Homeschooling Online - Guidelines To Applying For Homeschooling - Part 2
In our last post, we began the discussion around guidelines to applying for homeschooling. As part of guideline #1, we highlighted the subjects our children will study and the length of the homeschool year. In this post, we continue our discussion of guideline #1 with a look at the hours of instruction per subject.
Hours of instruction per subject:
Parents may want to calculate the hours of instruction based on the way in which they choose to homeschool. Now, this does not have to be an exact replicate of what the public school is offering; however, it should equal it in how thorough and effective it is. You should keep in mind that the definition of instruction is a loose one and includes such activities as independent study, field trips, computer-aided or online learning, and presentations by people that are not teachers. Also, it helps for you to know that following a schedule is not a significantly important consideration in homeschooling where the use of time is different than a traditional classroom. Some parents choose to write that they will meet or exceed the 900 (elementary) or 990 (secondary) minimum hours of teaching. If your local school officials insist that you add more detail than this, you will want to submit an estimate of hours per subject per year. But when you do this you will want to preface it by including a statement such as
“Because of the flexible nature of homeschooling, the following is just an estimate of the hours of instruction spent per subject”
If you are interested in knowing how the local public schools allocate their time each day, the schools have curriculum guides that define how much time will be spent on each subject per week. These guides should be made available to you upon request. Keep in mind that schools are not authorized to go so far as to ask for an hourly or daily schedule. If a local school official is insisting on an hourly daily or weekly schedule, you will want to accompany the above line with this quote (which was taken from Brunelle):
“While following a schedule may be an important consideration in a public school where preexisting schedules need to be maintained and coordinated, the perception and use of time in a home school are different. The plaintiffs can observe and accommodate variations (from child to child, subject to subject, day to day) in the learning process and teach through a process that paces each student.”
Homeschooling Online