Embracing the Homeschool High School Journey [Show]

[music]

Gretchen Roe: 00:00:05.255
Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Gretchen Roe, and it’s my great pleasure to welcome you to this episode of The Demme Learning Show. I’m really excited to talk about helping your student navigate the high school journey. My colleague, Alice and I are great friends. We enjoy each other’s company on the convention circuit. And we have talked about this on several occasions with different families. And the truth of the matter is the message we’re going to bring you today is that yes, you can homeschool your students through high school. In fact, that was one of the most enjoyable times with my kids was the time that we homeschooled them during their high school years because it’s amazing to watch them grow and differentiate themselves. So I’m going to let Alice introduce herself and then we’ll get started.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:00:56.631
Well, hi. And thanks, Gretchen, for having me on here. We’ve been trying to pull together this session for a couple of years now. And so we’ve been working on it and here we are working on it again, and I’m really excited, and I’m hoping that it’ll gain steam. I also hope that it’s going to help our listeners because I know how daunting it can feel when you’re approaching those high school years and all of a sudden you just feel like it doesn’t matter that I’ve already homeschooled for eight years, I don’t know what I’m doing. I have home-educated seven children. I had to stop and think, do I have seven? Yes, seven children all through high school. And of those seven children, five of them have multiple college degrees. And so, if I can share any of my tips that just alleviates the fears of what parents may be going through, then I’m delighted to do that.

Gretchen Roe: 00:02:04.587
And I will tell you that Alice’s kids are amazing. My husband and I have six children. Five of them are college graduates. Four of them were homeschooled all the way through high school. And we adhere to the same philosophy that Alice and her husband, Mark, adhered to, which is you do for each child what is best for that child. And you’ll see a little bit of that come out in our conversation today. Where I want to begin, Alice, is I want to begin talking about when we put together some slides, we talked about AP classes that are offered. But I’d like you to talk about some AP classes that are really needed that as parents, we don’t necessarily think about when we educate our kids.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:02:46.758
Yes. Some of these things are just like no-brainers. And it’s like you said, we tend to go, “Oh my gosh, my child doesn’t have AP biology or doesn’t have this.” When reality, this is the time that you need to be launching your child into adulthood. Because regardless of whether they go to college or if they go straight into a workforce, or maybe they’ll go to a trade school, they are still going to need really pertinent social skills. They need to know how to get off their phone. They need to just know skills around the house, things that would– like taking care of your room or, just mature, responsible things, right? But I know that for me, a really important one that I just feel, and this is such a good time to do it. But man, start developing those social skills. I came across a great Facebook meme the other day and there was this crowded elevator and there were people on it standing outside the elevator with somebody in their graduation cap and gown and holding their diploma. And he looked clueless and lonely. The gist of the meme was, “If you don’t have the social skills, your degree’s not going to help you out a lot.” If you could just kind of shift your focus of– “Okay, what are some adulting things my child needs to know.” Now is the time to kind of bring those to the focus or bring them to the forefront.

Gretchen Roe: 00:04:37.552
And one of the things I think is important is we’re not focused just on the academics here. We want to talk about you creating a child who is socially mature in the workplace, in the academic space, wherever they are. And so your conversations about high school and what happens post-high school really need to begin with your kids in middle school–

Alice Reinhardt: 00:05:00.805
Absolutely.

Gretchen Roe: 00:05:00.805
–because that is hugely important. But where you need to get intentional, Alice, is in the 8th grade. So can we talk a little bit about what we as parents need to be thinking about for our students as they enter their 8th grade year?

Alice Reinhardt: 00:05:18.851
If you haven’t done it before now, you really need to be building conversation tools with your student, okay. You need to start really involving them in their high school work. You need to have conversations about what are you really interested in. What do you think you’d like to do with your life? And I’m going to tell you very few 8th graders know. They really don’t know. But it’s time to start throwing that out and getting them to think about it and then you adjusting what you’re doing to to accommodate that. And it’s also the time, you do need to start looking for how to put together a transcript or keeping record of what classes they take. Many parents don’t realize that you can actually capitalize on those classes that you take in 8th grade and put those into your high school curriculum also.

Gretchen Roe: 00:06:15.470
Absolutely. And it does make a tremendous amount of difference for us to be aware of what kinds of things our students do. And what Alice and I are talking about is– intentional conversations is to begin to list down. Just take a simple notebook and say, “Oh, well, let’s talk about some of the things you’re really interested in.” And then we can start making notes on how we would explore that further. Here’s one of the things I want you to remember. I want you to hold all of those things that your student tells you they want very loosely.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:06:50.771
Very loosely.

