Transcripts for Homeschooled Highschoolers

Why include transcripts under the series of “Distance Learning Options for Homeschoolers” and not under “college”? It could fit under either category because it is “the” document colleges are interested in, but the record-keeping and documentation for transcripts is done while your student is in highschool.

I chose to include it in this series, for the latter reason plus if the thought of doing a transcript paralyzes you, it could be a deciding factor in your choosing a distance learning option, simply because most distance learning schools will take care of the record–keeping and provide you with a completed transcript at graduation.

On the other hand, you can do your own transcript and there are a number of ways you can make it look “professional”. The downside is the additional record keeping you will need to do. You will need to document all the activities your highschooler does that shows that the learning took place, keep track of hours so you will know how much credit to award and assign a grade, which can be a bit of a challenge if you’re not doing the traditional textbook/test routine.

Having said that, it’s worth noting that even if you go with a distance learning option and are not home educating by the traditional public school approach, (i.e., read the text, take the test, repeat…) then you will have to do much of the record keeping anyway to “prove” to your distance school that the work was done, in order for them to be able to award a credit. Simply put, if you are educating your kids in a non-traditional way, using a distance option or not, you will have to keep more records.

But…there is an upside to doing this and it is the freedom to include all kinds of daily life activities as education, because they are!

For example: Suppose your child begins a blog around an interest of theirs with the intention of earning money. The time they spend working on it could be counted towards the following credits:

Computer
Writing
Business Ed
The subject they’re writing about (for ex., dogs could be canine or animal science)
Entrepreneurial Studies

Track the specific activity(ties) they did that day and the time they spent on it, and at the end of the year, depending on the hours accumulated you can award a full credit for one course, or break it up and spread it out over several courses. If they have accumulated more hours than one credit, you can award the other hours to other subjects and, remember, it’s OK to award partial credits.

There is no right or wrong way to do a transcript; it’s what works for you. There are probably as many different ways of doing a transcript as there are homeschooling families. Let me give you some ideas and resources that can help you decide what’s right for you and help you with the “how-to’s” of it all.

Recommended How-to Resources

Senior High: A Home-Designed Form+U+La by Barb Shelton – A fabulous resource of ideas, examples and inspiration of how-to do and document a non-traditional high school education! Barb’s website, Homeschool Oasis is worth a look for some great articles.

The Guidance Manual for the Christian Home School by David & Laurie Callihan – another great resource! (Haven’t read this one, but have had it recommended to me. After reading the Amazon reviews, I just ordered a copy )

The High School Handbook by Mary Schofield – lots of great ideas and examples of how-to do and document non-traditional education.

Tools to help with record-keeping

Teascript
Teascript allows you to build one professional transcript for free. If you like it and need more than one, you can pay a yearly fee for unlimited transcripts.

Homeschool Tracker
Homeschool Tracker is software that comes in two versions: Basic which is free and Tracker Plus with a one time charge of 49.00
The free Basic edition allows tracking of all work done, but doesn’t have the transcript option. However, with a record of work completed, you could create a transcript with relative ease. Tracker Plus, of course, has more features including the ability to produce a transcript.
Support for the system is good, but I found it to have a pretty steep learning curve – probably just me – a lot of people like it.

Edu-Track Homeschool
Edu-track is another software program that allows tracking of work done and also provides a transcript. The cost is 59.00 This is the program I use as I found it easier to learn than Homeschool Tracker. I have been satisfied with the product and support.

Teacher Planning & Organization Forms
This site has 22 free downloadable forms that include:
Yearly Schedule Planning
Weekly Lesson Plans
Quarter Planner
Transcript Planner

Donna Young
If you haven’t discovered Donna Young’s site yet, you’re in for a treat. You’d be hard pressed not to find a form to fill your needs! Be sure to check out the Excel Weekly Planner (requires Microsoft Excel) and Excel Grades & Attendance (also requires Microsoft Excel).

Oklahoma Homeschool Transcripts
Provides sample transcripts, downloadable blank transcripts and other information related to record-keeping.

Guess that wraps it up for this series on Distance Learning Options for Homeschoolers.

Questions? Comments?

Sue

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 21st, 2008 at 9:34 am and is filed under Home Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.