I have been incredibly distracted lately for personal, family reasons. My mother has a bit of dementia (or Alzheimers, not sure) and my daughter has been through three miscarriages in one year. Oh and we lost both of our dachshunds. What a year 2009 was! I hope never to repeat that!
On the plus side, though, my distraction lately has been because my daughter is now 12 weeks pregnant! I am going to be a grandma! Needless to say we are extremely excited over here and that's about all we're thinking about. These 12 weeks have been nail-biting since she's had so much trouble but all is well now! The ultrasound today shows a normal-looking baby of indeterminate sex. The next ultrasound will be the BIG one where they find out the sex of the baby and I know if I should buy pink or blue. Yes if this is a girl she will have a ton of pink and purple.
In January we also adopted a puppy from the South Lake Animal League here in lake County Florida. He's a great mixed breed dog. We love him so much! We went from having two small (mostly short) dachshunds to a TALL larger breed dog. I never had to worry about food on the counter before. This guy can reach the counter with no problems.
That's what's happening in the personal life of the Homeschool Radical!
I've been away to a family wedding and tacked on a vacation while we were at it! Back home now and ready to blog about homeschooling and other education topics! Any questions or comments, please post them!
Transcripts. The dreaded transcripts. Colleges need to see them and public and private high schools provide them but as a homeschooling family YOU are required to write one up. The transcript needs to be SIMPLE and easy to read. Don't worry about your grading rubric or how many hours each "course" took or each test and quiz. That is TOO much information! The college wants to see three things: course name, grade and your signature at the bottom of the transcript. Easy as pie!
A simple transcript will have ALL of the coursework for the high school years including online classes and dual enrollment. This way the college admissions folks can see all of it at once without having to flip through pages of college and online high school transcripts. I can only say what I did and it worked great for us and many of my friends.
First, set up a table in Microsoft Word or any other word processing program. This table will have the student's full name, SSI, date of issue and total GPA information. I used a two-column format at the top of the page. I called it Swithers Family Home School or something like that at the very top as a title. Below the first small, two-column table I made another table where the courses are located. Because my daughter did some high school classes while in 8th grade I have 6 columns in this table. Column one is for the course, two is for grade 8, three for grade 9 etc.
Fill in the larger table with the coursework in chronological order. Colleges are looking for course - grade, that's it! Write the course in the first column and then place the grade under the proper grade level column. If your student took a course at an online high school, list it in chronological order and then indicate, maybe with an asterisk, that there is something unique to this course. Under the larger table place the asterisk and then indicate what it means.
For example:
Biology* B Freshman Composition** A
* indicates a class taken through the Florida Virtual School ** indicates a class taken at Valencia Community College
I needed both one asterisk and two asterisk notations for both the FLVS and dual enrollment.
At the end, write out:
Transcript Issued By - and then sign your name.
Florida State was not going to accept my daughter's transcript, and pull her from her classes, because I didn't sign ours. We sent a signed copy and all was well!
That's it! As an unschooling family I tried to group what my kids did into courses so I could have a transcript that made sense. Don't lie on the transcript. Please. If you wrote down that your child took Trigonometry but he didn't, and then the college uses that course as a prerequisite for another class, maybe Physics, then your kid will be out in the cold! He will not be able to do the work required. Be honest. It only hurts your kids when the transcript is not true.
If your student took courses at a college please have those transcripts sent to the university as well. Any college coursework requires a transcript in order to transfer the credit to the new college or university. I can email a sample transcript with the format if you need it! This was given to me by someone else, so I can't take credit for it! I know many people who used this and their kids are in college and many of them have already graduated, mine included!
I have been really involved in a couple of homeschooling chats over the years and had an experience on Friday that I feel I should address. This also was something I saw frequently as the dual enrollment advisor.
Here in Florida we have a virtual school that is tied into the public school system. It's been a great boon to Florida for kids to take extra classes, to retake a class that was failed (oops), or for homeschoolers to take some, or all, of their classes. I doubt there are any high school kids in Florida who have not either taken a class from FLVS or at least know people who have.