Gretchen Roe: 00:06:51.973
Things will change and they’ll change again. And you need to be prepared that they may change multiple times as your student matures. So the one thing that we wanted to make sure that we talked about is if you have a child whom you believe will need testing accommodations or accommodations in college, now’s the time to start getting that in place. You’ve got to have those kinds of documentations ready to go. Because if you wait until your student is a junior or a senior in high school and you’re looking for testing accommodations, your ship has sailed and the college board will not entertain accommodations for you,

Alice Reinhardt: 00:07:33.325
Right. It does make it difficult if you do not have those in place and your child does have some sort of learning issue. You’ve shut off your ability to communicate with the college or the university if you have not done the testing ahead of time. And yeah, you need to be looking at that. Also, now would be the time that– yeah, I mean, it’s so easy we could look at our fourth and fifth graders and we think, “Oh, they’ve got ADD or they’ve got this or they’ve got that. But so much of that is also affected by just maturing and growing. By the time they’re in 7th and 8th and 9th grade, those hormones have really kicked in and you’re going to see those problems that present that they’re going to have struggles with as an adult present themselves.

Gretchen Roe: 00:08:28.035
That is very true. The other thing that is important to recognize is that your 8th grader doesn’t have a mature prefrontal cortex. And so there may be things that you are expecting of them that they’re not ready yet to produce. But if you draw the lines in the road, it gives them a place to drive. And that makes a tremendous amount of difference.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:08:48.679
Yes, it does.

Gretchen Roe: 00:08:50.159
So Alice, let’s talk about 9th grade because here’s where we have to begin to get intentional about a lot of things. And I love the way you talk about the 9th grade year about transitioning responsibility.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:09:03.817
I mean, a terminology that we hear a lot is helicopter parenting. And they’re there. They’re there. Well, let me tell you something, folks. Your high school kids do not need a helicopter parent. All right, because you don’t want college kids that you’ve helicoptered and you don’t want married kids you’ve helicoptered. So this is the time to start cutting your own little apron strings with your kids and extending to them responsibility. They need to really, by their high school years, be owning the responsibility for their learning. This is something that colleges will look at as home educators tend to feel responsible. I need to do this, I need to learn this. And so it’s time to do that. But I like your one of the notes that you’ve put in here is to keep your expectations realistic. I mean, you cannot expect them to just, man, take off running on this and hit a grand slam. No, there’s going to be times where they don’t get it. And there are going to be times that you want to rush in there as a parent. I’m going to encourage you to stand back and let them struggle a little bit this. Continue discussing with your student. What are their interests? Because again, as you said, it’s going to change. I had a daughter that would talk about doing something in the medical field and then she’d talk about doing dance and then she talked about doing something in the medical field and then she’d talk about doing something with horses.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:10:43.103
Then she’d talk about she kept coming back to the medical field, kept coming back. But she would bounce around to other things. And there was one point I thought, “Oh my gosh, you are never going to figure this out.” Well, she did. She got a master’s in kinesiology. And it was like when she finally settled on, even in college, it was like, “Well, honey, you always kept going back to something in the medical field.” So, start that. Impossible expectations. We can be really hard on our kids and we can set them up to fail just by– and I’m a big believer and I would rather take a tiny step and succeed at it than throw the entire Thanksgiving dinner and say, “Eat this, eat all of this in one meal.” I’d rather encourage. So break it down. Break it down little parts. You could. I like an idea that we have written down here. You could form a unit study. For those of you who don’t know what a unit study is, it’s like taking a topic, taking a unit and building everything that you need to cover all of the subjects around that. Well, you could talk– you could start a unit study study for your student about what comes after high school. What are their choices? What are their options? What do they think and feel about going to college? It’d kill a couple of birds with one stone if you had a unit study that you were designed for that.

Gretchen Roe: 00:12:21.461
And the other thing here that’s important: what are we talking about when we’re talking about creating a unit study if you have a child who has an interest in computer design or another one that is in animation? I hear a lot of kids nowadays who have a tremendous interest in animation. All right, let’s figure out what it takes to become employed as an animator. What do you need? What are the skill sets you need? What are the kinds of things you need to study? Where are places that you could study that? So you’re taking that idea and now you’re breaking it down into manageable pieces. And Alice, you mentioned something in 8th grade about teach the social skills. One of the things that parents need to do to teach the social skills is you have to teach your children how to make a phone call of inquiry. They need to learn how to call someone, ask questions, and nobody does that without some sort of modeling or some sort of experience. And kids today have more anxiety about talking on the phone than ever before because they’re constantly connected with social media. But that’s not the same kind of connection. So I want to encourage you as a parent of a 9th grader to sit down with that child and role play. If they’re going to do this kind of unit study, then have them call someone who’s in the animation field. Have them call a teacher at a local community college who’s teaching something related to animation, but rehearse that conversation before they do it. Otherwise, you’re throwing them into the deep end of the pool and you’ve given them a 25-pound weight to hold while they’re in that end of the pool.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:14:03.791
And that goes again to the unrealistic expectations. And Gretchen, you’re right. The number of times that I have prior to a phone call that having my kids make…we would go over and they would say, “What do I need to say?” And I’d say, “Well, you’re interested in this. You want more information about this. This is how you do it.” And then I sit there while the conversation is happening, scribbling notes sometimes to say– and then also to remind them to use their manners as they are in this conversation, that they are speaking respectfully, that they tell the person, thank you for taking the time to talk with them. So yeah, that’s a really good point to be able to role-play those conversations ahead of time. Pretend that you’re an employer and your son is coming in. That is a crucial, crucial skill of how to interview well. And what I’ve noticed is that now the technology is such that you have to really beat at a door in order to get a face-to-face interview with an employer. They need to know how to do that.

