High School Record Keeping
Are
Your School Records Private?
by Amy Cortez - Editor The Eclectic
Telegraph
If you are a student at a private school or a public school
you probably ought to know that your records are not really
yours. This holds true for homeschooled students in most
states in less you take care of this little detail. A
little item called the Family Educational Rights and Privacy
Act (FERPA) allows a school to release personal informational
items such as: your name, address, telephone number, date
and place of birth, honors and awards, and dates of attendance
to pretty much anybody, including the military...[read
on]
|
Why Keep Records?
It is important to keep good records of your child's homeschooled
years, especially at the high school level if your student intends
to go to college.
What kind of records should I
keep?
One
of the things I quickly realized at the high school level, not
only are you the mentor, the chauffeur and the parent, you also
get to be a guidance counselor. Probably the most important
item you'll keep track of at the high school level is something
called a "cum file" or High School Cumulative file.
This file might contain:
| Elements
of a High School Cumulative file |
 |
Homeschool
profile |
|
"Extra
curricular" resume |
|
Letters
of recommendation |
|
Student
profile |
|
Yearly
transcripts or portfolios |
|
Cumulative
Transcript or
portfolio |
Homeschool Profile
A description of what your "school" was like. The
general idea of this document is to describe in broad terms
your philosophy on the elements that made up your student(s)
high school experience. Subject. headers in this report might
be: Description (of your homeschooling method), Mission Statement,
External Resources, Community Service, Athletics.
Example
Description of Community Service - "We believe
in participating in the community and in giving back.
You cannot be a member of a society or a citizen without
participating in some capacity as a volunteer. In general,
in our school we volunteer in places and activities that
are interesting and that further our understanding of
a topic or an issue." |
"Extra curricular" resume
A
description of what your student
does when he's not studying "school stuff". The general
idea of this document is to describe the fun, artistic, poetic,
adventurous, generous, athletic aspects of your student. I
divided ours by years. Subject. headers in this report might
be: Live Theater, Film & Museum
Exhibits, Science, History and Geography experiences, Awards.
Letters of recommendation are written by coaches,
mentors, team mates, professors people who know your student
through academic, athletic, community service or recreational
pursuits. The letters will describe the uniqueness of your student
and why whomever is reading the letter might be interested in
them.
Student profile is the
overall academic picture of your student. It contains the cumulative
transcript, course names/titles and descriptions of the courses
on the transcripts, the number of credit hours earned, GPA,
footnotes about where classes were taken if you used resources
external to your homeshool, the standards you used to measure
your student's work.
Course
names and descriptions
Course
descriptions can be useful in describing what it was that you
did - if that makes sense. Choose a brief title that will make
sense to college admission officers. The description is a brief
summary of what was actually accomplished by the student to
earn the credit hour and grade points. Attach these descriptions
as the last page of the transcript.
Example
- A Course name and description:
Introduction
to Aerospace Engineering and Design
Three areas of Aerospace are explored in conjunction
with two Lighter Than Air(LTA) vehicle construction
projects. The three areas are, Basic Engineering, Drawing
structures (with an emphasis on drafting aircraft) and
Aircraft Structural Analysis. The LTA vehicles are created
using physics, mathematics, and chemistry known to the
student with the emphasis being on the application of
this knowledge to Aerospace Engineering and design rather
than on exposure to new science and mathematics. This
class also introduces basic design drawing through a
series of drawing exercises. The Aircraft structural
analysis is a surface exploration with exposure to basic
elasticity, energy methods of structural analysis, structural
instability in aircraft structures. It includes reading
on Aircraft structures, air worthiness and Aeroelasticity.
Additionally, NASA FoilSim software will be utilized
to make the connections between theory and practice.
|
Transcripts or Portfolio?
The first thing you have to decide
is is if you will keep transcript or portfolio records. Discuss
this with your student. A portfolio generally consists of descriptions
and examples of the student’s work and accomplishments.
It also includes, programs, articles, photos, letters of recommendation.
As we are are eclectic homeschoolers,
we decided to
keep a kind of hybrid file that contained transcript records
and a portfolio like collection of samples, should we need it.We
decided that this hybrid kind of file would help college admissions
officers to understand the uniqueness of the student applying.
[More
on generating transcripts]
Granting
a Diploma
The
diploma, promotion or honor roll certificate you issue in your
home school is just as valid and represents the same work (if
not more) than what you might receive from a "school".
Completing high school generally means that a student has 19-25
Carnegie credits. Below is a chart I compiled that shows what
a high school program might look like if you are considering
some sort of college career for your student. The x's mark the
subjects in each kind of "program" colleges look at.
Different Universities expect different subjects on a transcript.
| |
BASIC
PROGRAM |
SOLID
PROGRAM |
STRONG
PROGRAM |
| MATH |
|
|
|
Algebra |
X |
X |
X |
| Algebra
II/Trig |
X |
X |
X |
| Geometry |
X |
X |
X |
| PreCalculus |
|
X |
X |
| SCIENCE |
|
|
|
| Biology |
X |
X |
X |
| Chemistry |
X |
X |
X |
| Physics |
|
X |
X |
| AP
Science |
|
X |
X |
| SOCIAL
STUDIES |
|
|
|
| World
History |
X |
X |
X |
| U.S.
Government |
X |
X |
X |
| Sociology |
X |
X |
X |
| Psychology |
|
|
X |
| Political
Science |
|
|
X |
| ENGLISH |
|
|
|
| ENGLISH
IX |
X |
X |
X |
| ENGLISH
X |
X |
X |
X |
| ENGLISH
XI |
X |
X |
X |
| ENGLISHXII |
X |
X |
X |
| FOREIGN
LANGUAGE |
|
|
|
| Language
Level I |
X |
X |
X |
| Language
Level II |
X |
X |
X |
| Language
Level III |
|
|
X |
| Language
Level IV |
|
|
X |
| ELECTIVES |
|
|
|
| Year
9 |
X |
X |
X |
| Year
10 |
X |
X |
X |
| Year
11 |
X |
X |
X |
| Year
12 |
X |
X |
X |
| |
|
|
|
| |
19
Credit Hours |
21
Credit Hours |
25
Credit Hours |
Schools
like MIT and Stanford will look for a transcript that shows
a "strong program", where Carnegie Mellon and Brown
University are looking for a "solid program". Also
remember to consider the programs your student may be interested
in entering as to the type of high school program you follow.
Download
your own to print and present! (PDF files)
Bonsai
Class at Cincinnati Khron Conservatory. April 2007.