On the down side, though, this has allowed many parents of homeschoolers to abdicate their role as education facilitator. I can't even begin to say how many families I have seen in this situation:
Kid has problem at the high school. Parent hears about the Florida Virtual School. Parent pulls kid out of high school and signs up as a "homeschool" family. Kid signs up for the virtual school classes. Parent does not follow up AT ALL.
While the virtual school is controlled by the state school system, the family that is signed up as a homeschool family still has to follow the laws for homeschooling in the state. Here in Florida they need to have either a standardized test or a portfolio evaluation every year. Students who are missing evaluations or test scores will have a problem later on when applying to a college! The county school system can not send the college a form saying that the student has been a homeschooler unless there are records of an evaluation. Is it fair? I don't know. It is the law, though, so it has to be followed.
FLVS is not a "school." They offer courses that are graded but there will not be a diploma when finished. Also, the virtual school will not figure out if your child is "finished." The parent who is the responsible party for the student MUST pay attention.
Sadly, many parents see the virtual school as a regular high school run by the county. It isn't that at all! Parents still need to write a transcript for their student. (don't forget to SIGN it!) They also will not get a diploma from the virtual school. As a parent you can print a nice diploma up or just forget it! My kids never needed one.
If you are using the virtual school for your kids please realize that you will need to write up a transcript for your kids in total! NO college is going to want to flip through pages looking for the classes your kid took! Next post will be all about writing up a nice simple transcript that a college will be able to read and understand!
There is an interesting article in The Orlando Sentinel today about a home educated 13 year old girl who wants to dual enroll at a local community college here in Central Florida. This particular community college has refused to allow it citing safety concerns for such a young kid.
This brings me to my former job as the advisor for dual enrollment students at a different community college in Florida and how I would feel about this case. I can see both sides of this issue as a parent and as an experienced dual enrollment advisor. On the one hand you have a parent who wants to know where to go now with a very smart and gifted student. On the other hand you have college administrators who do not want to be sued.
The parents have offered to walk to any classes and even sit in on the class and the college says no. I know that this particular school does not allow dual enrollment students to take online classes without having a few in-class courses under their belts but I believe that this student does not want online classes anyway. As a parent I would be frustrated with the system as these parents are.
Here are the pros and cons of having a very young student on campus taking courses at the community college:
PROS: *This child needs higher level course work *She has taken college classes online from another venue, successfully *There is no age limit in Florida statutes, it's up to the school
CONS: *Most of the community college students punctuate everything with a swear word, usually F* *Heck, many professors do, too *The course work is ADULT including possibly R rated movie sections in humanities classes. It's 4 years before she can be allowed, in the theater, to see an R rated movie *ALL of her information is confidential even from parents. It is the law . She is 13. *Guys will "hit on" her. Most girls seem to look much older than they are these days
I would ask parents of gifted children to think long and hard about putting their child into a college class when they are under about 15. However, if there are waivers, to be signed by parents, and a parent walks the child to the classroom and waits nearby, then I think it should be OK.
That being said I HATED it when the top dog of the community college where I worked would reverse the dual enrollment director's decision about allowing a child onto campus for classes. If a parent complained to him, he would usually allow the dual enrollment and we look like total idiots. Why the heck are there rules? This led to animosity between the parent and the dual enrollment office.
Well, read the article HERE and you be the judge! Since I don't work there, I do not need to decide, thank goodness! I can see both sides!
Socialization. Don't we just HATE that word? What about socialization? What about the prom? Sigh.
I have found that my adult children relate better to older adults than they do people their own age. Correction: Public school people their own age. Sure they did not have the same socialization that the public (and even private) school kids did. Nope not at all. Am I upset by this? Hell no!
Speaking of high school only, since my kids were 13 and 10 when we began homeschooling, my kids had an extremely "weird" social life. They didn't stay out until all hours of the night while that age. I always knew where they were since they were, you know, underage and all. Drinking? Nope, none of that. Drugs? Again, nope. Would I know if they were doing these things? Sure would! I was a pretty wild teenager back in the 70's where the drinking age WAS 18, and we, of course, drank much younger than that. Not proud of it, but what can I say? I am not saying that all public and private school kids do these things either. However, from what my kids saw in college, it seems that a great percentage do. Parents may not know it.
