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Homeschool Highschool: Not So Scary
Homeschooling in high school can be scary. Families get overwhelmed with teaching challenging academics, navigating college applications, coordinating extracurricular interests, balancing social needs, keeping up with teenage mental health, and nurturing faith. At A One-Room Schoolhouse, we help guide your family with a balanced approach to high school education.
High School the Balanced Way
In Luke 2:52 it says, “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” With this one verse of scripture, Jesus is taken from a twelve-year-old boy into manhood. At A One-Room Schoolhouse, we will follow this divine pattern of personal development as we support families through the teenage years.
Wisdom: Education
Academics: During the high school years, academics are of the utmost importance. A One-Room Schoolhouse offers an accredited transcript program through the Education Director’s affiliations with the Pennsylvania Homeschool Accreditation Association (PHAA), a highly respected diploma-granting organization approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
Course Selection: By following PHAA guidelines, students will be mentored through the course selection process. High school courses will be selected from a variety of curriculum choices to best meet the students’ needs. Courses can be tailored to the students’ needs from remedial through advanced placement (AP). The Director will work closely with the family to ensure graduation and post-secondary requirements are met. Here is my current list of recommended curriculum selections for high school students.
Support: A One-Room Schoolhouse will provide pacing, accountability, tutoring, mentorship, and grading. The Schoolhouse will help your student build independent learning skills as a supportive classroom teacher mentors your student towards internal academic motivation. Transcripts will be accredited through the PHAA, and letters of recommendation will be provided with every transcript. As students beginning to transition from high school to post-secondary life, support will be provided during high-stakes testing, college applications, internships, trade-school placement, concurrent enrollment, and gap year planning as appropriate.
Instruction: Instruction will depend on the courses the family selects. Some courses will be self-directed paper and pencil courses, other courses will be instructor-taught courses, and some courses will be digitally sourced. The Educator Director will ensure that the student has access to support, mentorship, and tutoring as needed.
***Please read the PHAA Homeschooler Diploma Guide found here. ***
Homeschool does not limit high schoolers, it removes the limits of institutionalized education.
Stature: Physical Health
Homework: High school students will be expected to study roughly two-hours a day outside of the six-hour school day (this does include the hour and a half of recess built into our schedule.) This will vary depending on the student, but two-hours is a healthy benchmark. Research has shown homework in the secondary years to be beneficial to a point, but after reaching the two-hour mark, the returns start to diminish. Homework should be expected in social studies, science, and elective classes of personal selection. Think of this as your young person’s eight-hour workday. Six-hours at the schoolhouse, two hours at home. This will allow plenty of time for sleep, proper nutrition, and exercise. On homeschool days, the student should budget the same amount of school work time.
Flexibility: A One-Room Schoolhouse is committed to working with families to accommodate sports schedules, health concerns, and extracurricular needs. If something is not working, let A One-Room Schoolhouse know and we can adjust.
Favor with God: Spiritual Development
Christian Education: Our goal at A One-Room Schoolhouse is to create a flexible, rigorous, individualized, and comprehensive educational environment that reflects the counsel of Paul to learn and teach those things that are pure, lovely, virtuous, and praiseworthy. (Philippians 4:8) We aspire to be an edifying classroom environment with high moral values as taught and exemplified by the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. As a homeschool community, we seek to build faith through classroom prayer, daily Habits© instruction, and a wholesome curriculum.
Favor with Man: Social and Emotional Development
Wholesome Hangouts: Teenagers want nothing more than to be with their friends. Organically developed, evening hangouts will provide students with a chance to socialize in a wholesome, chaperoned environment as developed by schoolhouse parents. A One-Room Schoolhouse will coordinate with other homeschool groups to provide milestone events like formal dances and graduation ceremonies.
#100hoursofservice: In addition to the standard graduation requirements, A One-Room Schoolhouse is launching the 100 hours of service graduation requirement. Every high school year, students will be challenged to log 100 hours of community service. Building a lifetime habit of service strengthens communities, families, and individuals.
Fees and Requirements
Fees:
- Tuition and volunteerism amounts are the same for all schoolhouse students. Scheduling options are also the same.
- High school students will be required to provide their own laptop computers. It will need to have the ability to connect to the internet, print wirelessly, and run basic computing programs comparable to Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Open-source products are fine.
- Most high school students will need a graphing calculator. Do not purchase a calculator before consulting the math course instructions.
- Depending on the courses selected, additional fees will need to be paid directly to the curriculum provider. The cost can vary widely. The Education Director can help you build a schedule that both meets your student’s academic needs and your family’s budget.
Graduation Requirements:
A total of twenty-four credits must be completed to graduate from A One-Room Schoolhouse and must include fifteen credits in the following courses:
- Four years of English
- Three years of mathematics
- Three years of science
- Three years of social studies
- Two years of arts and humanities
Required Courses Checklist:
According to Pennsylvania homeschool law, at least 1/2 year of each of these subjects must be completed between grades 7 and 12:
Geography, Civics, World History, History of the U. S. and Pennsylvania, general mathematics, algebra, geometry, safety education including fire safety, health and physiology, physical education, music, and art.
Service Requirement:
Additionally, students will be challenged to log 100 hours of community service every year of high school. An absolute minimum of 200 total hours of community service will be required for graduation.