Latest / Motherhood Alliance Podcast / How to Homeschool High School w/ Tina Hollenbeck | The Homeschool Loft
Transcript
- speaker-0: Welcome to the Motherhood Alliance podcast, the podcast dedicated to empowering moms and families on their health and wellness journey. I'm Brittany Sutner. speaker-1: and I'm Andrea Rankes. Together, we're here to explore holistic approaches that go beyond conventional medicine. speaker-0: Each week, we dive into topics that matter most to you, everything from nutrition and mental health to alternative therapies and natural living. speaker-1: We'll bring you the expert interviews, insightful discussions, and practical tips to make motherhood a little easier and help your family thrive. speaker-0: Please keep in mind that this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only, and is not intended to replace the advice, diagnosis, or treatment plans you have with your personal healthcare team. Please have a conversation with your trusted healthcare provider prior to making any changes or implementing any strategies or advice you learn from this podcast. speaker-1: Whether you're a new mom navigating the early stages of parenthood or a seasoned pro looking for new ways to support your family's wellbeing, you're in the right place. speaker-0: Here at the Motherhood Alliance podcast, we challenge the status quo, ask the tough questions, and offer a supportive community for moms who want to make an informed, holistic choice. speaker-1: Thank you for joining us on this journey. speaker-0: Let's get started. Hi, we are Britt Andrea from motherhoodalliance.com and we're excited to welcome you to a four episode series with Tina Hollenbeck, the founder of the Home School Loft. Through the Home School Loft, Tina provides support and encouragement for current and prospective home educating parents through free at one-on-one consultations, workshops, homeschooler gatherings, a bi-monthly podcast, and a very extensive community calendar, which lists a plethora of activities available to homeschool families. Tina is a former public school teacher and a veteran homeschooling mom. She's also the curator of the Homeschool Resource Roadmap, which is the most comprehensive curriculum database in existence. She's the author of Eight Great Smarts for Homeschoolers and an occasional speaker at major homeschool conferences. Her work is all about helping families feel confident, informed, and supported in their homeschooling journey. So whether you're considering homeschooling, are knee deep in it, or are simply curious, we're excited to share options and opportunities that exist for families all over Wisconsin. Let's jump into today's episode. speaker-1: Hey everyone, welcome back to the Motherhood Alliance podcast. We are back here with Tina from Homeschool Loft. Welcome back, Tina. Thank you. This episode is near and dear to my heart. Episode four, we're going to talk about transitions or just the middle school, especially high school level of homeschooling. been thinking about this middle school, high school stuff for a little bit now. When you have younger kids, you can ignore it a little bit more because, you know, it's not for a long time. But now here I am. I'm in, I'm starting to get into this. I guess my first question to you is why do so many parents feel confident, more confident homeschooling the younger kids than they do the middle school or high school ages? speaker-2: You know, I think it comes down to, like, especially if a parent struggled in high school themselves, like, I'm not smart enough to homeschool. I can maybe I feel like the two areas that freak people out are teaching a child to read, because that's like the basis for everything. speaker-1: they do freak out. ⁓ speaker-2: It is. And they're like, if I don't teach my child to read, then everything else is. screwed up, right? So there's that when they're little. And so that's the first freak out. And if they get past that, the next freak out is going to be high school, because ⁓ I was just a solid C student, and I don't know calculus, and I don't know all the different things. And so how am going to teach my child? And they get worried, and then they don't know the ins and outs. Can my child get a diploma and a transcript? Can they go to college? And they start thinking about all the different contingencies, which is good, because when you homeschool through high school, you literally are putting them on the launching pad for adult So it is important, but it's also very doable and it's not as scary as it seems But I understand where the fear is coming from just because our society basically just and again It is important you have to launch well into adult life You don't have to teach your child everything they need to know by the age of 18 I mean, we didn't know everything we need to know by 18 for sure But you want to set them on a good path And I think it's actually a good thing to be a little scared because it means that you're intentional You want to do it the right way. And if you have that fear, it's probably a sign that you actually can be a really good homeschooler through high school. speaker-1: Yeah, I guess one of the things too is you think about the opportunities in high school too. So you think of all the different clubs and all the different sports, but you talked about this in other previous episodes. So I think a lot of times people think like, ⁓ the younger kids get more opportunities for all these kinds of things because you think like sports and things, they can get pretty competitive. around, at least around here, is there a lot of opportunities for even middle school, high school kids to get involved in sports and clubs and things like that? speaker-2: Absolutely. So, you we mentioned one of the prior episodes that it is legal to play sports for your local public school team as a homeschooler. And sometimes that becomes the option. And it can be a really good one. I have a friend whose boys are really into baseball. And so they live in Ashwaubenon