Advantages of starting High School?

[chirowife]

My daughter is 11 (will be 12 next month). She is currently in 7th grade but is doing Alg 1 and 8th grade lit from BJU. She has gone to private school, public school for one year (total waste of time) and this is our second year homeschooling. Last year we used K12 from a cyber school (they wanted to bump her up another grade but I didn't - just in math and reading) but this year we are using a variety of curriculum on our own. My question is this: Should I have her move onto 9th grade next year? I do not want to rush her through school but if she is doing high school work already shouldn't she get credit for it? Thoughts?

[regentrude]

Does it matter what you CALL her grade?

My 13 y/o would be in 8th grade in ps. She has started high school level work last year, did algebra and biology for 7th grade. This year, it's all high school level plus one college class.

We may decide that she can graduate early and then call this year her "Freshman" year- but we do not need to make this decision right away. We can decide in two years.

I can write a transcript by subject and give credit for highschool courses taken before 9th grade. (Won't do this with math, because it is obvious that, if a student is taking precalculus and calculus, she has to have taken algebra at some point.)

[8filltheheart]

I'm not for graduating kids early, so that obviously skew's my answer.

 

My 14 yos is ahead in math and science. I am simply going to include all of the credits he accrued prior to high school in a 5th column on his transcript. I am going to categorize by subject matter horizontally and grade level vertically. The 1st grade level column will be labeled <9th and will include alg, geo, alg 2, alg 3, counting/prob, physics, and French 1. He will still have all 4 yrs of high school with continued advancement in all subjects. I have also intentionally sought "evidence" of his credits such as grades from Art of Problem Solving (he has taken several math classes through them). He will be taking the SAT2 Math 2 test in the spring, etc. That way his early accomplishments have outside validation and can't be questioned as just "mommy grading."

 

HTH

[KAR120C]

If you're homeschooling on your own, where does the "grade level" get recorded? Through a cyber school it might make a difference for what class options you have, but on your own you can teach anything at any level... so the benefit to claiming any particular grade may be minimal.

 

On the other hand, if you're participating in academic competitions, it might make a great deal of difference -- some competitions are restricted to particular grade levels (no higher than x, or no lower than y....) and for homeschoolers they may allow the parents to choose the level -- although in some cases they assign homeschoolers by age no matter what the parent says.

 

The third thing I'd consider is how it would affect your plans for graduation. Some kids are going to take a grade skip as a set-in-stone promise of early graduation. In other families there might not be that expectation (yes, you're in high school now, but our high school has six years...) Is that a decision you're ready to make now?

 

If it's just a matter of high school credit, that can be handled many different ways, but you won't know what "counts" until you have a particular college in mind and a conversation with their admissions counselor. Some colleges will only take what was completed in the four years prior to admission. Some want everything of "high school level" no matter when it was done. Some will allow a certain number or certain type of class early, but only those - for instance, they'll take foreign language at any age if you pass the placement test, or they'll take early algebra but not early high school level history, or they'll allow a total of four classes included prior to 9th grade....

 

If you're not planning on early graduation but just want credits, then it's really a matter of whether you mean "starting to accrue enough credits to graduate so she can have a lighter load later" vs. "make sure the college knows she had Algebra already." In the first case, you probably won't be able to offset later years with earlier work -- they don't want to see a nice challenging 8th and 9th grade transcript with a really easy 11th and 12th. In the latter case, as Regentrude noted, you won't really need the Algebra credit when you have four years of higher maths.

 

With all that said, we did skip DS up a year (or two depending on what cutoffs you use), and his "official" grade level still doesn't match his working level. I'm keeping records (both homeschool records and outside grades and exams) as though I were making a transcript, but there's an excellent chance that none of what he's doing now will ever see a real transcript. The real reason we skipped his grade is because of competitions. I wanted him at a level where he had a good chance of being in the middle of the pack -- neither frustrated nor assured of a win. Beyond that, the grade we claim doesn't make a difference to anyone else.

[FaithManor]

I don't really think it matters what you call her grade. Most children do not plug into some neat little "box" and it is certainly true of accelerated kids. Ds is doing 7th grade math, 8th grade physical science, and high school chemistry, albeit with help on the math, but only 5th grade English, is barely managing 5th grade penmanship and spelling and his astronomy studies is such a compilation of a wide variety of materials that it is hard to classify but I'd guess maybe 8th grade. He just turned 10.

 

We don't think he will be mature enough, emotionally, to be going to college and live on his own before 18 so we don't want to graduate him early. Our local community colleges are terrible. So, he'll be accumulating "high school" credit long before we are ready to begin the process of earning graduation from home. But, that means needing to fill those high school years with something else. We have decided to use the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Opencourseware program. We'll make a nice donation and then download a huge amount of material for classes that will engage him. His high school transcript will be "abnormal" but then my kid isn't normal either. I am sure that we will find appropriate colleges and universities that would love to have an 18 year old who's been using MIT materials to complete his homeschool education. Along with that, we'll be keeping a portfolio of his work to show his advanced science skills and will be visiting colleges in advance so that they are aware of what type of student they are dealing with and will be expecting an out-of-the-ordinary transcript.

 

I understand your angst. Our current educational system is all about neat little boxes for little people and it's difficult to figure out how to fit our round pegs into square holes.

 

Faith

[RanchGirl]

I would not move her official grade up unless you know you want her to graduate early. Assuming she continues to progress through a typical math sequence, she will still get credit for algebra 1 on her transcript just because the colleges know she did algebra 1 before geometry/alg 2/pre-calc, etc. And as a PP mentioned, there are other ways to add it on to the transcript if you want the grade to show in her GPA. So I don't see any benefit to grade skipping for a child who is not going to try to graduate early.

 

There could be disadvantages though -- like having to take the PSAT/SAT earlier, competing against older children, etc.

[chirowife]

Thank you all for your input. My goal is not to have her graduate early as she has already skipped so will she be young when she graduates as it is now. She is very musically inclined and I want her to be able to have time to pursue that avenue as well as the regular academic work. I guess I'll just keep her where she's at and let her work at her own pace. I believe our state requires a grade placement because we have to test in 3, 5, and 8th grades. I may let her take the 8th grade test this spring just for our records and then if we choose to move her we can.

[8filltheheart]

Thank you all for your input. My goal is not to have her graduate early as she has already skipped so will she be young when she graduates as it is now. She is very musically inclined and I want her to be able to have time to pursue that avenue as well as the regular academic work. I guess I'll just keep her where she's at and let her work at her own pace. I believe our state requires a grade placement because we have to test in 3, 5, and 8th grades. I may let her take the 8th grade test this spring just for our records and then if we choose to move her we can.

 

Another option for assessing her would be to have her take the ACT or SAT this yr under the talent search option. I didn't look to see if you listed where you live, but JHU, Duke and I think Northwestern are all universities that do talent searches. The scores are purged, so there is no consequence for taking the test early. And, it may reveal a lot about her skills.

[Storm Bay]

Another option for assessing her would be to have her take the ACT or SAT this yr under the talent search option. I didn't look to see if you listed where you live, but JHU, Duke and I think Northwestern are all universities that do talent searches. The scores are purged, so there is no consequence for taking the test early. And, it may reveal a lot about her skills.

 

Another option is to take the PSAT next fall if you don't want to do the essay portion. I don't know if that counts for a talent search or not, but there are kids in middle school here who took it along with my dd this fall. My 12 yo wants to take it next fall.