Homeschoolers: Lakes Community HS Denying Homeschool Curriculum
UPDATE:
I was emailed last night. The student is now enrolled at Lakes and will be tested. The school is being cooperatative at this time. The credits transfer will be determined after testing.
UPDATE:
I recevied a phone call from Principal McKay of Lakes Community High School Friday morning. I wasn unable to take the call and he left me a message. In his message he stated how irresponsible I was for publishing this article without contacting him to get the facts. I tried returning his call Friday afternoon, and left him a message in response. I stated that I had contacted him about the situation and that he had emailed ad did not want to discuss the situation. Here is that email response I received Thursday:
Hello Lennie,
I am unsure what specific situation you are referring to. You may appreciate that I am not at liberty to discuss specific family situations, however if you are interested in District 117 policies regarding home schooling, they can be found on our website. The “About” pull down button will link you to the District site which has all our policies. If you have further questions, please contact me directly.
Mr. McKay
Principal
Lakes Community High School
The Lakes Community High School in Antioch School District 117 is refusing to accept the credits for subjects learned by a home schooler wishing to return to their school because they did not have a Certificate of Nonpublic School Recognition from the ISBE. This policy not only affects home schoolers, it affects any private school that does not submit to ISBE inspections.
Here is the reference from their School Board Policy Manual (bottom p. 23):
Grade Placement and Academic Credits
Grade placement by, and academic credits earned at, a nonpublic school will be accepted if the school has a Certificate of Nonpublic School Recognition from the Illinois State Board of Education, or, if outside Illinois, if the school is accredited by the state agency governing education.
A student who, after receiving instruction in a non-recognized or non-accredited school, enrolls in the District will: (1) be assigned to a grade level according to academic proficiency determined through evaluation of records, testing or other means, and/or (2) be awarded academic credits from the District if the student demonstrates appropriate academic proficiency to the school administration. Any portion of a student’s transcript relating to such instruction will not be considered for placement on the honor roll or computation in class rank.
Recognition of grade placement and academic credits awarded by a nonpublic school is at the sole discretion of the District. All school and class assignments will be made according to School Board Policy 710.12, Student Transfers, as well as administrative procedures implementing this policy.
CROSS REF.: 710.12
Adopted 11/8/97
Modified 5/7/02
At this point, they have not offered testing to determine academic proficiency. Another home school family is trying to help out with this since their children were former Lakes High School attendees.
When I found out about this story I was not surprised. The public schools have continually tried to ridicule home schooling for a multitude of reasons. The problem is that home schoolers continue to outperform public school students.
This denial of credits is just a ploy to make it as difficult as possible for parents and to discourage others from home schooling. This same policy is in place at other high schools in Illinois as well.
This presents a couple of other legal questions. The ISBE has the authority to certify curriculum in non public schools. This must be done yearly and requires visits and inspections. Since home schooler are consider private schools in Illinois, can they receive this certification? The answer is probably yes, but it would be an invasion of privacy for home schoolers and schould be considered an invasion of privacy for most private schools.
This leads to another question, why is it necessary to have the ISBE be the solely responsible for certification? Why is this certification process needed at all? Certification should not be needed at all.
First, it would simpler to just require ACT test, PSAE test for the student wishing to return to a public school. Second, it would save a tremendous amount of money since the ISBE would not need the personnell, the private schools would not need the time to fill out the paperwork or host visits. All o f that money could be put into actually educating instead of into bureaucracy.
We spend nearly $600 Billion dollars on education and yet our public schools are failing. Yet, these same public schools want to harass and intimidate home schoolers who are effective.
What can you do to help this family? Call the District Offices at 847-395-1421 and tell them this policy is bad. Contact the school principal at 847-838-7100. You can also email by the Principal, Jim McKay and the Director of Guidance & Instruction, Cheryl Cox.
Lennie,
It doesn’t look like the worst policy in the world. It does allow for testing, but of course,…at the discretion fo the admin.
I would be jumping up and down that the evaluation wasn’t being performed. I am in KL,and out of the district in my IL home, so I don’t think it’s sppropriate to call and rant.
What are they being told about the testing option? It’s hard to understand what’s really going on from this. Is there a cool head in the process? If not, I would strongly advise it.
we just had colleagues visit us form Lake Forest. they have 2 children with Learning issues. they have had to have an attorney by their sides through every meeting wiht the school regarding their children’s needs. as a result, their son has spent 4 years in a special school for dyslexics (SP?) and their daughter 1 year. it’s a great program, but I saw elitism all over that since they only had access after they paid for attys.
There are other private advocates that specialize in this also. do they have contact with anyone like that? I am concerned that it is necessary in today’s climate. Of course, the injustice is useful to a reform message, but I fear for the child in the mean time.
It appears that ISBE isn’t interested in less staff and less money spent. Why are they so wrapped up in private schools and homeschoolers? It makes me think it’s about power instead? Parents pay out for private education along with tax money for public schools, but we need ISBE and their satellites to oversee and tell us whether our good money has been spent for our children’s education to their satisfaction? Very bizarre (and creepy).
Logic should have prevailed that portfolios (or tests) could prove public school ‘worthiness’. Our school district did that when our kids went back into school. That was the right thing to do for anybody.
The ISBE site shows an informational link about the state code definition of “non-public school”.
http://www.isbe.state.il.us/research/htmls/np_entity.htm
“1. Section 2-3.25o of the Illinois School Code defines a nonpublic school as any non-profit, non-home-based, and non-public elementary or secondary school that is in compliance …..”
