high school student yet, but my oldest is earning some high school credits these days.  I'm not necessarily the best person to be asking about high school requirements, I'm afraid, but I'll throw out what I am doing, and please... if you have suggestions, I would love to hear from you.

Requirements:  I checked out a number of places, but have mostly relied on HSLDA's before high school page.  They have three sample four year plans, one for non-college bound, one for general college prep, and the plan I'm using as a basis for Connor -- a rigorous college prep plan.

According to that plan, we are looking at 4+ credits in English, Math, History and Science, plus 3-4 credits in Foreign Language, 1-2 credits in both PE and Fine Arts, and 5 credits of Electives, for a total of 26-30 credits.

We took that outline, and using the TOS Student High School Planner, we filled in a rough outline for high school.  I'm finding the planner to be incredibly helpful, actually, in a lot of my recordkeeping for high school. With the planner forms, I can track PE hours, volunteer work, reading logs, and far more.  It feels like I'm on top of things.  Ask me in a few more years...

As for transcripts, I'm trying to fill in information as we go and as we complete courses.  I will undoubtedly have to recreate these in another couple of years when he actually needs them, but at least I will have most of the information already compiled.


For the rest of my kids?  Well, I'm planning on at least the general college prep guidelines (per HSLDA, above) for all of them.  Really, the difference between "general high school" and "general college prep" is to do the upper end of credits in all the categories that have a range (history suggests 2-3 credits for general high school and 3-4 credits for college prep, so we plan for 3) and to add math credits.

My take on high school is basically that there is not a very big difference between general high school and general college prep, so unless I have a good reason, my kids are going the college prep route.  Some will choose to take it up a notch and go for rigorous college prep.


Check out what other of my Crew Mates have to say about high school.  And please, please... leave me a comment with your suggestions.

5 comments:

My Captivating Life said...

This is only or second year homeschooling as our oldest is 6 but we are always thinking of the future and this post was very helpful! I have saved the link as a favorite.

Unknown said...

Hi Debra,

Thanks for reminding me to look on the HSLDA site for high school requirements. How are you going to handle those classes that they are taking in middle school that would count for high school? I'm just not sure what to do about those.

April

Brenda Emmett said...

Great reminder about checking out the HSLDA site for requirements. I think that Chandler's course will be similar to Connor's. Not so much for the rigorous college prep aspect, as to keep his mind stimulated and not bored. LOL! ;)

Debra said...

April -- right now, I'm tracking everything Connor is taking that I think is high school-worthy, and I'll decide what to put on his transcript when the time comes. I probably will, for instance, put geometry on his transcript (8th grade), but I'm not doing Algebra I (6th/7th grade) and I probably won't put Algebra II on either (he finished half of it last year, he'll probably finish it up this summer).

I'm not recording Biology, but I will probably record Chemistry. Depends on whether he does Adv. Chem or not, really... I know he'll do more Biology. He didn't do all the lab reports for Bio, so I don't really feel it deserves to be on his transcript.

Anyway, I'm tracking the stuff... and we might use some of it. We might not.

Big help, huh?

Debra said...

Brenda -- the rigorous college prep course is mostly to keep Connor challenged too. Though I do suspect he'll end up in college, probably not somewhere that would require "rigorous" though...