Basic High School Options

Correspondence School Diploma

You sign up with them and choose classes from their course offerings to meet graduation requirements. This is kind of like choosing from the menu at a restaurant. They keep records and issue grades and a diploma.

Pros:

You get a diploma from an institution with a campus school.

They do the planning work and ensure a proper course, scope, sequence, and requirements.

They will keep you and your child accountable.

Parental time involvement is less. Little planning.

Parent just helps and then tests student.

They do all of the documentation work for you.

Cons:

You are locked into the school’s time frame.

You are stuck with the school’s course outline, methods, textbooks, etc.

The course offerings may not meet your child’s individual needs.

Your student cannot study their interests in any more depth than the school has course work.

They might not permit early graduation.

Correspondence School – NO Diploma

In this and the following options, it would be helpful to think of the parent and student as education brokers. They are the ones ultimately in charge, and they find courses and experts to help them put together an academic program. In this particular option, you pay to take all of your courses from Correspondence Schools. You could take all of the courses from one institution, or you could choose courses from several different correspondence schools. When you put all of the course work together, you would have a complete high school program. This is like ordering from the menu at a Chinese restaurant (one from column A and two from column B…) or eating dinner at the Mall. You have lots of options to choose from.

Pros:

You have more freedom and flexibility in course offerings. ·

You can choose courses to meet your student’s individual needs.

You could provide more in-depth study in areas your student wishes to pursue.

You could allow early graduation and transition into textbooks.

You are locked into the schools’ time frame for each course.

You have to keep the final records, send transcripts, and issue the diploma.

Parent can feel confident that the school has put together an adequate scope and sequence — especially in areas that the parent does not feel competent to teach.

The school might supply telephone “tutoring.”

Cons:

You still have to choose from courses available through correspondence programs. You can’t “do your own thing.”

The schools provide documentation concerning each course your student takes.

You are still stuck with a school’s scope and sequence, methods, course outline, the workplace, vocational school, or college.

While working on a course, you are accountable to the correspondence school.

Parental involvement is limited to helping and testing.

What to Look for in Correspondence Schools

1. Costs per course. Are textbooks included? Can you return the course if you decide that you do not like it? Will you get a full refund?

2. What support services do I get for my money? Can I call a teacher? Is there a toll-free or local line to talk to a teacher?

3. How do they handle tests? Do they provide answer keys? After taking a test do you just go on? Or do you have to wait until the test is returned to go on to the next level? Who grades the test — a teacher or a graduate assistant? Are they machine or hand scored? Do you get feedback about what you did not understand, or do you only get the test score returned? If the student fails a test, can they retake it?

4. What is the range of courses offered? Do you ever get a choice of textbooks? What about secular world views in materials? Will that bother you? Does the school’s religious/philosophical point of view match yours? Does that matter to you?

5. How long is your student given to complete the course? Is getting a time extension an option? Can they work through the summer?

6. How well can they work to accommodate your child’s special needs/learning styles/vocational choices? Is there any flexibility at all? Do you need flexibility?

7. Will the school issue a diploma? Can you buy just one course? Can you do most of your course work with them and NOT be issued a diploma?

For High School Correspondence Schools/Courses, click here.

Mix and Match School

This is a combination of the options directly before and after this one. You can choose courses from a variety of Correspondence Schools, and still have the freedom to design your own courses where desirable. This reminds me of eating out by driving through Taco Bell, Burger King, and Hardee’s, and then taking the food home, where YOU add drinks and dessert from your refrigerator.

Pros:

You have more freedom and flexibility in course offerings.

You can choose or design courses to meet your student’s individual needs.

You could provide more in-depth study in areas student wishes to pursue.

You could allow early graduation and transition into the workplace, vocational school, or college.

You are only stuck with a school’s scope and sequence, methods, course outline, textbooks.

Cons:

You have to keep records to document scope and sequence, study hours, grades and testing.

You have to know what you are doing.

When you design the course, there is no one to keep you accountable to follow through as you planned.

You have to keep final records, send transcripts, and issue the diploma.

You are locked into the school’s time frame for each correspondence course you take.
There is a high level of parent involvement.

You can get pre-planned courses when they fit your needs.

Do Your Own Thing School

(refer to Homeschooling the High Schooler – vol. 1 & 2, by McAlister.)

In this option, you and your student design their coursework. Not only do you choose courses, you choose and design the scope and sequence for the courses, and the methods and textbooks to be used. The parent might plan the course, or the student might. If necessary, the family might pay a “teacher/tutor” to design the course. The school could give credit for work experience, apprenticeship, travel, etc. This option I liken to cooking at home. You choose from ingredients you have available at home and if you are missing an ingredient, you go out shopping to buy it.

Pros:

You have the maximum amount of freedom and flexibility.

You can most effectively meet the needs of the individual student with this option.

You can provide plenty of opportunity for in-depth study.

Early graduation, apprenticeship, vocational school, and work experience credit are easier to provide.

The student learns to take more responsibility for their learning since they are involved in the planning.

You set the time frame.

Cons:

This option takes a lot of planning time.

The parent is very involved in the courses.
There is no school providing accountability to you — to ensure that you follow through on your plans.

Parent has to feel competent to design a course or hire another “teacher.”

Parents needs to learn how to plan, document courses, keep detailed records, etc.

Parent issues the diploma.

Unschooling

(refer to: Real Lives: Eleven Teenagers Who Don’t Go To School, by Grace Llewellyn)

Unschooling is the educational philosophy advocated by John Holt. In this option, the student is set free to choose and study whatever they are interested in. They can study on their own, take a few correspondent courses, do an apprenticeship, start a business, get a job … This doesn’t mean that there is NO structure to the learning. It simply means that the student sets the structure. If the parent sees an area of weakness that the student is not addressing in their learning, then the parent can step in and help the student find a way to address that issue. The student takes the responsibility for learning, so they generally study in-depth. Since no attempt at a traditional high school experience is even attempted, the parent does not have to understand pre-college curriculum, etc. Any records needing to be kept should be kept by the student in the form of a file and journals. To use the dinner analogy once again, this is like letting your student loose to plan and make Christmas dinner. They may have to practice some, do a little research, etc. They could buy ingredients from the store, use what is in the cupboard, ask “Aunt Jane” to bring something, and even buy part of the meal already made. They would choose the menu, plan and cook the meal.

Pros:

The student is self-motivated and learns eagerly.

This produces an individual, not a public school clone.

Student develops a love of learning and sees learning as a part of real life.

They learn the self-starter skills needed to succeed in real life.

Parental involvement is less.

Student doesn’t have time to get bored, so they do not get involved in negative cultural activities.

These students go through the experiences that produce success, confidence, and good self-esteem.

Cons:

No scope and sequence to learning a specific body of knowledge. But is that really necessary?

They receive no diploma or college prep courses to show to a college admissions officer.

But, plenty of real life experiences will impress the admissions office also — especially at a top-notch institution.

Summary:

All of these options could be joined with a co-op approach between several families.They could share the teaching load (Family A teaches math, Family B teaches science, and Family C teaches English to all of the students in families, A, B & C). Or… they could form a class from all of their students, and pool their money to hire a “teacher/tutor” for the class. The teacher could teach all of part of the course.

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