Keystone State Radicals

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Comment by Jennifer Varela on July 1, 2011 at 12:31pm

Renee, I have a 9 yr old who doesn't read yet.  This was our first year reporting (you only have to report when the child is age 8 at the beginning of the school year).  There are unschooling friendly evaluators. I was planning on using one, but, we ended up going to an evaluation picnic, which was fun.  There are many ways to write up a portfolio and show all the fun things you do through the year in an educational/academic way.  Depends on the school district on samples, some want more some less.  I don't know if you're on  the pa-unschoolers yahoo group.  It's not very unschooly, but, there is a lot of great info on there about filing and dealing with the pa homeschool law.  Oh and www.askpauline.com is a GREAT resource with samples and everything!!

Comment by Renee Doerfler on July 1, 2011 at 10:10am

I would love any help related to portfolio/evaluators in PA...I think we need to submit next year...my son is 7...I'm just getting nervous now.  I don't know where to start or how...and I'm a little worried b/c my son doesn't read yet as his learning is child lead...I'm wondering how that will be handled by the evaluator.  Admittedly, I'm worried..my critical retired teacher mother-in-law and her family are asking me questions about how the district determines if a child is being educationally neglected.  I'm mostly furious...but secretly nervous that my evaluator will be as closed minded as they are.  Upon meeting my son, anyone should see a vibrant, happy, creative child who loves learning and creating...but because he is 7 and can't read yet...they see only a problem. I'm also curious about how the mandatory standardized testing will work if he cannot read yet.  Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much!!

Comment by Jennifer Varela on May 17, 2011 at 11:06pm

me, too.  Friend me, or I'll search for you there.  :-)  (if that's OK)

Comment by Heather Young on May 17, 2011 at 11:04pm

Jennifer, awesome!  I don't come on here much either, it was just someone asking questions that set this off. :)  Am on Facebook and do most my chatting there nowadays.

Comment by Jennifer Varela on May 17, 2011 at 10:52pm

I'd join in on a meet up as well.  I'm in pgh...Carnegie area.  I'm also doing a portfolio for the first time.  It's not as bad as I thought it would be, but, I still rather wish I didn't have to do it at all!

Comment by Melissa Grimes on May 16, 2011 at 8:31pm

@Heather. I'd love to have a "meet up" with other unschoolers/homeschoolers we're in Fayette Co, so we're not too far from Pitts. I have three boys are are 5, 15, and 17.

Melissa

Comment by Kaki on May 16, 2011 at 1:21pm

@Melissa,
This is my first year with an unschooling portfolio. Turned out to be much easier than I thought-they did way more than I realized. I keep a huge ugly clunky file cabinet in my dining room, and every time they do a project or something remotely "schooly" I put it into the file under what subject it might fall into. I am also hit with how you really can't separate "life" into a file of math, science etc... I was born and raised in Pa, and love my old farmhouse and my land, just wish we were required to do less paperwork...

Comment by Heather Young on May 16, 2011 at 10:52am

We are north of Pittsburgh.  Anyone near Pittsburgh interested in meeting up sometime?

Comment by Heather Young on May 16, 2011 at 8:41am

We actually work under the hometutor law (which means I need to be prepared to show that we do 900 hours just in case but don't have to turn in anything or do testing.)  This means that I have a teachers degree but sadly not enough hours in a classroom to be able to evaluate.  However I do have friends that have to work under the regular law-- the portfolios just need to show that they are learning and show a variety of learning experiences.  If you keep a blog and journal your experiences then print some up and put that in -- a lot of the unschoolers I know use journals for their portfolio.  I would also put in tons of photos of them obviously learning in various areas.  For a while I kept a portfolio just in case and had a chart where I checked off anytime I caught them involved in any of the subjects PA requires, with little notes regarding what they were doing.

 

Though actually from what you posted it looks like you would be fine.  It depends on your school district-- I know in ours they don't even really look (lots of homeschoolers that give a ton of info in their portfolios and only a few people to look through the lot.

Comment by Melissa Grimes on May 16, 2011 at 7:32am

So what are you guys doing for your portfolios? This is our first "real" year of unschooling. I thought about just tossing in a few worksheets from the various curriculum I bought at the beginning of the school year before I wanted to get into unschooling, along with the attendance sheet, and list of learning materials we used during the year.

My evaluators very unschooling friendly, and only asks for a reading book list, so I don't have to worry about any strict compliance's from her.

Thanks,

Melissa

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