If you are a Florida homeschooling family with a 10th grade student, it is time to start thinking about Dual Enrollment. Actually, if you want your child to take summer courses then it is probably too late what with budget cuts to the community colleges. However, it is NOT too early to look into Dual Enrollment for the Fall semester! Some of the community colleges in Florida allow Dual Enrollment for students from 9th through 12th grades and some require students to be entering 11th grade. Check with your local college to find out the rules there.
Some of the community colleges allow the Dual Enrollment students to choose classes at the same time as the regular student body but others will wait a few weeks before opening the courses up for registration for the DE students. Again, check with the local schools. Either way, summer classes have either filled up or are filling up fast!
Your first step is to contact the Dual Enrollment (sometimes called Early College) office at the local community college to find out the "rules" for that school. You may need something from your school districts homeschool office to verify that your student is a homeschooling student. You will need to fill out application forms and, as a homeschooling parent, you are acting as the guidance counselor.
Please remember that your student will be in classes with the general college population and will be considered an adult. The courses may have adult content so be aware. The instructors do NOT know that your student is younger than 18 and will treat him or her as an adult.
Even though your student is younger than 18, you will NOT be allowed to have any information about your child at the school. This is a federal law so complaining to the college is useless! Hopefully as a homeschooling family your child will be close to his parents and share his grades and other information. If not, then there are other problems at work that won't be solved by talking to the college.
If your student has a problem with one of his instructors then PLEASE you MUST allow him to handle it! One great way to help your underage student with this is to role-play. Go over what he needs to say to the instructor and even go over some of the possible things the instructor may say. The instructor does not have to talk to a parent!
More on Dual Enrollment coming up.....
Piranha Season
5 days ago
Do you have any information on how dual enrollment classes are funded? Does the state, county or college pick up the tab for the classes? I know books are our responsibility, I'm just curious about the classes/lab fees. If it is the state picking up the tab, does the college get to decide how many classes/what age/grade, or is that up to the superintendent for the county?
ReplyDeleteThe state picks up the tab. The number of classes a student can take and the age range depends on the college. The law states that a student CAN dual enroll from 9th through 12th grade but the college can decide. Parents are not responsible for the cost of the class or lab fees.
ReplyDeleteHey there Karen! That was my post up there under Anonymous. I thought I ticked the link to use my Google ID, but I must have missed. I have a couple more questions if you don't mind. If it would be easier, I could email them. Let me know. You can reach me at homeschoolinginlakeland@gmail.com
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