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Welcome to this video, which is part of our “Step Three” videos, which will talk to you about how to register or how to notify your son or daughter as a home education student here in Alberta. You are notifying Alberta Education that you are establishing your own home education program, and I want to camp out just a little bit on the term “notification” because we at THEE really believe that’s important. There’s a big distinction between notification and enrollment. So you, the home-educating parent, are not enrolling your son or daughter at THEE or any home ed program. You are notifying the government of Alberta that you are not enrolling your son or daughter in school and that you are establishing your own school as recognized in the Education Act there in your home. So you are establishing your own school by notifying the government that you’re home educating. I think we, again, where do you think that’s a big deal to point out.
So, registration or notification here in Alberta requires two forms from you, the parent. One is the notification form, which Alberta Education provides. The other is the program plan, which oftentimes the school or the home education program will provide to you in the form of a template. Alberta Education does give criteria that’s required for the program plan. If you’d like, it’s rare but it is possible that you, the parent, can create your own program plan. We do ask that you include the criteria that is required, or you can use our template. We do offer an online registration option, which is by far the most popular. We do also offer the old-school method of emailing to you or even snail mailing to you the paper version of the notification form and then also the paper or what we can email it to you, the PDF version of both those forms. We want to make the process as easy as possible. The online program allows you to start and stop whenever you want. You don’t have to do the full notification form and program plan at the same time; you can pause it and come back to it later. But the nice thing with the online registration form, it’s very efficient, and it also creates a parent account for you in our PowerSchool system. So there are some advantages that we cover in other videos for having a parent account. We can create a parent account for you for sure, it’s not like if you don’t complete the online process we can’t do it, it’s just more, it’s easier, it’s just more efficient for everybody involved, and we don’t have to worry about paper or things getting, you know, lost in email. It’s just it’s just safer and more secure for everybody involved when you go through that online registration process.
The other thing involved with registering here in Alberta is the count date. So there is a deadline by which you have to complete that registration form, and that count date is for home educations, for online learning, for any student learning program in the province. The count date is the deadline. It used to be September 30th, now it is September 29th. So September 29th is the deadline for making your choice, but even saying that is not, it’s a bit misleading because if you wait till September 29th to make your decision, I just, it may not work out so well for you depending on if your son or daughter is currently enrolled in a different program, especially in a teacher-taught program. So the count date is not only the deadline for registration, but it’s also the date used to determine who gets who, meaning which school program receives the funding for your son or daughter’s education. So it’s a big deal, especially in the teacher-taught programs, because there’s a, you know, your son or daughter’s enrollment generates eight to, depending on how you calculate and what criteria and grants and all you include, you know, ten thousand dollars or more, so it’s a it’s significant. So the count date is there to to help all the school programs realize which students are going to be at their program and the funding levels. So if you wait till the 29th, sometimes that’s just too late.
I do want to waive the yellow cautionary flag for anyone who’s coming to home education from a teacher-taught program. Just a word of warning here, beware of pizza parties and things like that and other opportunities for your child to be on campus on September 29th, or at least the last school day before the 29th. Like if the 29th is on a Saturday or Sunday, when you back it up, the 27th, September 20th, whatever, wherever your son or daughter is physically on that count date is where the funding will go. So make sure, please, at least our advice to you is to make sure that your son or daughter is not anywhere on that campus during the last week of September if your plan is to home educate. You know, things this isn’t always about the money, but, you know, it is, there is funding for you, so we would definitely like you to have that funding because that’s what it’s for, it’s for home education. So just be aware of that count date. Beware of programs or even invitations for your son or daughter to be on the physical campus anywhere close to that count date.
So that’s it in a nutshell. Again, just to summarize for registration here in Alberta, you will need two forms: notification form and program plan. We offer both of those forms through our online registration form, and we offer it through PDF and print. And please make your decision if you’re going to home educate as soon as possible. Beware of the count date of the 29th, and if you have any other questions about registering or notifying your son or daughter for home education, please contact us here at THEE.
