What Do I Need To Register My Homeschooled Child For Public School 8th Grade In Ga

Students in a classroom with hands raised and text: TheHomeSchoolMom Blog: When your child goes from homeschooling to public school Sometimes things change, and your child will go from homeschooling to public school. What should you lot wait when you offset the procedure? Here are a few first thoughts:

The school is in charge of the schoolhouse.

This is going to be dissimilar. While you were homeschooling independently, y'all made all decisions regarding your child's didactics. The first thing to realize is that your child'due south school has policies and procedures that you may not be able to affect. Meeting with administrators may result in some flexibility, and you should abet for your kid, but you are navigating a system that is balancing the needs of many children.

The school may ask for grades and records from homeschooling.

Regardless of the arroyo you lot took to homeschooling, the schoolhouse may ask for your child's grades and documentation of studies or learning. If you have homeschooled using traditional curriculum, tests, and grades, this may non exist hard to provide.

Even so, some homeschoolers are flummoxed past this since homeschool laws in their country may non have required such records, and their homeschooling philosophy may have been to use a different approach, which was nonetheless effective. School officials are frequently unfamiliar with homeschool laws and may exist more than accustomed to dealing with students transferring from other schools.

Some options:

Explain that y'all don't have these kinds of records and weren't required to go on them.
Create a document to reflect what your child learned during the homeschool years.
Show scores from any standardized tests your child may have taken.

It helps to recall that the school generally wants this information in order to make up one's mind course placement. Once more, this may not always be in agreement with where you lot remember your child should be placed, but information technology is ofttimes at least a good faith effort at getting your child in the correct grade in school.

The school is in charge of grade placement and may utilize their own assessments.

Sometimes parents are able to easily enroll a child in the grade they request, especially if it is the grade that is typical for the child's historic period, and especially during the unproblematic years. At other times, schools may use testing or their assessment of your kid's home learning, and they will decide which grade a kid should exist in.

Going from homeschooling to public school in loftier school might be a bigger deal.

State requirements will vary. Many states require specific courses and end-of-course tests to be passed past each child who will receive a public high school diploma in that state. Public schoolhouse students exercise not receive credits for these courses without the tests, and a kid who enrolls in public school during the high schoolhouse years may not receive credits without the tests either.

Administrators may be flexible. In some states, work washed at home may not exist "counted," fifty-fifty if a subject was studied in a traditional textbook manner. Information technology is worth speaking with administrators to come across if they will let your child take cease-of-course tests without re-taking the entire courses. I know quite a few teens in different states who were able to get credit in this fashion, which allowed them to enroll in high school in the grade they expected.

Credit may not be given for work done at habitation. However, there are also stories of disappointment, where students who would typically accept been in 10th course or subsequently were required to retake lower grade courses at public school after having learned the fabric at dwelling house. In Virginia, for example, many homeschool advocates advise if at all possible, if you believe your child volition attend high school, to endeavour to enroll past ninth grade. That's because non all high schools honour credit for work done at abode, and they may not allow your child to "examination out" of courses. State police force in Virginia requires schools to consider work done at home, but because of the emphasis on learning standards, end-of-course tests, and accreditation, public schools are not required to accept credit transferred from homeschooling.

Homeschool organizations are expert sources of information. Cheque with your state-wide homeschooling organization to discover out about the laws for homeschoolers enrolling in public schools, talk to homeschoolers in your surface area, and talk to the guidance advisor or administrator at the schoolhouse your child volition attend.

Diplomas reflect the school's requirements. Not awarding high school credit for piece of work done at dwelling house may seem unfair at first glance, merely think about it from an institutional point of view. If a diploma means the student has taken these specific tests and followed the standardized curriculum, then it might seem that the simply fair way to administrate this is to make information technology apply to all high school students for each yr of their work -- even if a yr or ii of that was done at domicile. The child is no longer getting a homeschool diploma (though by the manner, homeschool diplomas work just fine) -- only will be getting a public schoolhouse diploma, which indicates completion of public high schoolhouse requirements.

Your kid might be "ahead" or "behind."

Your homeschool has been marching to a unlike drummer. Your child's skill level or knowledge might exist out of sync with expectations for kids the same age at public schoolhouse.

Information technology'due south important to think that this is also truthful for students who attend public school who have never been homeschooled. There are kids who are ahead, kids who are behind, and kids who take special needs and challenges.

In some cases, teachers and administrators accept an authentic big picture view of this, and they understand that children's academic levels vary a lot, regardless of how they have been educated before coming to this specific school. In other cases, particularly if a child is behind, homeschooling may be blamed as an ineffective approach to educational activity, even though in that location will be children at the same school who never homeschooled merely who are also "behind."

One of the issues that crops up is that some homeschooling approaches are highly supportive of late bloomers, and the payoff comes in later on years when a child's love for reading and learning has remained in tact because of less coercion to do developmentally inappropriate tasks quite early. For instance, a kid who learns to read at habitation at 8 or ix may not be at a disadvantage at all considering of the style homeschooling tin compensate during skills lags -- only that aforementioned child may immediately be seen as behind if she has to enter school as a non-reader.

Homeschoolers differ every bit to whether the possibility -- all the same slight -- of a child needing to nourish public schoolhouse at some point in the future, should hateful trying to go on a kid on grade level. Read my articles on Homeschooling and Course Level and When Grade Level Matters for more than thoughts on this topic.

If y'all have a kid who has special needs, y'all should familiarize yourself with Wrights Law and be prepared to advocate for your child to become the best possible teaching.

You are going to have feelings about all this.

You may take skillful reasons to quit homeschooling. Yet, that doesn't mean you won't have mixed feelings and 2d thoughts. You may feel relief that public schoolhouse is there for your kid, just you may feel some grief that your movie of homeschooling did not play out as you hoped.

You may also struggle with aligning to spending less time with your child and having less say-and then over your child's daily life, as the schoolhouse acts in loco parentis.

If your child is behind, you may feel guilt that he will struggle, and you may even feel guilt that he will be seen as a poor representative of homeschooling. Some parents run into this thought from administrators: a positive adjustment to schoolhouse is "in spite of" homeschooling, while a negative adjustment to school is "because of" homeschooling. This attitude has changed over the years, since so many teachers now homeschool their ain children and other educators have go more than familiar with homeschooling. Notwithstanding, y'all may yet feel that you lot are seen every bit having washed your child a disservice.

You will need to deal with the bureaucracy.

You're playing their game now, and only as you fabricated the rules when you were homeschooling, the schools make the rules for their game.

Schools take a lot of rules and red tape. You and/or your kid will need to keep track of deadlines, rules, handbooks, homework, schedules, calendars, and more. Outset inquiring about enrollment equally early as possible in one case yous know your child volition attend school.

Many schools are welcoming to new students and desire each child to have a positive experience; endeavour to get a handle on the rules and policies to help your child have the best aligning possible. You're playing their game now, and simply every bit you fabricated the rules when yous were homeschooling, the schools make the rules for their game.