and her boys have played baseball for Ashwaubenon. One of them got a college scholarship based on playing ball, but being a homeschooler other than ball. He was never in the public school and he got a scholarship for baseball to his college. But and that's available in every district. if you are comfortable with the dynamics of the district in which you live. But this guy's the limit with that. But there's also a homeschool sports association in Northeast Wisconsin. And that starts at like fifth grade on up. so they have like the development tracks. I think even for basketball, they have a developmental program for seven and eight year olds that you just build into. even again, before high school, there's rec leagues and Y leagues and things like that. So there's all the opportunities. And then the homeschool sports association can feed into They do volleyball for girls, basketball for boys and girls, cross country for boys and girls, and track and field for boys and girls. And I can't make any promise, but I have heard rumblings of a soccer, at least boys soccer, if not girls soccer. And I know you have one in Appleton, there's one in Green Bay, Arshabanan Odyssey Climbing and Fitness has a homeschool team as well. So there are ways for like that aspect, because it does become a question. Now. If you're in Northeast Wisconsin and your kid wants to play football, that's going to have to be through a public school team because we don't have one. But if you're in Southeast Wisconsin, there's actually a Southeast Wisconsin homeschool football team. depending on where you are, a lot of those things can be met. Some of the school districts in Wisconsin, and this is just a case by case basis, if you can't find a homeschool specific, let's say music program that you like or even STEM classes or whatever it might be outside of the public school. some school districts will say, have the sports provision in the law, and we will extend that to extracurriculars. So if your child wants to be in the drama club as a homeschooler, some school districts will just kind of extrapolate that sports policy and let homeschoolers do that. That tends to be the smaller, more rural districts, the urban districts, tend not to do that so much. It's something you can ask about if that's of an interest and there's this particular club or activity that is only in a public school. speaker-1: Okay, so I mean that kind of takes out that concern, right? There's so many options. speaker-2: But there's tons of non-school based, you know, like we kind of talked in the prior episodes to the Valley Troubadours and the STEM classes and all kinds of if you if you are looking for it, you can probably find it in the community or in a homeschool group. And if you can't, the public school is an option. speaker-0: Do you have resources like this on your website? speaker-2: I do. Yeah. Wonderful. you look at the calendar part, again, that connections tab on my homeschool loft website, ⁓ it will say a lot of these community activities that are out there. speaker-0: Okay, is there somewhere that some is there's a way that someone could like almost filter to be seeing things that are for older kids? speaker-2: I don't have that. That's something else I could add in all my free time, right? ⁓ speaker-0: I'm not asking you to add more, but I'm just thinking if somebody's looking at high school specific, know, there's like to Draya's point, there's probably a lot of stuff for like the elementary age things, but it's like, that's not necessarily the timeframe I'm looking at. speaker-2: But there is a lot for each. mean, what I do have on those calendars is searchable tabs. So if you're thinking like art, right, you could search for art and then you would see all the art comes that come off of other art things. And you could just click on each link and say, oh, that is like a high school art program. A lot of the places that offer these classes, they'll do like an elementary class, you know, for ages five to 11 in the morning and then a teenage class in the afternoon. So yeah, don't assume that there isn't something for high schoolers that is homeschool specific because there probably is. And by searching by subject on my website, you can probably find it. speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: How does curriculum look different? speaker-2: In some ways it doesn't, but in other ways, we kind of mentioned about the roadmap. There's a section where it's like multi-subject with all the subjects in one package, but there's a whole bunch of lists that are just, here's the calculus, here's the pre-calculus, here's the biology, and a lot of that is gonna be the high school level subjects. So any high school subject that you want your kids to study, ⁓ and I know we're gonna get into this, but homeschoolers don't have to follow the public school graduation requirements. You set your own, depending on the child's needs. There's something for everyone. And the cool thing is, if your kid needs pre-calc, whatever, there's going to be curriculum and many options to choose from, just depending on the child's strengths and interests and your strengths and interests. I would say one of the differences might be there's probably more online options with like a live teacher that is going to be, you pay for it and there's going to be somebody on the other end and there might be 12 other kids. logging in at the same time. even though it's an online class, you'll kind of get that that group feel. There's probably more options for that in the high school years, knowing that none of us as parents are experts in everything. I will just back it up and say, I'm a former public school teacher. Public school teachers are not extra smart either. They have teachers guides just like homeschooling parents do, and they stay one day ahead of their students. So you don't have to feel like I need to know everything. You won't. That's OK. And for the areas where you feel especially weak, you can tap into some of those other