quote:

ORIGINAL: shadowspring

I use an umbrella school but I have never heard of Home Life Academy.

I like that they keep records. But to someone who keep excellent records anyway, they may not need or want it.

Do what works for you.

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ORIGINAL: Jenny-Fair

You can make your own transcripts. After all, you will have to have all the info put together for the umbrella school to use anyway, so why pay money for work you have already nearly completed yourself?

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ORIGINAL: shadowspring

My state does not require that I use an umbrella school. In fact, my state has almost no requirements at all, and therein lies the rub for me.

In my former state, I was required to keep a daily log of educational activities and a list of all materials used. I kept awesome records. When it came time for the annual evaluation by a state certified teacher, it was easy to pull together a very professional looking summary of the year's work. It was always very impressive, as we had so many God-things that popped up (like a canoe trip/fossil hunting weekend; a chance encounter with a retired social worker who had pictures in a scrapbook of the March on Selma because she lived it; opportunities for world-class guitar instruction master classes free of charge: lots of stuff classroom teachers would LOVE to be able to put in a lesson plan!).

But in this state, nothing is required beyond an attendance record and a year end nationally-normed standardized test. I found that with no law requiring me to keep records, my inner goody-goody no longer nagged me to keep records. And it is surprising what you will forget if you don't write it down everyday.

I am not an unschooler, but I am a relaxed homeschooler. Having to keep records for SOMEONE kept me from being too relaxed, kwim?

So I signed up with Horizon Education Systems, because they have way more accountability than my state does, and I need that. I was asked to file a high school plan (don't have to stick with it, but it's a great long-range planning tool), constantly reminded of what I needed to graduate from this school (same credits as Florida state schools plus your choice of SAT, ACT, ITBS or GED as an exit exam), plus I had to fill in report cards with course codes and texts used twice a year.

Now the school administrator is a home school veteran of twelve years and is well-versed in all kinds of home school philosophies. If you are an unschooler, she has no problem with that, as long as you earn the credits. For example, if for ninth grade English you use a grammar workbook and traditional text, great. If you co-write a novella online with a fellow Neopian, fine. As long as you the teacher will assign a course code and a rational explanation, she will grant you credit towards graduation.

So, volunteering at the local wildlife rescue is a credit in either general science or ecology, depending on how the parents write up the experience. My daughter's year and a half of weekly mime team at church counted as one semester of mime performance. Make sense?

Of course in the end my daughter was still identified as a homeschooler when we applied to university, even though technically she is a private school graduate. I think two things made it much easier for the school to admit her: she had some credits earned from OU High School Online (dual enrollment at community college would count the same) and her SAT scores were in keeping with her GPA.

The umbrella school diploma was actually a little confusing to the admission officer at first, since the Dean of Students is our neighbor and they knew for a fact we did not attend a bricks and mortar school in Florida. But it was easily explained, so not a problem.