Gretchen Roe: 00:15:24.285
Right. Absolutely. And the more conversations they have, the easier it becomes. Maybe you know somebody in your church congregation who works with computers, and they can have a conversation there. One of my sons, who is now a network engineer, knew he wanted to do something with computers, but he didn’t really know what that something was. So we looked at our sphere of social influence and said, “Who are people that you would be comfortable asking questions of?” And we set him up to have some really casual interviews. And we had him think about what do you want to ask before he sat down for those conversations. That way he knew– when you would become anxious because anybody’s going to become anxious in that kind of environment. If you knew, oh, I wanted to come out with these questions answered, then you had a higher probability of being successful. Alice, time is clicking away here. So what do we need to do by the time we get to 10th grade? Now we are putting together that transcript and I want parents to know we’ll have a transcript template in the show notes for you. But by the time you get to 10th grade, what are the things we really need to be thinking about?

Alice Reinhardt: 00:16:48.529
Okay, first I want to– it is really important that whatever state you were in, and I don’t mean frazzled or excited, I’m talking about geographically, that you check with those states requirements for what they require subjects for you to graduate with. I mean, that is really important. I could be giving you advice because I’m here in Kentucky, and maybe in Texas, it’s like, yeah, that won’t fly. So that’s our little bit of disclaimer there, that you do need to know what your state, what subjects your state requires for that. The transcript form is a very easy form. It is not really anything that is daunting. You can find a lot of these. We have one that I recommend that I’ve used for all of my kids. I knew the woman who created it, and she allows a free access to it. So you’re going to break it down into each year. If they need to have– if your state is requiring that they have three years of math and two of history, you need to break that down and just make sure that you have that reflected on that. On normal grading, there is no one that’s going to come back and check your grades as to whether you’ve got it right or not. I had a situation with my youngest in which he ended up going to the public school.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:18:23.927
And so when I prepared his transcript, I was trying to keep in mind to be objective as I gave him grades because I wanted it to be honest, and that when he then was tested there, that it matched up. And I was very, very pleased that it did. But under normal circumstances, no one’s checking your grades on this. And I’m not suggesting that you just be frivolous and give everybody an A because eventually, things like the ACT or your college is going to go, oh, well, maybe you should be in the honors class, so. But don’t get freaked out by the grades. You just need to give them, keeping the transcript. This is where people kind of used to use the rule of thumb is 20 minutes a day in a subject qualifies for that day of school for that subject. And typically you need about 120 of these. So 120 chunks of 15– or 15 to 20 minutes on that. I’ve got a close friend whose son has been working with a vet this semester and he’s spending six hours a week with her on– right now, it’s just in the horse field. And she was asking me this very same question, how can I put this into my transcript? And I said, well, you’ve got two or three choices. You’ve got veterinary sciences. You’ve got running a business. You’ve got animal husbandry. Those are the types of things that you can put down and give your child an academic credit for on that. It is also the time, Gretchen, that they need to be taking the ACT. I don’t know what the future of the ACT is, but for the time being, it’s still being required in most schools.

Gretchen Roe: 00:20:27.076
Now, see, Alice and I are geographically in two different places. I didn’t even know what the ACT was when my kids started taking college tests. The only thing I knew of on the East Coast was the SAT. But I had two daughters who matriculated in the Midwest at Midwestern Colleges. And those Midwestern colleges said, “Hey, we’d like your daughters to take the ACT because we find that girls perform better on the ACT.” And before I made that statement today, I wanted to make sure that that was still really true. So I googled it. And yet there is a little bit of a bias toward women in the ACT because it’s not one kind of test question. It’s a variety of different questions. And they say that because women tend to think more globally, there are some advantages there. I would encourage you, regardless of where you live, to have your children take both kinds of tests. There’s one that will appeal to them more than another. And that will make a tremendous amount of difference. But Alice, you have an important point about how often they need to take it, so.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:21:36.417
Oh, yeah. Here’s the thing. And again, we didn’t have to take the SAT, so I don’t know what its parameters are. But for the ACT, it doesn’t matter how many times you take it. It only records the highest score for you. And so taking that and getting used to taking it’s an extra bonus for your kids because it’s probably something that I regret that I did not do was introduce my kids into taking that kind of format. Sooner, I didn’t do a lot of testing. I knew where my kids were. I knew their strengths. I knew their weaknesses. I didn’t need a standardized test to tell me where they fit in somebody else’s standard. But I knew my kids strengths. So I didn’t push it. I wish I had just to prepare them for taking it. I had the same woman who provides us with the transcript took the ACT practice journals, which you can get. And I mean, she had certain things that her boys worked on, but every day they would take a section. They would answer the questions. Then they would check it and then they would spend the rest of their day finding out why that was or was not the answer. They did this all four years of their high school. So by the time that they got ready to take the ACT, they blew through that thing and both of them got full-ride scholarships to Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Very extremely different or difficult school to get into. It’s just a matter of familiarizing yourself with how that information is laid out there.

