Taking 1-2 classes at public high school? Experiences?

[Gwenny]

In our area, kids are allowed to take up to 2 classes a year at the public middle and high school.  I don't know of anyone from our county that has done this, and I never see such a thing mentioned on here.  I can see this as a great idea for lab sciences and foriegn language in particular.  Does anyone have experience with doing this?  The inability to just take trips or days off during the school year would be a big determent to me.  Anything else I'm not thinking of?

 

Also, if they wanted to take an AP class, I wonder how they determine if your child is up to it.  My dd has never taken any outside classes, and I really don't know how she would compare to other kids her grade.

 

By the way, this is my thinking ahead to high school.  She's only in 7th now, but I'm trying to start thinking toward getting her prepared for highschool.

[Hilltopmom]

My friend who did this, had her kid take an AP class & the having to schedule your whole life around a one hour class 5 days a week was a huge hassle.

Half days or early dismissals are a pain too, because schools will switch the schedule around (so that kids don't always miss, say, Mon first period). For example, on a half day they may invert the morning & afternoon classes, so if your kids class is usually 10-11, it could be 2-3 that day.

[Melissa B]

My dd takes two classes at the local high school. She takes two drama classes. There just isn't any way to replicate that at home. When I want her to go on a field trip we schedule it in the morning before her classes, otherwise she misses it. But, I still pull her for family events. She missed a week of school already this year to attend an out-of-state funeral. She only has to make arrangements with her teacher. The school doesn't care, as she is still a homeschooler and the school keeps no records for her beyond the grades she gets in these two classes. She is very happy attending high school. I have found it to be a good choice for her. She desired close friends that really shared her interests and wanted more (daily) theater/drama in her schedule than I could make happen any other way. We did/do have to have up-to-date immunization records. And we are required to send her high school transcript along with my homeschool transcript when she applies to colleges; so the grades, good or bad, do stay with the student even when the student remains a homeschooler.

 

[JeanM]

My dc are both taking classes part-time at the public high school. My older ds is taking English, Spanish and band, and the younger ds is taking English, Spanish, band and AP European history. The school has basically taken our word on placement. The first year they were hesitant to put older ds as a freshman in AP European history, but they did it.

 

The hardest part for us is scheduling. Because the school uses a rotating schedule, the classes are not at the same time every day. And dc's classes only complete coincide one out of every four days. Luckily we live a 5 minute drive from the school, and if the dc need to be at school when they don't have a class, they can go to a study hall.

[Amateur Actress]

We have also utilized the public middle- and high-schools for classes, though in Michigan they can only be electives, not core. My two older girls took band, choir, and acting classes. Since they were electives, we had less concern about whether they missed class or not. My older daughter also got to be in the school plays, since she was taking classes. For us, it was a great way to get those classes that you can't replicate at home. We do have local-ish homeschool band, choir, and theatre groups, but those cost a lot of money. The public school classes were free and much closer.

[rdj2027]

I am planning for my son to take Chinese 2 at the high school next year because it is taught by a native speaker.  There just is no way I can replicate that at home.  

[Erica in OR]

My daughter is in her second year of taking classes at the high school. Last year she was in choir and 2-D art; this year ceramics and environmental science. As others have mentioned, the main benefit is things we couldn't replicate at home at all, or with any ease. The actual classes have been quite good. Reasonable teachers. She's been able to connect with other students a bit.

 

Drawbacks are trying to get any communication out of the school. They change schedules at the drop of a hat and if you're not there first period to know, you miss out. They used a semester and block schedule last year, and we arranged it so DD was only in classes that met three days a week. This year they're in trimesters, so we arranged classes that only met second and third trimesters, but she does have to go every day. However, since she wasn't taking a first trimester class, the school inexplicably dropped her from her second and third trimester classes without contacting us. I didn't find out until I called the week before the second trimester started, to confirm that her class times hadn't changed. All this even though we'd already paid all the fees and she was obviously a part-time student. The loss of scheduling freedom is another drawback, along with the transportation. The school is not too far away, but I need to drive back and forth, which takes a chunk out of the day.

 

Erica in OR

[J-rap]

All of my kids did this.  It worked out perfectly for us.  And those are exactly the courses my children took:  science with labs and a foreign language class.  They were also able to participate in the extra curriculars:  choir, sports, theater.  We had the best of both worlds.  They did take AP classes now and then too.  The school was fairly small and they got to know our kids over the years.  So, when I told them my kids were up to taking an AP class, they just believed me and let them.

