What if I decide to enroll my student in a public high school after home schooling them for part of their high school years?
 
Students enrolling in public school after being schooled at home for a time may have come from the following backgrounds:
 
1)  They never attended a public high school and are coming in after completing some of their high school years at home.
 
2) The student was previously enrolled in a public or private high school and at some point was withdrawn from that institution to home school them.
 
Whatever the reasons for homeschooling in the first place, the length of time spent in the home school, or the grade level the student enters the public school system, when students enroll in public school they are all treated the same.  At that point, the goal of the public school is to find proper placement for the student.  It is the public school’s conviction that if the student completed a good course of study, then they should be able to demonstrate that they learned the material involved.
 
Every school district handles the matter of placement differently.  Some school districts have written policies concerning this matter, and some do not, but all school districts DO have a policy.   In general, the individual counselor involved has the authority to interpret district policy concerning each newly enrolled student.  Sometimes placement is determined by the student’s performance during the first quarter of the public school enrollment.  Sometimes the student is given a formal or informal test over material studied in certain areas.  Sometimes both methods are used.
 
The school district can decide to accept the work done at home or reject the work done at home.  Since home schools are not accredited, the public schools are not bound by law to accept any of the work the student has completed at home.  They generally DO accept most of the courses taken in a home school.  The area where home school families generally run into trouble is in skill areas (English, mathematics, …) or courses which require a prerequisite.  These are the types of courses the high school counselors scrutinize for approval.
 
Every public high school and every school district deals with this problem differently.  If you are hoping to withdraw your student from public or private school, home school them for a time, and then enroll them in the public school sometime before graduation;   you would be wise to check out your local school district policy first.  If not, when you enroll your student in public school, things might not work out as easily as you hoped.
 
Warning: Students who did poorly in public high school, often do poorly once they re-enter public high school.  Even though they made up the classes they were missing while at home school, the public school might not accept all of the work they did at home, simply because the student cannot demonstrate that they have mastered the course work they studied at home.
 
A copy of the Kentucky Department of Education’s Statutes, Regulations, and Procedures for dealing with home school transfers follows.

 
Recognition of Credits
 
704 KAR 3:307 discusses the transfer of credits from a home school or other non-accredited school to a public school.
 

KRS 158.140 mandates the assignment of a pupil in the class or grade to which the pupil is best suited. This regulation prescribes procedures for recognition of credits or graduation from a public secondary school upon transfer from a nonaccredited secondary school and for the awarding of credit upon transfer to a public secondary school without a proper transcript being reasonably available.
 
Section 1. For the purposes of this regulation, a “nonaccredited secondary school: is a school enrolling students for secondary school instruction when that school is not recognized by (1) of the fifty (50) state departments of education or one (1) of the seven (7) independent regional accrediting associations. A “nonaccredited secondary school” in Kentucky shall be any private school not certified pursuant to KRS 156.160(3).
 
Section 2. (1) The local school district shall be responsible for the appropriate assignment of a student transferring from a nonaccredited secondary school to the class or grade best suited for the student. Previous credits earned by a student in a nonaccredited secondary school shall be awarded by the local school district by one (1) of the two (2) following methods:
Pass an examination of similar nature and content to the examination used for other students receiving credit for a particular course within the school district and graded on a comparable basis;
 
or
 
Successful performance of the student in a higher level of the course when the courses are sequential in nature such as English, Mathematics, History and Science. Successful performance shall consist of achieving at least a C grade in the course by the 12th week of school.
 
The courses successfully completed by examination or performance shall be counted toward minimum high school graduation requirements in the local school district.
 
Section 3. A student desiring recognition of previous credits toward graduation upon entering a public secondary school without a properly certified transcript and for whom a properly certified transcript cannot reasonably be obtained, shall be placed and awarded credit as outlined in Section 2 of this regulation.