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Welcome to video number four in our series on homeschooling through high school. In this video, we’re going to be looking at the Grade 13 option for earning a high school diploma as a home education student.
What is Grade 13?
So what exactly do I mean by this term? Well, home education funding here in Alberta is available to students up to the end of the school year in which they turn 19 years old. So students can home educate in grades 10, 11, and 12, and then if the student wants to return to school, or at least enroll in a teacher-directed program to earn the high school diploma, they can get their Grade 12 year and then if they turn 19, let’s say, in the middle of that Grade 12 year, they can have what we call a Grade 13 option, which just means they’re not a traditional grade 12 student. They are still eligible for some home education funding and some online learning funding for a total of two more years after their Grade 12 year. It’s a little confusing, but the bottom line is that funding is available for students up to and including the school year in which they turn 19. They’re still eligible for that funding, and you can still earn the diploma and the credits all the way up until the end of that Grade 12 year and, if you’d like, for an additional two more years. This is different from the Home Education Regulation, which says a student can remain in a home education program until the end of the school year in which they turn 20 years old, but the funding is not there. The funding is available only to the end of the school year in which the student turns 19.
The Best of Both Worlds
So that brings us to the “best of both worlds” scenarios for a homeschooling family. Let’s say you’ve been home educating your son or daughter from kindergarten all the way up through Grade 12. And you’ve done everything in your program, in your family’s home, the way you’ve chosen to do it—the way you’ve wanted to do it—and that’s fantastic. You have complete autonomy, complete control, as recognized in the Home Education Regulation, and your son or daughter has, you know, just thrived in that environment. Well, at the end of Grade 12, your son or daughter has a choice. Your son or daughter can say, “You know what? I’m not interested in post-secondary. I’m going to go to work,” or “I’m going to start my own business,” or “I’m going to be an apprentice,” or whatever the case may be, and the issue of a diploma or course credits is completely irrelevant to the student’s personal goals for life. That’s one option.
The second option is, “Well, you know what? I’ve been homeschooled all the way up to Grade 12. I’ve been home educated, but I do see the value of a high school diploma. I want to earn the high school diploma and maybe earn some course credits, so that’s what I’ll do.” That’s another option.
Another one is, “Well, you know, I think I’m going to go to post-secondary, and I know that I need Math 30-1 and English 30-1 and Chemistry 30 to get into the faculty of my choice.” And so your son or daughter will choose to go to a teacher-directed program, either in person or online, and enroll in those specific courses to earn those specific credits. And then your son or daughter will use those credits to go to post-secondary. Your traditional homeschooling record, your transcripts, will be separate from your child’s academic record, your official academic record, so it’s not going to show up on their transcript.
Putting the Plan into Action
So you as a parent you have a choice. You have a choice to home educate your son or daughter in a traditional way, but with an eye on these diplomas and course credits. You can home educate all the way up through Grade 12, and then at the end of Grade 12, say, “You know what? I’m going to take this Grade 13 option. I’m going to use this additional funding to put my son or daughter in teacher-directed courses from, let’s say, ADLC Online Learning, so they can get their credits and their diploma that way.” That’s an option.
The choice that I see most home education families who choose this option make is that they will have their son or daughter take a couple of courses, a teacher-directed course, either in person or online, during the school year while they continue to home educate, and they will earn those high school credits that way. For example, your son or daughter might take a Math 10C course from ADLC during their Grade 10 year and they continue homeschooling everything else, and they’re able to earn that course credit toward a diploma. So at the end of Grade 12, they’ve been home educating all this time, but they have a full transcript of courses, the 100 course credits needed to earn the diploma.
So the choice that I see most home education families make that do want to earn the diploma is they won’t necessarily wait until Grade 13. They will start, maybe in Grade 10 or 11, and they will slowly start to take on a course or two per year from an online learning program or an on-site program, and those courses are teacher-directed. So that’s it for this video, and we hope that you’ll watch another one soon.
