The Homeschooling Handbook_ From Preschool to High School - Mary Griffith [61]
Participation in extracurricular activities can be just as complicated. Some schools may rule on an individual basis and will have no problem allowing homeschoolers to participate in school clubs or other activities. Others will be adamant about requiring formal enrollment. Even the most friendly and cooperative schools, however, may draw the line at homeschoolers participating on athletic teams. Most high school athletic competition is regulated by state athletic organizations, which generally have strict rules governing eligibility, with detailed requirements for residency, school enrollment, grade point average, and so on. Again, it’s worth contacting your local or state homeschool groups for more information; formal efforts may be under way to develop or modify policies allowing homeschooler’s participation in school sports.
School-at-Home: Preparing for Independence
Jim and Carolyn live near a small town in Maryland. Jim works full-time as a computer systems administrator; Carolyn works twenty hours a week as an office assistant.
Our family has been homeschooling for the past nine and a half years using a traditional approach. We have homeschooled three children; the oldest is now in his second year at the local community technical college with his sights set on a degree in biology.
We follow a set curriculum. Our children are taught by grade level and receive a certificate at the end of the school year stating that they have satisfactorily completed the course. We feel it is important that our children have this structure.
For the elementary school grades, we use Calvert, a classical curriculum. We use the teaching advisory service as the regulations in Maryland say we should. For the high school years, we use the American School curriculum. This is a correspondence school that was originally founded to encourage adults to obtain their high school diplomas, but it is more than willing to accept homeschoolers. We don’t pick and choose from the curriculum, although there are times when we might do something orally instead of in writing. Both Calvert and the American School have been very satisfactory for our needs.
We are fairly flexible on the hours but find that the morning hours tend to be best, as the children are much more alert. Our daughter, the youngest, is now in sixth grade and spends five to six hours a day on her schoolwork. She usually begins about 9:30 A.M. and is done by 2:30 P.M., with lunch and breaks thrown in. Our middle child is using American School and is a bit more flexible. He usually spends three or four hours a day (which might include some weekends now because of his outside job). He has completed more than half of the curriculum for the high school diploma; he would be a sophomore if he were in public school, so he is well ahead of his peer group.
We do also encourage our children to learn outside the set curriculum. We use library resources, the YMCA, the Internet, and a local homeschoolers’ group. Our children are all avid readers, good swimmers, have great computer skills, and interact easily with both adults and children their own age. They have taken gymnastics lessons, swimming lessons, and joined drama groups. The boys are members of the Civil Air Patrol, where each has been squadron commander. My daughter enjoys playing volleyball. We look for opportunities to broaden their experiences wherever we can in addition to their school subjects.
When the children were younger, I spent much