Cookie-Cutter Home Schools

-By Kathy Carper
This article is from the spring edition of The SCAIHS Advantage.

The Cookie-Cutter Home School does not exist.  Although there are similarities among families who home school, no two are exactly alike. The combination of personalities, cultural backgrounds, number and age range of children, teaching styles, and individual learning modes found in each family make each one unique.  At SCAIHS we enjoy getting to know our individual member families: applauding your successes, supporting you in times of doubt or frustration, and praying for you in times of crisis or need.  Your communication with us by mail, e-mail, phone calls and occasional visits to the office is the lifeblood of our service to you. 

We know that this time of year is a very busy one for most home educators.  You are completing your daily logs that record the year’s schoolwork, compiling portfolios to represent the progress that you’ve made in each subject area, evaluating what curriculum worked well and what changes are necessary for next year.  You have completed your standardized testing and await the results as a diagnostic tool indicating areas of strength and weakness in your academic program.  And you are filling out the progress and year-end report forms to turn in to SCAIHS by the June 7th deadline. You may be asking yourself why all this paperwork is necessary.  

South Carolina’s home school law requires documentation of 180 days of instruction and compliance with policies and standards of the chosen option.  SCAIHS members keep a daily or weekly log of schooling activities, submit progress reports, and keep portfolios of their students’ best work.  Not only does SCAIHS assist you in complying with the law, we strive to nurture and support you in this partnership.  Report forms aid us in helping you.  If at some point in the future you find it necessary to transfer your student into a traditional classroom environment, we translate the information you provide into the language and format that will be most readily accepted by public or private school administrators.

One of the major reasons most of us choose to home school is that we wish to impart “unseen” training to our children.   We want them to learn integrity, compassion, diligence, respect, love for the Lord, interpersonal communication skills, independence...all characteristics we as parents can see in our children, but may have trouble putting into a report form. Though this is the heart of our home school programs, keeping track of progress in this “unseen” area is something which is difficult to document and usually something we would rather do in our journals or diaries, not on academic reports.   We at SCAIHS are aware of this and know that the reports we receive from you do not fully reflect what you are accomplishing in some of the most vital areas of your home school endeavor.  

The SCAIHS progress-reporting form has been developed to report the “seen” training of our children—the things the world measures by testing and judges for admission to its institutions.  The form is also designed to make the process as easy as possible for you.  The front of your form is generally used for reporting work in courses where textbooks are the primary resource.  It is set up in a “fill-in-the-blank” format, hopefully saving you time and making it easier to remember what basic information is needed for your student’s records.  You may not always have something to record in each blank (for instance book reports), but when you do, the space is provided for you to use.

We strongly endorse alternative methods to schooling such as unit studies, topical studies, and the classical and principle approaches.  We understand the importance of a much less structured reporting style for these valuable teaching alternatives. The reverse side of the SCAIHS progress report has a different format for documenting progress in such courses.  Please do not let the spaces to list writing assignments intimidate you.  They are meant to make reporting shorter and simpler.  By no means do you need to write something in each blank.   We merely tried to list possible writing assignments so that it would be a simple way for you to let us know what your student has done without needing to give numerous details.

Although, at a minimum, we need to know that you are covering those subject areas required by law (reading, writing, math, science and social studies, plus, in grades 7-12, composition and literature), we love to hear about your elective studies and your extracurricular interests.  Please feel free to add to these forms or to let us know how your child is progressing in these “unseen” ways.  We also like to announce how our students are distinguishing themselves, so include any information about awards and milestones accomplished of which you are particularly proud. 

One fallacy of established education is that all children are expected to learn certain concepts and skills at the same age.  Students who do not fit this norm especially benefit from home schooling because they do not have to be held back or pushed unrealistically.  If your child is not ready to read at age 6 (or 7, or 8), don’t be intimidated by the reporting form.  State law requires that you teach reading, writing, math, science, and social studies, but, if he is not ready to read independently, read to him.   Document in the form’s subject areas what you have been able to accomplish and continue to teach the reading skills, commenting about where he is in the learning process.  We will understand and support you.  Just keep us informed.               

We do NOT wish to convey in any way that we want you to have a cookie-cutter school which mirrors what is done in traditional schools or which fits some preconceived idea of ours.  SCAIHS does maintain standards for academic excellence and we want you to be free to pursue exciting, creative ways of teaching within those standards.  We want to provide you with the type of documentation that other institutions understand and can assimilate into their programs should you enroll your child in a traditional school or should your graduate apply to college.  It is because of adherence to high standards that SCAIHS students are readily accepted in elementary and secondary schools, many with major scholarships to their college of choice. 

We welcome your suggestions of how we can make the reporting forms more user friendly.  We are here to assist, encourage, and support you in your home schooling, and it brings us great joy to do so!~~