My daughter was adamant about being homeschooled after having been in the public school system in 8th grade and part of 9th grade. Having taught in a public high school, I am not a huge fan of the typical secondary education curriculum so it didn’t take a lot to convince me to let her come back home. However, now she wants to go back to school. The grass is always greener, right?
No problem. We enrolled her last week when the registrar’s office finally opened for the fall semester. We had to jump through a few hoops to get her enrolled in the school she had previously been enrolled in because we are no longer considered to be part of its jurisdiction. But we talked to the appropriate people, did a little pleading, and all is well. We were able to get a doctor’s appointment the next day for the necessary shots. First hurdle cleared. She’s enrolled.
However, this particular school requires that she take tests offered by the University of Texas to prove her competency. Not all high schools require this, but it’s fair enough. We just found out about this requirement last week and decided to start with the English exam. We’ve been cramming in information several hours a day to make sure she knows everything that might be covered. She took the exam today and only missed 4 out of 50 questions which, we are told, will likely mean the school will want to place her in a Pre-AP class. She’s not 100% sure she wants to do this because it requires she annotate a book and write a literary analysis on it before school starts,. Heaven knows the poor child has enough to do to get ready for school already. But I think she’d be a good fit. The test took her all of 30 minutes and both of my kids have an excellent aptitude for literature.
Now we’ve got to cram for the biology test. I don’t know whether this will be more difficult for her, or easier. All year, we followed an on-line biology class from Texas State University that provided quizzes, chapter tests, and lots of very helpful videos. She did quite well with the information. I was kind of surprised the school wouldn’t accept her scores but it isn’t considered an accredited curriculum unless she actually takes the class from Texas State. I guess the school has to worry about fudged test scores since she took the tests on-line at home rather than through a proctor. Fair enough, I suppose.
I’m hoping the review won’t be too much work. I was going to dig into it today, right after she finished her English test. The problem is that the reviews are so incredibly vague that it is difficult to know exactly what it is she needs to study. Plus, biology is not exactly my forte although I probably learned more about it this year with my daughter than I did in high school or college. It has changed quite a bit from way back then!!
Last night, we finished with everything we felt we needed to do for the English test. I had a lot of nervous energy so decided to put together this amazing website. OK, so maybe it isn’t exactly amazing, but I’m quite pleased with it. Haven’t started digging into that biology review thanks to being distracted by creating this blog. Of course, there’s always tomorrow!
Not sure exactly how I’ll use this blog yet, but welcome!