sources. speaker-1: somebody is has their kids in, whether they're homeschooling or maybe if they're in a public school system or a different system, when should they start thinking about that high school planning? speaker-2: Probably seventh or eighth grade. ⁓ I do like a homeschooling through high school seminar three or four times a year through the homeschool loft. My most recent one was just in March. Some of the parents who come are like, they have elementary school age kids. like, I just want to be really prepared. I'm like, well, you got a lot to think about between now and then. That's probably a little bit too much. But most of the parents who come to that have like 12, 13 year olds. ⁓ but now if a child really has an interest and feels like set on something. You might want start thinking about it a little bit ahead. I have a friend whose son, from the time they pulled him out to home school, probably at age seven or eight, he said, I want to go to a military academy. And he never wavered. So she's always kind of thinking, as he's even getting into middle school, what do I need to plan for? Because getting into a military academy makes like Harvard and Stanford seem like child's play. It's just so intense. But she had to do a lot of specific planning and knowing what the academies would require that most of us won't have to do. So she had to think about it a little early. yeah, I mean 12, 13, just kind of start thinking about the options. You're on a really good. speaker-0: Well, and on that point, how do you know what is required? And then if you want to go especially not to necessarily a public college, but a private college or something that has different requirements, I'm guessing they're going to have stuff on their website. But in general, in Wisconsin, does Wisconsin provide a list of all the classes that need to be completed in order to have a high school diploma or talk about diplomas, transcripts, all that jazz? speaker-2: As I mentioned before, Wisconsin homeschoolers are not beholden to graduation requirements for the state of Wisconsin, and I actually recommend not looking at them. ⁓ So those are set for public school students, and what's interesting is the state of Wisconsin mandates 15 and a half credits. I don't know why half credit, but 15 and a half particular credits, and they have it lined up, you know, this many English, this many math, whatever. But if you look around at any of the public high schools in the area and the private high schools in the area, they require a lot more than 15 and a half credits. So they add their own requirements onto that. Most public schools in Wisconsin will say 21 to 24 credits to graduate, and that's gonna vary, and then the private schools tend to do 24 to 27. So I always tell homeschoolers, aim for about 24 credits. Because we're not trying to compare with those other schooling entities, we get the freedom to customize for each of our kids, even at the high school level. But when you're submitting a transcript to a college or whatever, You don't want to turn in a transcript that says 12 high school credits, because that's going to be a huge red flag, right? You can do way more than 24, but I tell homeschoolers you want that part of your child's transcript to kind of look the same as his or her competition, right? So that the admissions counselor isn't weirded out by this transcript. And you kind of want to design the transcript to look similar, not have to be exactly the same as what they're going to see from the school kids. But within that framework, you get to decide as a homeschooler what each of your kids needs. ⁓ And the main source, and I recommend not looking at the public school requirements because again, that's a different wheelhouse. They set it for public school kids, but we're private school kids in a special kind of private school, right? So we get to be more customized. So what I say is if your child wants to consider a college of any kind, look at four or five colleges that might be real viable for that child, right? If Harvard is not on the docket, don't look at their admissions requirements. That's just silly. But if it is, look at it, right? Look at four or five that are really possibilities. And if there's one college that has a few more requirements, they're going to be really similar. They're not going to be super different from each other, even public or private colleges. But look at the one that's the most rigorous and make your high school plan based on that. Because if they can get those met, they'll meet all the other ones if the plan changes. Makes sense. They're pretty standard. And a lot of the public high school graduation requirements are kind of mirroring that college thing. I really just encourage homeschoolers to not use public school as your measuring stick because we're doing something different. It's not like we're trying to do the same as or better than public school. We are doing something different. So look at the colleges. speaker-0: Okay, so yeah, that that's helpful is like almost look at the college measuring stick to make sure that's what's gonna give you the comfort and knowing that my kid is prepared to step into that and I'm not just like throwing them to the wolves without really knowing where they're at compared to what the college expects. speaker-2: Absolutely. Yeah, and that seems more relevant to me because there's really no reason to compare to public school. Again, it is a system, it's there, but it's not our measuring stick. It's apples to oranges, really. speaker-0: Well, let's let's talk a little bit about transitions going from either a public or private in-person school specifically into homeschooling and what that can look like for the kiddo because specifically probably staying closer to that high school age, maybe even middle school age. If they've been going to a school their whole life, that's what they know. And they may fight you on it. speaker-2: Because they're middle schoolers and high schoolers and that's just what they