Gretchen Roe: 00:23:30.982
Now, one thing that’s important for us to say if you’re a family who has not been exposing your children to testing, now’s not the time to panic. In the follow-up notes, though actually, be something there’ll be a show that we did a year ago called Conversations About Grading, and I think you’ll find it beneficial to listen to that. We’ll weigh options for you on testing, testing throughout your student school years, waiting to test until they’re in high school. And that will help you decide what the best path forward is. We had a limited amount of time today, so we wanted to make sure we hit all the high spots, so to speak. The next thing, Alice, I want to answer, we’re kind of a little bit out of order here, but Jackie asked a really good question. And so now we’re going to talk about this. She said, “Can volunteer work begin counting on a transcript in middle school, and how important is volunteer work?” And I know you have some specifics about that. So let’s talk about–

Alice Reinhardt: 00:24:31.189
I really do. And I feel very strongly about this. And actually, my oldest, who’s in his 40s– and I talked about this very thing last night. I mean, we were having a discussion. He brought up an opportunity that he had to volunteer I had completely forgotten about, and that was with our local hospital. And as a teenager, he went in there. They had a volunteer program. He went in. I don’t know how many weeks. I’ve lost track of how many weeks. He worked in the food service there. Now what he was saying to me last night was, “I wish that I had really looked at this and gone, ‘Oh, look, I could go into the radiology department or I could go into the phlebotomy – you know what I’m saying? – and be as a volunteer there.'” But volunteering is an incredible resource to use. Yes, you can put it down on your transcript, just whatever area it is. There’s also a place on the transcript for extracurricular activities, and that’s where you especially want to cite that. Colleges do look at that information. They want to know. Again, they’re looking for the socially-equipped adult.They want to see, “Have you been out there in the real world and what have you been doing with this? Are you a part of your community?” And volunteering shows that.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:26:00.373
The statistic that you were saying about it is that employers are 85% more likely to dismiss a resume flaw if you volunteer. So if you goof up on a resume or something like that, employers will tend to look over that because they’re seeing your volunteering. That’s also an important skill to bring out when you are interviewing with an employer. They want to know, “Can you engage with the public?” Volunteer does that. And another statistic says that volunteering is associated with an average 27% higher employment rate. So volunteering helps you. I mean, it’s teaching you about a skill. It’s giving you a work ethic. It’s getting you into the public. It is a very important skill. And absolutely, get your kids to volunteer. And I would say anything in the 7th and 8th grades, you could put down if they’re volunteering at a soup kitchen or some other community thing that serves your people in your community that are needy. Absolutely. Put that down. It’s very important.

Gretchen Roe: 00:27:19.847
So my fifth child, who is my network engineer, went and volunteered in a computer repair store. He wanted to learn how to repair computers. So he went to the owner and he said, “Can I learn how you do what you do?” And he learned a whole bunch of things. So he did that as a wholly volunteer enterprise his junior year of high school. His senior year of high school, they paid him. And that man, the owner of that company, was one of the resume letters that he captured when he went to college, one of the letters of endorsement. And it reflected so positively on on his college application that he received a little bit of scholarship money for that. But he took the initiative to go and do that. And I think here’s where as parents, we can’t set it up for our kids. We have to be able to allow our kids to do that with our encouragement. So Alice, now we’re going to move into 11th grade. We’ve got to get through 11th grade and 12th grade and then we’ve got some really great questions. So let’s talk about what needs to change as far as a parental perspective when a student steps into 11th grade.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:28:36.412
Okay, well, you could start this in your 10th grade, but definitely by the 11th grade, you need to be looking at the colleges that you want to be going into. And here’s the thing, every college has a different requirement for what they are looking for to accept their students. Give you an excellent idea. I was under the assumption that all universities required college algebra on a high school transcript. I’m good at teaching college or algebra. I mean, I don’t have a problem with that. But so I thought I would kill two birds with one stone and enroll my daughter in an online college, online college algebra class. So that not only could she satisfy the high school credit, but she would also get started getting in there on the college credits. And lo and behold, the college she chose, the university she chose did not accept college algebra. Who knew? They taught statistics in every field. And I had a daughter who was really pretty irritated with me at that. But that was an assumption I made about that particular college. And it is something that you need to be aware of. You need to be asking the questions from the college. What do you need? What is your requirement? I’m looking at our notes here from this slide. You put down, begin practicing college essays.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:30:23.007
Now, most people would not think that that was important. But let me tell you, writing in college is way different than writing in high school and they’re going to– you’re going to have to step up your game. They will do that in college. So it’s not like if you haven’t done it, don’t panic, but just start getting your kids to write a little bit more. You need to start looking at your scholarships and see what’s available there. And here’s the other thing, Gretchen. I mean, typically we graduate in May. College starts in the fall. If you wait until then, those calls, those scholarships are not going to be available. Those scholarships start a year in advance. And typically the deadline date is something around March and April. And so begin searching for the scholarships and apply for them. It doesn’t matter. Even if you think you’re outside of the acceptability, go ahead and apply for it. You never know. So do that…again.

