Email of the Day:
I just called into sign up my tenth grade home schooler for state testing this year and the woman told me that they weren’t doing testing for tenth graders this year unless they were online schooling. But I wanted to check this out because it does’t sound right. My understanding was that all home schoolers need to have some sort of annual check on their progress.
Thank you for your time,
Answer:
The homeschool requirement for annual testing/assessment is separate from the state testing the public schools perform. If your local school is doing a standardized achievement test for students in the same grade as yours, and if you approach the school sufficiently early in the year to have one ordered for your student, the law both allows you to do so and it counts for the homeschooling requirement.
Most of us order a test from a private firm, do the test at home, send it back for scoring, and then put the results in our files. We keep a list of testing companies and assessing individuals here: http://washhomeschool.org/test-providers-washington/ (I used the CAT-5 from FLO (familylearning.org) for many years).
Because you have a 10th grader, I should note that the SAT, PSAT-NMSQT, PSAT, and ACT all count toward the testing requirement. If your kidlet is doing one of those, you need not seek out a second test.
Warmly,
~Jen