do. speaker-0: So talk to us on how to make that transition easier for both the parent and the kid. speaker-2: You know, there's a balance, right? We were talking before we started recording that you want to include your teenager in as much of this as possible. And teenager, I mean middle school, high school, right? They're 11 or 12, but they're still teenagers, right? ⁓ You want to include them as much as you can in the process, but the balance point is you're still a parent. And sometimes a child will want to do something. I make the comparison if my child wants to drink antifreeze because it's sweet. Well, I'm still not going to let her drink antifreeze. mean, so we need to let our kids have as much. choice and contribution as possible, but we're the adults. We still know them better, even though they don't agree. We know them better than they know themselves. We are adults, so we've lived adult life, and we know what's going to be better for that child. And so sometimes we still have to make a decision that our child doesn't like. Sometimes I think of it as this. If you really feel convicted, like, need to homeschool this child, but you're struggling with that. If you had to get up and leave the area, because your husband or you got a different job. You had to move, right? The child doesn't get to say, I'm not moving. Think of it as that way. It's like, I'm moving. I'm moving school areas, not houses. But ⁓ you would not let your child make that decision and hold your family back if it was the right choice for your family. And schooling is really the same kind of thing. speaker-1: Yeah, this is like I said, we were talking a little bit offline too, but this is kind of where we're at is trying to figure out our next steps as well. So this is very encouraging for me in particular. speaker-0: Overall, for someone, I guess this could be really for any age, but kind of what are some last encouraging words you would say to a parent who just is really worried about, like, quote unquote, messing it up? Do both. Would you have different advice for different ages or, yeah, you just take it where you want it. speaker-2: Like at any age or high school or... You will mess up. How's that? That's true. I no parent is perfect. One of the beauties of homeschooling is that it feels weird, but our kids see our ugly. So they actually know we're not perfect and we don't have to put on airs. Now we want to do our best. We want to be excellent. But I think letting kids see that we are human as well and vice versa and working through it as a family when... I scream at my kid because I lost my patience at the customer service guy and then I'm repping or I'm yelling at my child in comparison, but then I apologize and then we work it through. So all of those things are a very good thing and there is nobody again school teacher. I don't care. I don't care if they're a Harvard graduate and they're teaching school. There's no teacher that knows every single thing. There's no parent that knows every single thing. ⁓ So you can give yourself grace. You're not going to screw up your kids. Ultimately, if you are intentional. So you will make mistakes, but if you are intentional about, and you realize this, you actually know your children much better than even the most amazing school teacher, because these are your kids. And you love your kids more than those teachers. Again, I was a public school teacher. I cared for my students a lot. I wasn't the parent. So if you can keep in mind, I know my child best. I love them more than anybody else, and I want the best for them. There's gonna be bumps along the road, but I'm gonna be intentional about this process. You'll make mistakes, but you will not screw them up. speaker-0: You're amazing. Not only your knowledge and just your heart for like everything that you like your, your kids and humans in general. Like I can just tell that you're such a caring person and you truly just want to help. But also for all of the time you have invested into these resources for free for families. Again, we have, we've talked about so many resources resources on your website. You offer one-on-one consults for free. You have your website. ⁓ you, you wrote a book. You have the homeschool resource roadmap, which has its own website. We are linking to all of these in the show notes, by the way. You have your podcast, you have your community calendar. I just can't believe how much you've poured into this and all basically not even, not even for free, but negative. Like you and your husband are investing your own personal money into making a difference in this area. And so we just want to say thank you first of all. And again, one more time, you guys, if you've listened to this, take advantage of what, of what Tina has put together. Book a one-on-one call with her if this is even a thought crossing your mind and just ask some more questions. And if any of you have ever benefited from the homeschool loft at all, or you've, you just want to support her mission, feel free to donate as well. We'll put that link in the show notes too. Thank you, Tina. One last question. Okay. What does the future of the homeschool loft look like? speaker-2: Lord willing, I'm just going to keep on doing what I'm doing and serving as many parents as I can. Really, I feel like my goal is to serve parents so they can serve their kids. speaker-0: beautiful. Thank you, Tina. speaker-1: beautiful thing you're doing. speaker-2: Thank you for having me, I really, really enjoyed it. speaker-0: If you enjoyed this episode, would you consider leaving a rating or review or sharing it directly with a friend who could benefit from the information? We know that you're a busy mom or caregiver, and our goal is to make your life easier by bringing tips and tricks directly from experts into your earbuds. By sharing this episode with someone you love, you can play a critical role in helping to make their life easier as well. We appreciate your time and thank you for being a part of the Motherhood Alliance family.