I realize this article addresses an audience homeschooling in New York State. However, more than a few of my friends have asked me to answer this question: how do you keep track of attendance and hours taught and how do you decide what counts as school and what doesn’t? So I’ve decided to write a few blogs addressing the issue. If you have to keep attendance or you have to keep track of your hours that you spend teaching, I hope that you find some of the information here helpful–even if you don’t live in New York State. If you live in New York State, I have no doubt that you’ll be able to use some ideas here.
I know plenty of families who just fudge their attendance records and their hours. After all, living a homeschooling lifestyle provides for the 180 days of attendance and 225 hours per quarter that they need–so why keep track? Technically it’s not fudging. I’m certainly not judging anyone. After all, how on earth would you count all those ’educational moments’ that seep into the day without being ’technically’ during school time but still counting as educational?
However, I personally don’t fudge my records. I do give a good educated guess but I have issues with completely ’fudging’. First of all, it shows my kids that when we think a law or rule is dumb–we shouldn’t have to obey it. That’s not what I want my kids to learn. Secondly, my children may end up in public school one day. I certainly don’t intend to send them but I cannot know the future and should something happen to my husband such that I’m not able to stay home–it is a possibility. My children’s success and transition into public school here depends on my record keeping. Finally, it just plain bothers me to fudge something that I can easily keep track of.
So in my next blogs I want to talk about: what should and should not count as ‘school’, and practical suggestions on how to keep track of it all.