Gretchen Roe: 00:31:31.663
There’s another opportunity for a parent to create a unit study. Google college essay examples.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:31:38.447
There you go.

Gretchen Roe: 00:31:39.680
And then here here is the opportunity for your student to read those essays, model those essays, practice them because nothing is more difficult than to be handed an essay title and you have absolutely no paradigm for that. So here’s another opportunity maybe for the creative writing portion of your language arts experience as a junior. Experience writing college essays. Read good ones, figure out what they’re looking for, have conversations about what differentiates them from something that is not a terrific essay. You can also Google and find some really lousy college essays too because they’re out there. It’s all in the world of the internet. But you can have that kind of experience for your student.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:32:32.771
Right. I had an exceptional English teacher when I was in high school, and we went through a period of time– and this could be something– I modeled this for my kids. I mean, my kids– I applied this to my kids. We were learning how to write a five-paragraph paper, but here was his requirements. We could not write anything out of class. Everything that we wrote had to be done wrong. We were sitting right there. I fussed with this man. I argued with him. I told him I didn’t– my writing, whatever it is didn’t kick in until 2:00 AM. I could not do it. And he would say, “Sorry, Miss Ross, these are the requirements.” And he made me do it. I get to college and I had a really good score on the ACT. So they said, “Okay, you’re going to sit down and do this writing test.” And they gave me a list of topics to pick from. I had a limited amount of time to write it. And I at that point in time thought, “Oh, if I could see this man, I would give him a kiss,” because I was I had been put through that. I had been put through that in my rigors, my senior English class. And I did exactly what I was taught. I pulled out that five-paragraph paper and I clapped out of two– well, both of the writing courses that my college required. So yes, writing is an incredible skill.

Gretchen Roe: 00:34:04.252
As a junior in high school, for the most part, most juniors are driving. Many juniors are driving if you have pursued that with your student. Now is the time for really to be intentional about two things, volunteer opportunities and having them shadow someone whose work ethic you admire and perhaps in a field they think they want to go into. I’ll give you an example. My youngest son had said from the time he was six years old he was going to be a criminal defense attorney. And he said this from 6 to 17. And at the age of 17, he had the opportunity to intern for three weeks with a criminal defense attorney. And it was an amazing opportunity. And when he came back from there, I was convinced, as his parent, that when he came home, he would tell me, “Yep, exactly. That’s what I want to do.” And instead, he came home and said, “Nope, this is not the pursuit that I want.” And that was an equally valuable outcome. So I want you all to– I want to frame the the possibility of shadowing people in potential fields as it’s always going to be a positive outcome, whether it results in a future career choice for your student or your student absolutely decides they don’t want to do that. Either way, it’s a positive outcome. The last thing, Alice, that we need to look at here is those letters of recommendation. And I alluded to that when I was talking about Duncan earlier. But how does a student approach someone for a letter of recommendation?

Alice Reinhardt: 00:35:44.843
Well, first of all, Gretchen, it needs to be somebody they know and that knows them. I mean, you can’t go, “Oh, I am, you know, going– there’s a doctor in our town. I’m going to go and ask them to write a letter of recommendation.” So hopefully they there have been interactions in your past that have connected you with people. Letters of recommendation need to come from people that have a degree, that have some sort of accomplishment in their life. I mean, it doesn’t need to be your aunt. I mean, it needs to be someone that they can look at. It’s kind of like doing a research paper. And you go, “Why would I pick this amount of information?” Because you look at the creds and and they need to have those credentials there that can justify why they are doing this. It’s really important that when you select someone who is educated, who is knowledgeable in their field, that you ask their permission, “Will you consider writing a letter of recommendation for me?” This can be someone that they’ve worked– like a boss, an owner of a company or something like that so that they will give an honest representation of your skills, your personality, your work ethic, and why the college. I mean, here’s the important thing. They need to answer a question. Why does this college need this kid?

Gretchen Roe: 00:37:28.752
Here’s the important thing about that. As a parent, I know it’s very easy for you to want to solicit the letters of recommendation for your student. But I’m going to encourage you to make your student do that because that is a mark of maturity. And the flavor of that letter of recommendation will change if your student solicits it rather than you. So Alice, here we are at 12th grade and time is speeding by. What do we need to do in 12th grade to make sure that we’re tying the bow on the package?

