Blogging High School

I admit that I hadn't noticed the dearth of personal information about homeschooling high school on the internet partly because I have the wonderful family support of two sisters in-law who have already crossed the high school bridge before me. Not to mention the fact that my own sweet husband was homeschooled for high school so he's got a good perspective on it too. I've also put out requests for information from a few online friends who have already crossed this particular finish line (or will soon) and can't wait to read what they have to say.

But it is true. Homeschooled high school isn't as glitzy (or glittery) as the younger grades. And I've heard from more than one mom recently that it's all too common for homeschoolers to stop homeschooling come the high school years.  Amy has started off the recent conversation about blogging high school and I'll be joining in when I can. The Professor is beginning his freshman year this year.

We live in a very homeschooling friendly state that allows us to keep our own transcripts and has minimal requirements for graduation. The only subjects required by homeschooling law are good citizenship (we consider our religion studies as lessons in good citizenship), math, reading, spelling and grammar. I don't HAVE to teach science! Hah!  We have no testing requirements, no mandatory contact with our school districts and even special protection from discrimination by Texas colleges:

Homeschool graduates are specifically protected by law from discrimination by Texas colleges: “Because the State of Texas considers successful completion of a nontraditional secondary education to be equivalent to graduation from a public high school, an institution of higher education must treat an applicant for admission to the institution as an undergraduate student who presents evidence that the person has successfully completed a nontraditional secondary education according to the same general standards as other applicants for undergraduate admission who have graduated from a public high school.” Tex. Educ. Code Ann. § 51.9241.

Now, all of this being said, since he is pursuing a college bound high school track, we have decided to enroll The Professor in Kolbe Academy for this year. They are incredibly respectful of the parents' responsibilities as primary educators and very flexible regarding curriculum choices. You are allowed to substitute any of their courses with something you deem more appropriate for your child and that child will still receive credit for the course provided it is a bonafide high school program. We are substituting his foreign language with an online Latin course, his science with a lecture series, his math with the Teaching Textbooks program that he has been using for the past few years (Algebra I) and his theology with Understanding the Scriptures from the Didache Series. We will be using Kolbe's history, literature and composition/rhetoric studies as a classical education and study of the ancient world is very appealing to him right now.  He just finished a voluntary four day workshop on The Iliad and Ancient Greek Warfare and loved it!

I can tell you though that a classical education will not appeal to my girls so we already plan to take a different path with them. I'm not sure what that will be yet. I've still got a couple years, right? And if we try Kolbe this first year and it's not for us, no harm done, we can continue to do our own thing for the next three. But right now, The Professor has looked over the requirements for a Magna Cum Laude diploma from Kolbe and is interested in pursuing it.