- $650 Additional Funding Grant
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Welcome to another video in our series on how to homeschool through high school for those students who want to earn course credits and even the diploma. The topic of this video is the relatively new $650 grant that is in addition to the normal home education grant. It doesn’t replace it, it adds to it, and it’s specifically for a homeschooling student who’s in grades 10, 11, or 12. This additional funding is very specific; it is to essentially allow or enable a home education student to purchase an enrollment into a course or courses at a teacher-taught program for the purpose of earning course credits from a teacher-taught course but while maintaining a home education code 600 status.
This funding is not available to a shared responsibility student, who is technically part of home education. This might be too much detail, but I just wanted to cover this level of detail to be incredibly clear: it’s for a code 600, 100% parent-taught, home education student who wants to enroll in a course at an online learning or distance education program and earn those course, or attempt to earn those course credits for that teacher-taught course from Alberta Ed. The $650 again is in addition to the normal funding, and the student is able to apply or enroll in any online learning or distance education program that is not part of that student’s school division. For example, if a student is a code 600 home education student but wants to take or use the $650 to enroll in just one class at an online learning program that’s part of the same school division, you can’t do that. You have to go outside of your school division for that online learning or distance ed program. So just technically speaking, in this situation this $650 grant is for the home ed student who’s then considered a non-primary student, so that’s why there’s a code number 622 and/or 623 for this funding: 622 for online learning, 623 for distance ed. So the student, a home ed student, has to go outside the school division for that online learning or correspondence program.
We at THEE certainly encourage our students to take advantage of this $650 of special grant funding. We specifically, well, obviously the student can choose however he or she wants to use it. Sometimes for a core subject like math or science, or actually any any of the core subjects, it’s not just for one course, it could be for three to five one-credit CTS modules. It just depends; it’s $650 to be used however the online learning or distance ed program has set up the funding to be used. Everybody, meaning all the online programs out here in Alberta, have the ability to make their own policies about how that $650 can be used, whether it’s for one class, whether it’s one credit or five credits or ten credits, like work experience. So you’ll you’ll need to contact the school from which you want are into which you want to enroll your son or daughter for that online course. We at THEE oftentimes will recommend that a student use that $650 to purchase or enroll into like a classic work experience or special projects because if the student is going for say the diploma, because a home education student, actually any student, cannot course challenge and earn credits for special projects or work experience. A student, as you can see in the other videos for homeschooling through high school, can earn course credits through course challenge for all these other courses, but not for special projects and work experience. So we do recommend using the $650 grant for those courses. Just since I mentioned special projects and work experience, it’s off topic, but if your son or daughter is wanting to earn the diploma, one option is to get in, wants to use work experience, consider summer school for those two categories or courses. But anyway, again, a bit off topic.
So, I just wanted to summarize. The $650 grant is only for a home education code 600 student in high school, for grade 10, 11, 12, who wants to purchase an online or distance education program from a program that is outside of the student’s associate board or independent school. It is in addition to the normal funding, and there are deadlines. Again, each program, I’m assuming, can be flexible with the deadlines, but there are official deadlines from Alberta Ed for enrolling into a first-semester course and a second-semester course. So if you have questions, I do have, I have created at THEE with the website in the high school program section, more information about this grant. You can always contact me though through email, [email protected], or you can call us here at 780-467-5511. But I definitely wanted to let you know about this again, relatively new grant that does open up some interesting options for our high school students.
