Home School Policy Again on Mineral Board Agenda

By Liz Beavers, Cumberland Times News, Md.

Jun. 22–After having the proposed policy on home schooling out for public comment for two weeks now, the Mineral County Board of Education is scheduled to once again take up the issue on Tuesday.

Superintendent Skip Hackworth presented the board with an original version of the proposed policy on April 1, when a number of home school supporters questioned his removal of three home-schooled students from the public school classes in which they had enrolled.

At the time, Hackworth told the parents that home-schooled students could not spend more than 50 percent of their school day in a public classroom.

When pressed as to the existence of any such rule, however, Hackworth admitted there was no official policy and presented a draft of a policy to the board.

In the meantime, Attendance Director Linda Marsh and Keyser High School Principal Charles Wimer told the board that the guidance counselors at the high school had a number of questions about home schooling, and the board gave Hackworth until June 24 to find the answers.

Hackworth returned with the answers early, however, along with a revised copy of the proposed policy.

Although he told the board members that the revised proposed policy was "basically the same" as the first one, the superintendent said the new policy included the answers to several of the counselors’ questions, including how and when home-schooled students can be enrolled in public classes what type of credit they might get for the public classes, and how much of their instruction day can be conducted in a public class before they are considered a full-time public school student.

"This has been discussed with both the principals and the guidance counselors," he said.

According to the policy, as proposed, home-schooled students may not be enrolled in public classes until the regular students have been enrolled.

Certain classes, such as English 1, 2, 3 and 4, Social Studies 1, 2, 3 and 4, "certain math classes, and certain classes offered at the Technical Center," will require the students take prerequisite classes just as the full-time public school students do.

For example, Hackworth pointed out, a student would have to take English 1 (freshman English) as a prerequisite to English 2 (sophomore English), English 2 as a prerequisite to English 3 (junior year), etc.

The same would apply to the sequential mathematics courses.

"Our math curriculum basically goes Algebra I, geometry, Algebra II and trig," he said, noting that students would have to take the classes in that order.

Since the home-schooled students are not working toward a high school diploma, they would receive no class credits for the public school classes they take.

In addition, they would receive a grade of an "S" or "U," as opposed to an "A,""B" or "C."

"S’s are not included in the system …. when we figure out GPA, class rank or honor roll," he said.

In order to further simplify the record-keeping at the school, home-schooled students could be kept in their own separate homeroom.

As for the question that has caused the most controversy — how many classes can a home-schooled student take before he is classified as a full-time public school student — the board members agreed that it should be 50 percent.

"I’m in agreement 100 percent," board member Kevin Watson said, to which board member Bob Shook said, "I concur."

"I can go along with that," Vice President Terry LaRue agreed.

Hackworth will present the board members Tuesday with copies of any comments he received on the policy.

Other items on the agenda include an end-of-the-year report on attendance by Marsh, and a number of personnel placements and requests.

The meeting will open with newly elected member Craig Rotruck and re-elected member Mary Aronhalt taking their oaths of office.

The meeting gets under way at 5 p.m. in the administrative offices at 1 Baker Place in Keyser.

Contact Liz Beavers at lbeavers@times-news.com.

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