Hello, At a homeschool meetup at my local library, I met a woman who wants to pull her daughter out of one class at the local middle school. The social studies teacher treated the woman’s son horribly and has a reputation for showing extreme favoritism. She wants to keep her daughter out of this class, so that she won’t experience the same thing her son did. She has contacted the school via phone but they are not responding. I have sent her a bunch of links about homeschooling in IL but have yet to find specific information that would help in her situation. If anyone has any ideas or access to information that pertains to IL, I would appreciate it.

Lol, Nan. You are right! I'm really grateful though because between the Pell Grant, the Mapp Grant, and being able to commute from home the tuition will be paid for. It actually costs more for our kids to attend our local public school. Our local school district spends $14,000 to educate a student for a year. Our community college does it for less than $4,000 and the local university costs about $12,000. It all makes my head spin if I think about it too much. I've teased my homeschooling neighbor that I wish the school district would let me teach a few students for half that price....

We did submit his high school transcripts and I talked to the financial aid advisor this morning. It is partly because they wanted to make sure he wasn't dual enrolled. The weird thing is they did not want his transcripts from the community college even though I offered them. I guess, the process is just more invasive than I thought it would be. Also trying to find out as much as I can about the process, because I have two more to send to college.

My daughter ( age 17) is transferring from a community college to a university this fall. She has received a tentative award letter but the university is requesting our son's (age 16) high school diploma and high school transcripts. We are not sure why they want them, although we are assuming that it is because our daughter does not qualify for as much in grants if we only have one child officially in college. Our son graduated from our homeschool in 2011 and has been attending college since then. Any thoughts? We are not sure what to do, but are leaning toward telling the university that it is none of their business since our son is not enrolling at this point.

I have two children who have worked really hard and have completed their high school courses at home. They are currently enrolled full time at a local community college. They are diligent students and are getting very good grades. We applied for Pell grants, but have been told that "Under the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended (HEA), one of the eligibility conditions that must be met for student financial assistance under Title IV of the HEA is that the student must have "a certificate of graduation from a school providing secondary education (high school diploma)...or the recognized equivalent of such certificate (GED)." We have been unable to verify that your diploma is from an approved educational institution. Can you give us further information to help us verify that your school is an entity that provides an approved secondary school education." The big problem is that our children are 14 and 15 and there is no way they can take the GED, besides that fact that we are not willing to have that stigma. They took the compass and aced it and were admitted to the college on that basis. If anyone has experienced this or has some ideas on how to handle this please reply. Thanks.

Welcome! Since posting here I have found a group of homeschoolers and we went on a field trip with them and have another planned for Nov. 4th. If you are interested PM me :)

Thanks :) I would be very interested but we are about an hour and a half from Poplar Bluff. We are only a few miles from Blytheville, AR.

We just moved here and we are looking for friends :)

Hi, I need some help making some decisions. Basically, our family is going through some difficult things right now, and I want to ease up a bit on academics, but I don't want them to lose what they already know. My 13 yodd is doing Saxon Geometry and my 12 yods is doing Saxon Algebra 1. They are both about 1/4 of the way through their books. I am wanting to use something that will keep them from forgetting everything. I need a place holder :-) Also if anyone has experience spreading these books out over 2 years instead of one that also might be helpful. Thank you!