Alice Reinhardt: 00:38:02.761
Well, tying the bow on the package is exactly what it is. This can be a melancholy here because for some people, once they finally get into it and they realize, “Oh, wow, this is it. You’re about to launch this little bird.” And as I mentioned earlier, you should have been cutting those apron strings as you go, giving more responsibility, requiring more, pushing them into an uncomfortable place. Because as a parent, sometimes we have to do that and you’ve got to stand back. You got to let them fall. And yet let them know, “Hey, I’m here. You’ve fallen, but I’m here. And I will be with you as you as you’re working through this.” That’s an important thing. So that’s part of the wrapping up process with this. But in the 11th grade, we were looking at colleges. Now it needs to narrow down. You need to decide, “Well, alright, this college is going to put me $70,000 in debt. This college, it would probably only be 30,000. Oh, look, this college has a work study.” And again, I know very few, very few, even college seniors who know what they want to do with their life. I don’t even know how to describe this disease we have that automatically thinks I’m 18 years old. I’ve finished high school and I need to go to college. I have no idea what I’m doing.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:39:41.061
Okay. So there needs to be some refinement in that. And maybe, just maybe, your child needs to work for a while. And because that’s okay, they might need to get out there as they’re still trying to figure it out. Two of my girls had at least a year to two years in between their high school experience and their college experience. And during that time is when they figured out what they wanted to do. For just a minute I want to go back to the ACT. This is why it’s critical to take the ACT while you’re in high school, because it won’t count if you already graduate and you take the ACT for the first time. Learned that the hard way. All right? So anyhow, this is when you’re narrowing your focus down. Okay, again, we already talked about calling the colleges and finding out what courses that they’re wanting. Teach your child how to start filling out this stuff because once they’re in college they need to keep applying for college or scholarship things. They need to keep applying to things. They need to know how to do this. Don’t just be the mama bear that fills it all out for them.

Gretchen Roe: 00:41:00.266
And toward that end, Alice, this is the time where you and your student need to study the financial obligations you are about to make. I don’t care where you’re going to go to school. I don’t care how much scholarship money is being offered to you. You need to know the financial implications of the forms you sign before you sign them.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:41:20.047
Yes, because when you take out a student loan, morally, ethically, legally, you are required to pay that back. And this can turn into a very, very hairy experience. We’re having 70-80 thousand dollars in debt, and yet you cannot find a job in that field in which to manage those payments back. You’re right, Gretchen. You really have got to look at the financial side of that.

Gretchen Roe: 00:42:01.025
And I also think, Alice, when we spoke about this last summer, one of the things that is important to recognize is, if your child is incurring $70,000 in college debt and they’re getting a degree in English, maybe you need to rethink that because the truth of the matter is they’ll be saddled with that debt for 20 to 30 years. And that’s not a wise investment in their future. And maybe that’s a hard conversation you as a parent need to have with your student. But how much better to have that conversation in advance of the debt accruance than after the debt has been accrued?

Alice Reinhardt: 00:42:39.011
And there may be parents out there who are affluent enough, Gretchen, that they could pay for their child’s college experience, or perhaps they’re the ones taking the debt. And I would really, really ask you to examine that. And I would not recommend that. I do not think this is a wise endeavor because there is no ownership in that child if you pay for their college experience themselves. There’s no ownership. You’re keeping them crippled maturity-wise. And they just do not get it. Plus, you’re older than your kids. And Gretchen just mentioned that you’re saddled with that debt for 20 or 30 years, add that on to your life and decide if you’re really in a position to do that. So parents, please think twice. I’m not talking about occasionally helping them out because every one of my kids has made the statement. “Yeah, I’m a poor college student. I’m living on ramen noodles.” Okay, there are times we have helped our kids out in the course of that. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about funding their education

Gretchen Roe: 00:44:03.223
well, Alice, we had some terrific questions that were asked here, and I would love to turn our attention to them. I’m going to make a note here. One of the parents asked us about grading and assigning letter grades versus numerical grades. And I’m going to refer that parent and the other five parents who asked questions about grading to the webinar that we did on grading because I think that will answer their questions. And I verified yesterday that it is a good place for them to go. So that will be found in your show notes. The next question that I think is important is, and several parents asked this and the transcript was their sticking point. And so I want you to give the parents permission that the transcript is not this be-all and end-all thing that we have built up in our minds for it to be.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:44:54.363
It isn’t. And Gretchen, along with that, I want to discuss the word accreditation.

Gretchen Roe: 00:44:58.444
Oh, yes.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:45:00.431
This was also in the conversation that my son and I were having on his time as a volunteer at the hospital. There is only one reason to worry about accreditation. And that is if you are in a program that is receiving money or some sort of support that they need to know that what you’re doing is accredited so that they themselves can keep up a certain standard. No college that I know of, and I mean, I don’t know all of them, so I’m putting that little caveat in there, looks for whether or not you were accredited. A school, and my son even told me that, the public school that he was their IT director for 15 years, they finally quit paying for their accreditation because it wasn’t doing anything for them. They got a plaque they hung on their wall. They paid a lot of money for it and they went, “This is ridiculous. This is not necessary.” So first of all, eliminate the idea or the concept that you have to have an accredited course. It’s not necessary. Okay?