 

[GoodGrief]

We've done it for orchestra (3 years now), and one year for foreign language. In the end, it was better for my daughter to work with her tutor for Chinese (superior instruction), but obviously an orchestra is not easily duplicated at home, and it opened up opportunities to audition for All State and such.

 

Being tied to the school schedule is a pain, but I find that high schoolers tend to be tied down in some way or another anyway, be it an ongoing activity, dual enrollment at the college, an online class that meets at a particular time, etc. Life's just not as free and easy anymore :-)

[Sunshine State Sue]

Ds took Spanish in 10th and 11th grade at PS.  He also took Law Studies one semester and PE for 4 semesters. As others have said, there were days that it was kinda chaotic because the school had some special activity that necessitated a change in schedule and we were never notified in advance.  Also had to jump through hoops every year in order to register and the guidance counselor was an idiot so there was always a hassle about the schedule at the start of the semester.

 

Until he got his driver's license, transportation was a pain.  But, he also took classes at CC and had basketball practice and weight lifting, so it wasn't just the PS schedule.  We ran a taxi service until he got his driver's license which was within a month of his 16th birthday.

 

Ds really wanted to do something at PS (he was on PS basketball team 7th-12th grade).  IMO, besides the Law Studies class (which ds enjoyed), it was a waste of time.  PS here stinks.  I once asked him to compare the students at PS and CC.  He said that, at CC, at least the students cared.

 

You are correct that foreign language and science labs may be worth it depending on the quality of the school.  I was nervous about ds taking foreign language at CC because the Spanish teacher had a tough reputation and foreign language was not a strength.  He did take Spanish at CC in 12th grade.  He took 3 semesters of science at CC.  Actually, he graduated HS with 69 CC credits and a 4.0 GPA.  Quality was much better than PS.  Had it been 100% up to me, ds would not have taken anything at PS.  Taking 2 classes was a compromise.

[Holly]

I know of several homeschoolers IRL who did this (and continued to enroll younger DC so I imagine they were overall happy with it).  The two areas they chose to enroll their DC were math and science.  

[G5052]

The hardest part for us is scheduling. Because the school uses a rotating schedule, the classes are not at the same time every day. And dc's classes only complete coincide one out of every four days. Luckily we live a 5 minute drive from the school, and if the dc need to be at school when they don't have a class, they can go to a study hall.

 

Frankly this was a driver for waiting, and just doing dual enrollment. College classes have a predictable schedule and only meet twice a week in most cases. For us, the distance is the same anyway.

[JeanM]

Frankly this was a driver for waiting, and just doing dual enrollment. College classes have a predictable schedule and only meet twice a week in most cases. For us, the distance is the same anyway.

 

No joke, the scheduling is difficult. For us, the high school is 5 minutes away and the main campus of the community college is over an hour away. There is a satellite campus of the community college, but very few classes are offered there.

[G5052]

No joke, the scheduling is difficult. For us, the high school is 5 minutes away and the main campus of the community college is over an hour away. There is a satellite campus of the community college, but very few classes are offered there.

 

Yes, I could never do an hour. For us, the community college and high school are both 15 minutes away, and in convenient parts of town.

 

I have a friend who hauled her senior an hour each way three times a week to a different community college to do chemistry because the local one didn't offer what he needed. That's dedication! But he's a chemistry major at a selective university, so in retrospect she did the right thing.

[OnMyOwn]

I have a friend who did this once her kids hit middle school and it was worth it to her, but it was a real pain because the school was on a block schedule. So, one week their class was on T/TH and the next M/W/F and then if there was a snow day, teacher workday, holiday, that would all shift. Basically, she could no longer participate in local activities like coop or our homeschool ski program because of the scheduling conflict.

[brookspr]

My daughter takes three classes at the public high school. They allow her to do as many or as few as she wants. Last year she took biology, band and choir. This year it is AP music theory, band and choir. Next year she is thinking about sign language, brain studies, public speaking and again band.  Music is one of her passions and she wants to study music in college, so being in band was a big desire for her. She is also allowed to participate in extra curricular activities, so does marching band in the fall, pep band in the winter and the district symphonic orchestra the whole school year. If she were 100% homeschooled it would be nearly impossible to duplicate all of these activities, we would be in the car and driving many miles each day, there would be little time for actual work. 

