One thing that is really hard to understand about homeschooling, especially for those pulling out of public school, is that your school district does not graduate your child. You are now your child’s school administrator and you will declare your child a high school graduate.
Some states give requirements for what a high school student must complete, things like 4 credits of English, 3 credits of science, etc. One credit is basically the equivalent of a full school-year course. A half credit would be a one semester course. Not every state will give you these guidelines, and even if they do, my aim isn’t the lowest possible amount of schooling to “finish.” If you use this full curriculum, you’ll do four years of things like science and math and not the minimum required. Either your child is going to college so you want to impress the best you can with a full course load, or this is your child’s last official schooling, so why not learn as much as possible?
Whether your state gives specific high school requirements or not, you are still your child’s school administrator, and you will decide when your child graduates. You must follow your state’s laws, but you have all of the authority to issue a transcript and a diploma. You can create a diploma or send off for one from a company that creates them.
There are still some places that don’t recognize homeschool diplomas. The HSLDA recently stepped in for a student whose college was requiring he take the GED. The school accepted the diploma without the test. You may run into ignorance out there. But from a legal standpoint, you are your school official and your records and transcript are official. You don’t need accreditation. All public schools aren’t even accredited. There won’t be any check box on the college application about whether you came from an accredited school.
I am going to give you some links to read more. I wanted to point out that I posted a blank transcript on the high school page. It’s a Word document so you can edit it. I also posted a sample transcript from Lee Binz.
Long post…I’ll write more this week about credits, records, and transcripts. Hope this helps. I’ll try to give you the best info I have from my research of all this. Here are the links.
http://a2zhomeschooling.com/teens/graduation_done_yet_homeschooling/
http://donnayoung.org/forms/help/high-school-requirements.htm