Gretchen Roe: 00:46:12.796
One of the things that I learned with one of my kids, there was the possibility that there would be NCAA sport played in college. And so we were seeking hard for that accreditation. And then when that child went on to college, we learned that accreditation is in the eyes of the matriculating institution. So even though he had accredited courses, the institution in which he chose to matriculate wasn’t interested in those courses. So we had spent extra time and money and effort to do what we thought was going to level his playing field. And it turned out that it didn’t make any difference in the end.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:46:58.666
Right. Exactly. Exactly. I understand that because we also had to fill that paperwork out for one of our daughters. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, they’re really asking some intense questions here.” But on a standardized transcript, okay? And I’m going to use the ABCD number– no, those aren’t numbers, those are letters, lettering system there. And the corresponding four points, three points, two points, one point. You can have an AP grading system with it. I just really did not spend much time doing that. But if you give your student an A, on the transcript, you’re going to see what that translates to would be a four. That would be four points. And so if a a student got an A in one class and a B in one class, the B would be three points. So the total of the two classes would be 7, right? Simple math dividing by the two classes. That means that your GPA would be 3.5.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:48:18.751
That’s how you figure those out, is that there’s a number value assigned to the letter grade, and then that total is divided by the number of classes and that determines your grade point average. That’s what you have to keep up with in your transcript. And I’ll say this also. Colleges do not look for a diploma. They’re they don’t care about a diploma. There’s never been one once that said, “Can I see your diploma?” So don’t equate. “Oh my gosh, how am I going to give them a diploma?” You just order one online or create one on whatever program you have in your computer. Colleges don’t want to see that. They do want to see your grade point average, and they’ll look at that. We have had an experience where I honestly, I wondered if the college really did look at her transcript because she was struggling in math and did not have her high school math classes in there. But that was just a side story on that. So it’s pretty self-explanatory, and you just keep track of it, download it, edit it, adjust it for your kid.

Gretchen Roe: 00:49:39.909
Alice, I have a question here that is interesting. And this mom has said she’s curious to know more about that ACT not counting if it’s not taken while you’re still a high school student. And so is there? I’m not familiar with that. That was something of which I was not aware, but knowing how many kids you have and how many have gone on to college, I imagine you’ve probably encountered that. So, right.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:50:07.951
All right. So let me clarify some of that in here. The ACT will have with it as you score in this, and you and you have your score and you’re ranking with other kids across the nation that have also taken that test, scholarships are tied to those scores. Your college that you’re looking at will tell you what the minimum score is to achieve a certain level of scholarship. Two daughters that I have, my oldest daughter I did insist that she take the ACT. She took it twice. She scored really well. Our local university sent her a letter asking her to be in their English program. She corrected their grammars, sent the letter back to them and said, I don’t think so. All right. Yeah. This is my daughter who is now in school on her way to being a lawyer. So she had taken those those tests when she was in high school. As she was getting ready to go to college in her 30s, she decided she wanted to get the best scholarship she could. She took and retook the ACT until she got her score into the 30s. All right. But because she had taken it in college, they were able to use those scores to award scholarships.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:51:38.888
The second daughter. I’m really and truly not sure why I did not push them taking the ACT. I knew she was going to go to her community college. Well, no, she was one of the ones that struggled with knowing what to do. So I did not push her taking the ACT. She graduated. She went on some mission trips. She did some things and came back and decided she wanted to go into PT, physical therapy. She took the ACT, which was fine. She got the score that enabled her to go to college, but she did not qualify for any scholarships. And this was ACT’s policy. What we found out– and we were just stunned at this. What we found out is that in order to get the the little perks from our state that’s based on the AC ACT score and to get another couple of other little perks that’s all based on the ACT score, that ACT had to be taken prior to. So she took it afterwards. The college still accepted it, but it just meant she didn’t get [crosstalk] rewards.

Gretchen Roe: 00:52:54.454
It meant there weren’t as many financial opportunities available.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:52:57.785
Yeah. Yeah. And I hope that explains it a little bit better with that.

Gretchen Roe: 00:53:01.864
So what if you have a child who is not college bound and looking to go into the trades? This is a personal reason for me because I know you know my youngest story. But I want to put this in parents minds because when my eldest was preparing for college, I didn’t care what she got a degree in. I wanted her to have a college degree. But in the ensuing 20 years, I’ve changed my mind about that. And part of the reason I’ve changed my mind is it’s not fair to start a future as a young adult saddled with debt. And so, Alice, I’d be interested in the last five minutes or so to hear what you have to say about, say, two parents who have a child who maybe doesn’t want a college education. What are the other opportunities for them?

