hi! everyone, hope is all well with everyone. APPRECIATE, all of you input on "a piece of advice". this time the question is in regard to the end of the year test/evaluation - did anyone experience or heard or know of someone run into the situation where they're not ready or not finish with all topics to be tested or get evaluate? what do you do then? also how this process(test/evaluation) get done, anyway? i think we might end up in this kind of situation due to deschooling, relocating(florida) and being brand new in hsing journey. thanks in advance as always and looking forward to all advices/suggestions. good health and happiness!
What does your state require? I am in Ohio and we have to take a standardized test or have a teacher evaluation each year. I choose to test my boys and to be truthful with you I never feel like we have covered enough ground before we test but somehow they always pass. In this state a certified teacher must evaluate your child's work or you can arrange to have them tested. My kids can be tested for free if I would take them in to our PS for testing when the schools are doing their testing but I prefer to do it at home. You contact a test supplier(we use Iowa Standardize Test that I get from BJU) and they will give you the list of qualifications your tester must have. I know BJU has a list of qualified testers that test for a fee plus the price of the tests. Hope this helps!
Your school year can start any time and finish any time, so if you didn't start in Aug/Sept like the public schools, your end-of-year stuff might not be due the same time as everybody else's. Check with your state. Usually, it's one year from the date you notified the state that you would be homeschooling. Some people run their school year Jan-Dec, some Aug-May or Sept/June, but some July-June or other times.
hi! mommyof5boys, yes. your reply did help me understand it better. thanks! we're relocating to florida. how early will we know what require from testers? is it depend what state, who....etc? know of anyone didn't do well or fail the test? what then? thanks again in advance. good health and happiness!
IF you get on BJU's website it might be listed there. I know you can request a catalog and the requirements are listed in it. It has been so long I can't remember what they are. I would contact your local school district to see who handles the homeschoolers in your area. Where I am they have a seperate superintendent for homeschoolers than the PS super. These people are a big help. They gave me a list of homeschool groups and helped me decide whether to test or get evaluations. Also they can tell you what the rules are for your state. As for failing the tests, I haven't had to deal with that situation but if you are worried and your state allows it you can get your childrens work evaluated instead of testing. I also know that when we relocated to a new area it was like we were just starting and we didn't have to test that year because our new school district considered us new homeschoolers. That might be an option for you if you are worried about them passing a test. If you are like me I was so frazzled by getting everything ready to move, getting moved, then unpacking and setting up a new house that I felt like we didn't do school for a while. When we got a free pass, so to speak, I took it. I wish you luck!!! Tina
oh! tina, thank you, thank you for your detail info....i'm beyond frazzled now and will be more so when we get to our new place(florida). dealing with ps, preparing to sell our current house and looking for a new place in florida and packing and new to hsing - i just want to scream........! i finally find someone(you) who can relate to what i'm going thru at this very moment is heart warming. about getting the break from testing/evaluating - wow! i'm thrill to hear about it. truly hope florida also have that law too. it will be definitely sweet break for us. i can vividly picture us deschooling which no doubt will take a long while(for myself especially) and being new to hsing is intimidating....very nervious, i must admit. talk about anxiety attack.... about different superintendent - i didn't read about that or i misread it. thanks again. will look into all your info. they're very informative. yes. need alot of luck after distasteful ps experience. good health and happiness!
Jemsmom, just so you'll know, you can't "fail" an achievement test. You test and you get a score, usually a percentile score, which tells you how your child did. A percentile score goes like this: If this child and 99 other children the same grade/age took this same test at the same time, this child would have scored the same or better than x-number of them. The 50th percentile is "dead average", but the average range is quite wide. You might also get a "grade equivalent" score. This actually tells you nothing of any great importance. It says that this child got the same number correct as the average child in x-grade would have gotten IF that average kid had taken the same test as this child. It does NOT mean that this child can - or can ONLY - do x-grade level work.
In our county there is a person over people who homeschool. That way the individual school districts don't have to deal with the paperwork. The superintendent over the homeschoolers deals with all the paperwork and informs the school district in which we live if we are allowed to continue to homeschool or not. I don't have to deal with the local school district at all. As for failing the achievement test, all I can tell you about is in Ohio my children have to pass The Iowa Tests in order for me to be able to homeschool the following year. I don't know about other states. I asked the homeschool guy what would happen if my boys didn't pass the test and he said we could be put on probation for a year and if we didn't pass it again the following year he could not approve my application to homeschool and the boys would have to return to PS. I have to tell you though we have had a few rough years where I thought we didn't do nearly enough work and my boys aced the test each year. Our children are awesome in that even when we think they are not learning, They really ARE learning and absorbing all kinds of information. I would try to relax, get moved and settled and go from there. If I can be of any help I certainly will try to get info to you!! Good luck! Tina
hi! mommyof5boys and lindina, reading my own along with your replies, the ps system in me sticking out like a sore dumb, isn't it? please excuse me..... looking from where i am, hsing seems so simple and easy which raise a question, is it for real? of course there's pros and cons with everything in life but learning in such relaxing and creative way. why wouldn't any kids want to hs? you know what i'm trying to say here. to sum it up - too good to be true? especially after what we went thru with ps, it seems like getting education = pain and difficulties is the only way, put hsing unreal. yes. i do not know you can't "fail" so to speak. this info calm me down a bit - lol! many thanks to both of your detail input. another question - when should i contact this evaluator? one of the homeschooler i recently met (in ny) have told me that, they first test or review your kids to see where they are at, then have me choose which level we're aiming or want to be tested at the end of the year. all this make sense and is it correct? truly appreciated. good health and happiness!
Let me clarify just a bit more. You can't really "fail" an achievement test, but there may be a minimum score your district requires. I have no idea of what Florida's minimum might be, but USUALLY this "minimum allowable score" is so low almost nobody needs to worry about getting a higher score than that. After all, the tests are made using public school students to create the norms for everyone else to be compared to. But they engineer it so that the 50th percentile is the average. Statistics have shown that homeschool students "normally" score between the 75th to 90th percentiles, and the longer they homeschool, the better they do. And it doesn't matter what method they use to homeschool, what curriculum, what their parents do for a living, what the family income is, whether their parents went to college or not -- none of those things matter that seem to matter a lot in the scores of public schoolers. It's not a guarantee of any kind, but it's meant as encouragement to you. I also do not know if you'll be required to take the FCAT, which is Florida's state test - I'm sure HSLDA could tell you.
hi! lindina, it's encouraging and some what comforting to know what you're clarifying here. truly appreciate your time and input. the unknown is always a killer, isn't it? many thanks again. good health and happiness!
