High school is often a completely new academic experience for scholars and their families, especially homeschooling families. It’s a time that can come with many challenges and many rewards. There is a lot of important information to maintain during the high school years and guidelines to follow to ensure that scholars meet the state and federal requirements for graduation.
Thankfully, homeschooling families with high school scholars don’t have to face these challenges alone. Independent study programs, like Compass Charter Schools (CCS), are available to guide and support homeschooling families throughout their entire academic journey, especially during high school. Here are our top five tips for homeschooling families with high school scholars:
Discuss Post Graduation Plans
We encourage homeschooling parents to consider having a discussion with their scholar about their goals and plans after graduation. Talking about post-graduation plans can help scholars and their families create a successful homeschooling experience during the high school years. These types of conversations can help homeschooling parents design learning experiences that are tailored to their high schooler’s post-graduation goals. For example, some homeschooling parents with a high school scholar may want to help their child secure an apprenticeship in their career of interest. Or, they may want to help their scholar schedule a few college tours and sign up for SAT and ACT practice courses. Talking about life after graduation can help homeschooled high school scholars start to explore their options, ask questions and take responsibility for their future. We recently shared a few tips to help high school scholars choose a career or a college major. These tips can help parents who homeschool their high school scholar start a discussion about plans for the future.
Homeschooled high school scholars can also seek support from their school counselor or college and career counselor. Counselors can help high school scholars think about their future aspirations and guide them as they create a plan of action. We have a wonderful team of credentialed school counselors and a college and career counselor, who are available to offer support and discuss post-graduation plans with homeschooled high school scholars.
Get Support from Credential Educators
Homeschooling scholars who are at the high school level can be a little intimidating for parents. The curriculum often becomes more challenging and so does managing other requirements for graduation, college or a future career. We encourage parents to consider allowing their scholar to seek support from credentialed educators to help them succeed while in high school. The scholars can utilize courses and curriculum that offer the support of a credentialed teacher. Or, they can even attend courses at a community college to receive direct support and guidance from a teacher or a professor. Guidance from credentialed educators can benefit both scholars and parents. It gives scholars the opportunity to receive support from an expert who can help them understand complex academic subjects. It can also relieve some pressure from parents who may feel a bit overwhelmed by the high school homeschooling experience. We have a growing list of service vendors that can support the homeschooling experience for families with high school scholars! There are countless providers that offer support from credentialed educators for homeschooled high school scholars.
Continue Writing, A Lot!
Writing is an essential life skill that helps both children and adults effectively communicate. We encourage homeschooling parents to challenge their high school scholars to continue practicing their writing abilities as often as possible. Scholars who are continuing their education at college will need to do a lot of writing to complete their college application and college essays. Then, once in college, they will be tasked with writing on almost a daily basis for their courses. Scholars who intend to pursue a career after graduation will also most likely be tasked with writing to create a resume, complete a job application, write emails, letters, official documents and much more. Encouraging high school scholars to practice their writing skills will certainly help them succeed during their educational journey and throughout life after graduation.
Keep Records
During the high school years, it’s important that homeschooling families keep organized records of courses, grades, credits and more. What exactly is a credit? It’s a system designed to track the amount of time, usually hours, a scholar has spent studying a specific subject. Credits are an important part of graduating from high school and also college admissions. We have a great team of school counselors and educational facilitators who support homeschooling families with high school scholars to ensure that each scholar earns the proper credits to graduate and, if desired, move on to college. We encourage homeschooling parents to participate in tracking their scholar’s academic records. These records are important because they become each scholar’s academic transcripts, which are used by colleges and other post-graduation institutions.
Encourage Independence
It’s often hard to believe, but many high school scholars are only a few steps away from living life independently at college or while pursuing a career. In order to prepare for this next phase of life, we recommend that parents encourage their high schoolers to become more independent. High school scholars can become more independent by taking the lead when it comes to their education and tasks like managing assignment deadlines, test schedules, extracurricular activities and more. Parents can give their high school scholar the responsibility of completing college applications on their own and connecting with college admissions representatives independently. In fact, many college representatives prefer to speak with the scholar, instead of the parent. Parents can also task their high school scholar with the responsibility of creating their own resumes and completing their own job applications. There are several ways that homeschooled high school scholars can become more independent in preparation for life after graduation!
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Compass Charter Schools (CCS) is a WASC-accredited virtual charter school that serves families throughout California. Interested in learning more about CCS’ flexible academic programs? Visit our website, or contact our enrollment team at enrollment@compasscharters.org or (877) 506-8631.