Alice Reinhardt: 00:53:55.147
Well, that is a really good question. And you mentioned trade schools, and trade schools– I mean, here trade schools need to be taken seriously because you get an education, you’re getting training, you’re getting hands on work in a field that then you can get it and almost immediately get a job within that field and then there are opportunities for further certification after that. It is something that– here’s the thing. Not everybody wants to go to college and that’s okay. And we need to quit normalizing that that’s what we’re supposed to do. There are some people, “I want to be an electrician.” Okay. You don’t necessarily need an engineering degree to become an electrician. A trade school is far more beneficial. It is far more economical, as are junior colleges, which is another optional route in there. My daughter who wanted to be a PT went two years to a junior college. She came out as a PTA. She worked for almost 12 years as a PTA before she decided to go ahead or go ahead and become a full-fledged physical therapist with that. So the benefits are economic for one, but it’s also for interests. I mean, it is good to have people who know how to do things, not just have book knowledge.

Gretchen Roe: 00:55:30.094
Well, I will tell you, my youngest son volunteered in his senior year of high school for an electrical company, and at the conclusion of that volunteerism he said, “I think I really want to pursue becoming an electrician.” So here he is a year out of high school. He is earning a living wage as he apprentices to become an electrician. And he said, “Mom, a lot of my friends went on to college and they’re spending their parents money and they have no idea what they want to do having a great time, but they don’t know what their future looks like. And he said, “And I’m in the process of planning my future right now.” And he said, “That feels pretty good.” So in preparation for this conversation today, he’s been at this now since the end of August. And I said to him last night– I said, “So have you made a good choice?” And he stood there for a second and he looked down and then he looked up at me and he said, “Yeah.” He said, “I’m really having a lot of fun. And I think I made–”

Alice Reinhardt: 00:56:29.142
[crosstalk].

Gretchen Roe: 00:56:29.496
“–a really good choice.” And isn’t that–

Alice Reinhardt: 00:56:31.399
[crosstalk].

Gretchen Roe: 00:56:31.746
–what we want to hear from our kids as parents?

Alice Reinhardt: 00:56:33.254
Yes.

Gretchen Roe: 00:56:34.161
That’s–

Alice Reinhardt: 00:56:35.106
[crosstalk] I’m loving. Yes.

Gretchen Roe: 00:56:36.172
–[crosstalk] we want to hear. Yep. [crosstalk] makes all the difference.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:56:37.531
I’m loving what I’m doing. Yes.

Gretchen Roe: 00:56:39.302
Yeah. So Alice, in the closing minutes, what is the best closing thoughts that you have for our parents today?

Alice Reinhardt: 00:56:47.013
Well, parents, I just want to say you can do this. High school is not some huge monster that’s out there. There are people to help you. There are resources at your fingertips I did not have because Google was not invented, or maybe it was invented, but it wasn’t accessible to just a common everyday person. You have Google that you can research any of these questions that we have been sent. You can search on your own. What it does mean is that as a parent, especially in the high school years, you need to be intentional. So you need to just know that you’re in this for your kid and that you’ve got this purpose that you are preparing to launch an adult and think about what you want that adult to know and access all of the avenues that are out there. If you’re needing a biology class, check the institutions around you for being able to get that in for you. Don’t let it hinder you. Don’t let it throw you for a loop and not be able– say, “Oh. I can’t do this.” No. I really believe it. You can do this. You can do this.

Gretchen Roe: 00:58:01.736
Absolutely. And we navigated it before the benefit of the internet. So now you’ve got Mother Google to come alongside you, and it makes a lot of difference.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:58:13.255
[crosstalk]. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Gretchen Roe: 00:58:15.432
But I also think in that process, not everything that comes up is– the first thing in a Google search is the best thing in a Google search. So you need to be discerning in that process and make sure that your goal here should be to launch a fully fledged adult, and every child reaches that goal at a different point in time. But if we’re preparing them for flight and we’re helping them test drive those flights in small increments, it makes all the difference in the world. And as a parent who has now launched six of them, I want to encourage you that you absolutely can do this. And it makes all the difference in the world for you to be confident because your student will have confidence from your confidence. Thanks again for joining us today. This is Gretchen Roe for The Demme Learning Show. It’s been my very great pleasure to host my dear friend Alice Reinhardt. You can access the show notes and watch a recording at demmelearning.com/show or on our YouTube channel. Be sure to rate, review, and give us a rating, especially if you enjoyed what we had to say today. And thanks again to the parents who made some suggestions about some future shows for us. Look for something in the spring on delaying college or taking a gap year. We’re going to study that a little bit more intentionally. And then also look for that information on transitioning from middle school to high school. We’re going to dig into that in the spring a little bit deeper. So be ready for those conversations. Take care, everyone. Thank you for a great afternoon.

Alice Reinhardt: 00:59:53.596
Bye.

[music]