At the end of the academic year, the local school district requires homeschoolers to present evidence of what they’ve accomplished during the academic year. Otherwise, there is no oversight: At no other time during the school year does the district request progress reports. For our end-of-year evaluation, we submitted a box containing folders of important work (essays, lab reports, tests, researched papers) from every class, as well as a large art portfolio containing special projects. Allegra took digital pictures of 3-D projects too cumbersome to transport, such as her small-scale models of a Roman aqueduct and a Greek temple. We also provided a separate folder with standardized test results. When I called the school district to ask about procedure for end-of-the-year evaluation, the secretary for the director of teaching and learning instructed us to “drop off” work samples at the office at our convenience. Once we arrived, she called out the director to meet with us. At a glance, the director of teaching and learning determined Allegra had met the district’s educational requirements. But, to her credit, she spent about 30 minutes talking with Allegra about her homeschooling experience. I sensed we submitted too much material when she advised us to bring only “showcase pieces” to next year’s evaluation. I left the evaluation feeling it would be too easy for homeschoolers to neglect their education.
Allegra's take: After my talk with the director of teaching and learning, I, too, felt that I could have presented her with nothing but a poster, an essay, and a test and she would have believed that I had been properly educated. Homeschoolers (or, in this case, half-schoolers or unschoolers) could easily do nothing throughout the year but create those “showcase pieces” and still be approved.
However, those homeschoolers who have been genuinely teaching and learning have to deal with the predjudices of those who have witnessed the Unschooled. Often, officials make assumptions; for example, our director of teaching and learning informed us that we should put emphasis on math and science and blend English/Language Arts with those subjects, when, in fact, we were already doing just that. One look through my math and science folders would have proved this.
The key for evaluations is to strike the right balance. If you specifically present several showcase pieces but also have a few folders on hand to show that you did actually work, your evaluation will be a complete success.