I don’t understand. If colleges will take homeschool transcripts, then why can’t public education?
The hypocritical thing is that they pass and give credits, all the time, to children who are not proficient in a given subject without blinking an eye. Yet, they hold homeschoolers or private schoolers to a higher standard.
I guess it’s different when they are the ones who produce the child that can’t really make the grade. They just dumb down the scores, grade on a curve, or they give them make up work, like dumping the trash for the teacher for a week. Then the kids will pass and they can put that on their districts report card. You’d think that they would be thanking God… oops, sorry, I put down the “G” word referring to a public school… their higher power… for homeschoolers and private schoolers since they will help their district’s report cards!
It is important to note in what section of the IL school code that paticular definition of non-public schools came from. It is from the section that explains how to get a non-public school certified by the State of IL. What they are simply saying is that for the purposes of certification home-based private schools do not count. They will not certify home schools (OR not-for-profit schools for that matter, but they aren’t saying no-for-profit schools aren’t private schools either).
This section in no way takes away our rights to homeschool – nor can it unless there is another law passed that says all private schools must be certified. That would certainly be objected to by a great many!
I understand that it may have been sent to you as the snippet it is, but reading only the little snippet does not help anyone. Please post the entire section so peple can read it in its full and proper context each and every time.
Thank you!
You are asking a school to give a student a diploma guaranteeing that a certain level and amount of work was done over 4 years time. You are asking for this this even though the school has no idea what, if anything, was done during 2 of those years. This is not realistic.
I have never seen a school not grant credits when the student had done the work. Sometimes this was done with testing, sometimes through other means as described in my previous emails. However, the options for getting those credits takes time and energy – they will not be just handed out like candy at a parade. That is why those credits are actually worth something!
If credits were just handed out to anyone who walks in the door then why on earth would they be worth anything? Why would the high school diploma be worth anything if they were simply handed out to anyone who wants to walk across that stage?
As to CLC accepting the homeschool credits, of course they do. CLC is not certifying high school level work was done. CLC is only offering her the opportunity to do college level work. CLC will offer a certificate or a diploma when she has enough COLLEGE credits earned and verified to qualify her for her chosen program.
(Mind you, that means classes 101 and above. Classes taken at colleges below the 101 level are high school level classes and will not qualify anyone for a single college credit. But they WILL count toward high school diplomas which is why I have now mentioned CLC twice.)
Kathy wrote: “understand that it may have been sent to you as the snippet it is, but reading only the little snippet does not help anyone. Please post the entire section so peple can read it in its full and proper context each and every time.”
He left the link for everyone to read for themselves. I’m not sure why you are saying to him to that he needs to print the whole content.
She also wrote: “This section in no way takes away our rights to homeschool – nor can it unless there is another law passed that says all private schools must be certified. That would certainly be objected to by a great many!”
No, it doesn’t take away our rights, it just insults us greatly. After all, no one can do it better than a public school can, right? They are, of course, the higher authority over our children and their education.
Look, if the state of Illinois can classify homeschoolers as a viable way to educate children, then districts should recognize that too and transfer transcripts like they would between two public schools. If the child doesn’t do well, (that could very well happen between two public schools… because it happens all the time. I have personally seen it) than they make adjustments and have their stupid conferences with the parents. Please let us not assume that just because a child comes from a different public school district, that their education is superior and make the homeschooler/private schooler jump through all of these stupid hoops.
I purely think it is frightened, intimidating arrogance that is just insulting to any homeschooler/private schooler.
Don’t you think it’s about time that parents stop believing that no one else could love you child as much as government public schools do? That they ARE the experts. Many European nations are like this and some to the extent of Homeschooling being against the law.
I understand the thought that if we just keep quiet, then they won’t know we are here… but I don’t agree with it. That is how rights get taken away. Teacher’s unions are loud and powerful. Don’t kid yourself into thinking they don’t know we are here. The only reason they are tolerating us, at all, is that they still get money for our children even though we don’t use the system. I think I could use that $5K to educate my child. Couldn’t you? But, education is free, right?
I just wish this family didn’t feel the need to send them to public schools. Whatever their reasons were.
The public schools can’t even guarantee the students they teach for a full 4 years actually did the work. What I was asking for was the school to at least offer testing up front. In addition I was asking why the ISBE has to be responsible for certifying any non-public school. Testing should be able to take the place of that process, saving the taxpayers money and allowing that money to go into the actual education of students.
There are other questions as well related to the Illinois School code and issues that home schoolers and non-public schools should be aware of. These issues, that I mentioned above, allow the unneccessary gradual intrusion of the government into the registration of students and the daily operations of non-public schools.
As with any other blog the postings generally support the views of the owner of the blog otherwise there would be no reason for the blog. All the schools are saying is that they need to verify that the student has reached a certain level of profiency in the variuos subjects. Why just for home schooled kids? Essentially it is for any non-certified school because you are not certified nor regulated. There are no standards that you have to meet. Does that say that home schooling is bad? Absolutely not, but it does say there needs to be a mechanism to determine where to enter that student into the school. If they put them in at too high a level the next thing we’ll be hearing is how irresponsible the school was for doing so.
The argument that colleges accept home school transcrips is hollow. You must show proficiency by passing standardized tests. After that if you fail, it’s your issue not the schools. How many of us see reports about how many students started a particular college and graduated? You pay your tuition bill and it’s up to you to pass. If you don’t there a waiting list of people to take your place.
R, “All the schools are saying is that they need to verify that the student has reached a certain level of profiency in the variuos subjects.”
If the school had offered the appropriate testing upfront, this column would never have been written.