My kids also had no problem talking to adults. We traveled all over the U.S. and Canada with them and they met most of our customers. Talking to adults just was never an issue for them. Once they began their dual enrollment, they had no problem talking to their instructors. My son always talked to them and discussed things with them such as politics and current events. Weird kid, he wasn't hiding in the back of the class trying to nurse a hangover. Neither one of them did that in college, ever.
Am I mom of the year? Hahaha! No. We did the best we could with them and that's all I can say. Were we really strict? Again, no! My daughter actually thought, when she was about 15 or so, that I was totally cool allowing her to see N'Sync concerts and hang at the mall with her friends. Yeah, well, I went to all the N'Sync concerts, too, and I always sat at a table in the mall drinking a cup of coffee waiting for the girls. For some reason this was still pretty cool to her. She actually had a couple of teen friends ask her if she hated her mother. She said no. They thought it was weird because everyone hates their mother. Wow!
So, after homeschooling them until college I can say that they got just the right amount of socialization from other homeschooled kids, neighborhood kids and each other. We traveled all over and they each went to Europe, without us. Heck, I've never been myself, but both kids have gone. My daughter went to a prom with her then boyfriend who is now her husband.
We are an insanely close family even now when the two kids are 22 and 25. My 25 year old daughter is married and she is still close to her brother and to us. We watch each other's backs and we have a great support system. I am not sure this would be the case, at least with my two still being close, had we not homeschooled.
I've noticed more activity on my blog lately and many people seem to need information about both Advanced Placement classes and Dual Enrollment. On the right-hand side of my blog page there is a list of subjects with the number of posts in each. One of these days I will clean this up by tagging my posts in a more consistent manner. Click on the subject area you are interested in and the posts will come up. Remember that the blog posts read from the bottom (oldest) to the top (newest) so to make sense scroll down to the bottom of the posts and read up!
If anyone has any questions about the posts please feel free to e-mail me at: karen@preferredlearningacademy.com
When I was working at the college in the dual enrollment department I realized that most parents did not know how the Advanced Placement classes worked and how the college credit was awarded. AP classes really are the reason I started this blog since there was such a mystery surrounding them. Also, during my time promoting Dual Enrollment for the college, I saw that MANY parents had no idea that there was a way, in Florida, for their kids to get free college classes. So sad! I cannot tell you how many times a parent would say, "Why didn't I know about this?" My goal is to educate people about what dual enrollment is and what it isn't.
Please read the blog subjects you are interested in and remember to read from the bottom up or some of them may not make much sense!
The Florida homeschool convention is at the end of the month and I would really like to attend except that MOST of the vendors and lectures are all about being Christian. Now, the FPEA is NOT a Christian group (supposedly) but it sure seems like it. When I started going to the conventions twelve years ago they had some really great keynote speakers like Micki and David Colfax the authors of Homeschooling for Excellence. They were amazing! Religion was not mentioned since it is irrelevant to the subject. Now, I cannot find a secular vendor or speaker.
OK not until THIS year. One of my son's economics instructors is also a very active Libertarian and he is going to speak there this year. He is a Christian but he is SO worth listening to! NOW I want to go since he is really good! Jack Chambless is an instructor at Valencia Community College where I used to work as the dual enrollment advisor. My son took his Microeconomics class quite a few years ago and DID NOT PASS, but the man totally changed his life! Jack Chambless is the reason my son has a degree in economics and the reason he is very politically active. Awesome guy! (My daughter says he has the whitest teeth she has ever seen. LOL)
So now I am trying to decide if I will attend the convention. I like it, and I like some of the vendors a lot. I am not happy about the Christian-only theme they usually have that makes others uncomfortable. But Jack Chambless would be worth it.
I am not anti any religion and my school does not discriminate based on religion either but I hate to see this huge, supposedly inclusive, group move to only one religion or to any specific world view. We are all homeschoolers and we can be religious or not, we can have any type of religious views or no religion at all, but we are all trying to educate our children the best way we know how. We should work together to that end.
I was a home schooling mom of two children who are now grown. I also was the Dual Enrollment academic advisor at an Orlando community college. My Florida private school is for home schooled children grades K-12.
Check out my posts about Advanced Placement classes! There's more to them than most people know! Click on "AP Classes" in the column below.
