Transcripts. Just the word is enough to send a homeschool mom running from the room. Or is that just me?!
Our oldest two kids never wanted to go to college. So I never made transcripts for them. The next two graduated in 2013 with neither one planning on going to college. Now, they are both talking about going. Our 5th that graduated in September of this year saying she didn’t want to go to college.
So I had to stop procrastinating, and compile some transcripts! I decided while I was doing the transcripts for the 2 now interested in going to college, I might as well do the one for the most recent graduate. You know, in case she changes her mind like they did!
Want to know what I discovered? Transcripts are not that scary after all!
I found that there are 2 basic formats for high school transcripts. Classes listed by year, 9th, 10th, etc. And classes listed by subject, Math, Science, etc, with no mention of what year they were taken. I chose to list their classes by subject. Since we school year round, and the kids have the option of doing more work to graduate early, listing classes by subject works better for us. Especially since one student may be working on 10th grade science, 11th grade english, and 9th grade math, for example, all in the same year.
You can find samples of both styles online. If you are a member of Home School Legal Defense Association, they have editable PDFs that you can download and use.
Now that I have 3 transcripts under my belt, I just need to get my last student to finish his daily work. If there were credits given out for trying the hardest to get out of school work, he would earn them all! Our oldest son gave me a run for my money while he was in high school, but this youngest son just might be the one to finish me off!
Ok, maybe it’s not quite that dramatic. lol But it is wearing on me that he doesn’t care if he gets behind. While I have always let my kids work at their own pace, I don’t like for them to get behind. If he doesn’t step up his pace, he will be on the verge of getting behind in my eyes.
I’ve been trying to find out what motivates him to work faster. So far, I have found nothing. I don’t give up that easy, though!
So…… have you been working on your students high transcripts through out their high school years, or are you like me and waited until they were finished? Something I don’t recommend, by the way!