Great Neck Accredited Homeschool Programs

With an ever increasing trend towards homeschooling, over a million children have earned their high school diplomas attending Home School Programs. According to Stuart Kerachsky, Acting Commissioner, National Center for Education Statistics, about 2.9 percent of all school-aged children, or about 1.5 million children in the United States were home-schooled in 2007. In the United States, it is now legal to home school your child in any state, but in the majority of states, home high school diplomas are not issued. Normally, three primary factors determine whether a home school diploma will be issued to a student.

The first is whether the home schooled child fulfilled state minimum course requirements, and second if he or she passed certain standardized tests.  Most states do not have a policy in place for issuing a home school diploma. However, as in the case of a young Kansas woman, the home diploma signed by both her parents was certified as valid by the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), after the young woman was turned down for a job because the employer did not recognize her home school high school diploma.

While it may sound easy or liberating, maintaining legitimate home school programs is not free of government oversight and regulation. States, rather than the federal government, have jurisdiction over home school programs. Some states maintain specific coursework, hours of attendance, and require that an annual notice of the intent to home school be filed with the superintendent of the local school district. If parents do not follow the local procedures and fulfill state education minimum requirements, they can lose the right to continue their home school. Additionally, at least one parent, who is administrating the teaching, must possess the minimum of a GED or high school diploma.

If a state does not issue home school diplomas, upon completion of the twelfth grade, students have several choices if they wish to obtain official proof of their home school program education. The two most common ways are preparing and taking the exam for the General Education Development (GED) test. Rather than receive a home school diploma, a home-schooled student who has passed the GED, will be awarded a High School Equivalency Certificate. Alternately, some home-schooled children do earn their diplomas attending home school programs by enrolling in a correspondence program, which upon satisfactory completion will earn them a high school diploma.   In most cases, parents will issue their children a home school diploma in addition to either the GED or the correspondence school diploma.

Other opportunities to facilitate home school programs and the success rate of students is software programs which help prepare a student for the GED exam. In other cases, some states offer completely free online high school courses. Any school, whether public, virtual, or charter school, which offers an online high school program, and is subsidized by the government, is prohibited from charging students any fees; these are subsidized by the government. Fees include all supplies, including software, required to complete all required coursework. Any school found charging for these services will immediately, in the very least, be fined and in most cases lose their license.

Written by Brenne Meirowitz, BA, MA, MS

© 2010-2011 Brenne Meirowitz.  All Rights Reserved.