 

Her school does run on a block schedule, so as someone mentioned above, her schedule changes each week depending on whether it is an A day or B day. It does make it difficult to schedule family trips or day trips, but it is what she wants to do so I'm not going to stand in her way because I want to go on vacation in November or to the museum on a day she has school. We just work with the schedule and do what we can when we can. She likes the flexibility part time allows, she gets to see her friends while she is there but doesn't have to take classes she isn't interested in because she doesn't have to follow graduation requirements. She is willing to sacrifice some things (skiing during the week, taking day trips, etc...) so we make it work.

 

 

What is great is that she can wait until the class schedule is out and then decide what classes she wants to take. Last year we were able to have all of her classes on B days (3 days one week, 2 days the next). If the schedule comes out next year and she can get all the classes back to back except for one, she can decide whether she really wants to take that class or not. I have been really pleased with how accommodating the high school has been.

 

 

[LisaKinVA]

We are doing this now. The only reason it works to any degree, is because it's a block schedule and classes are on the same day. If we lived within walking distance we would have a lot more flexibility with classes and scheduling, so I could see that option working as well. We can take up to four classes. I mostly want classes that are difficult to replicate at home, but we are trying to be somewhat flexible in order to keep the A and B days balanced. It is just too much to have all of the difficult courses on one block day. Also, due to what courses are available, we may not get to continue to use the program (dd will run out of math options, left with only virtual science options which require home labs, and out of interesting elective options...ds is already running into issues for his junior year. But, we seem to have a much easier time with 7-10th grades.

 

We used PSAT and ACT scores, plus teacher interviews/approval get into AP courses. There is a math placement test DD will be taking one week before school starts to confirm math placement if she wants to do precalculus. She can take AP Stats, though.

 

Next year, we are hoping for the following:

 

DS -11th grade -- Italian 3, AP English Composition, either AP Environmental or AP Physics 1, and either architectural design or Video Communication. At home he'll take Precalculus and start Calculus AB, Western Civilization, Web Design and Digital Photography. We are hoping he can take the other AP science, AP Italian, AP English Literature, and an elective of interest his senior year.

 

DD 9th -- German 3, AP Environmental or regular Physics, Precalculus or AP Statistics and Drama or Studio Art. At home she will take AP Human Geography, Marine Biology (this is a High Interest, and she's already read the textbook twice...for fun), English 9 w/ World Literature and PE/Health.

 

DS 7th -- Chinese 1, Algebra 1, PE\Health, Art and Video Communication. At home he'll take English 7, World History 2, and Biology, along with a game design course.

[ccolopy]

DS is taking two courses this year at our local public school, and so far, so good!

In our area, it's common enough that the registration process is straightforward and the whole thing hasn't been nearly as awkward as DS feared it would be. DS has recently been talking about taking more than two classes at the public school in the future, but our official (tentative, dependent on scheduling) plan is: 

 

9th (current): Honors Spanish 2, Lifetime Fitness (.5) and Basketball (.5)

10th: Honors Spanish 3 and AP Chemistry

11th: Honors Spanish 4 and AP Physics C

12th: AP Spanish, Weight Training (.5) and Exercise Physiology (.5) 

 

For placement in Honors/AP classes, the school requires a signature from the student's previous teacher. The guidance counselor was happy to accept my signature to allow DS into the Honors Spanish class, and a little packet of his work I'd put together to show that he'd completed "Spanish 1" at home in 8th grade. 

 

Luckily, DS's school runs on a block schedule. Up until Christmas, he had class from 10:30-12:00 every day, alternating days of Spanish and Fitness. This semester, he has class from 10:30-12:00 and 12:45-2:15 every second day, so he packs a lunch.  

Edited February 21, 2018 by ccolopy

[workingmom]

We do this for DS 7th and DS 10th and have done so since 1st grade (although in elementary it was just for specials (art, music). I like outsourcing the science classes because of labs and higher math. It works pretty well expect those weeks when the schools are doing their  in class state testing and messes up the drop and pick up times.

[angela in ohio]

My dc take classes at the local PS so they will pay for dual enrollment. Middle dd has been in band all four years, and she took Chem, Calc, Art, Phys Ed, and Spanish 2 and 3 there over the years.

 

They just took our word on placement. :D We had 8th grade ACT scores (from a talent search),  so that helped. 

[GoodGrief]

(Editing, because I see now that this is an old post and I already addressed the topic, lol. Glad I did not contradict myself ;-) )

 

My daughter did Chinese freshman year, and has done orchestra for 10-11-12. We found private tutoring to be a better option for Chinese, but orchestra obviously cannot be replicated at home. Hilltopmom's assessment of the negatives is accurate. I suggest sticking to courses you really cannot do another way.

Edited April 25, 2016 by Gr8lander