Here is a 2013 High School Course Catalog from the Spokane Schools that you can look at. It's not current, but it will give you an idea of what credits the local public schools require of their students in each year and what the courses and course content was in the classes they offered. Seeing the schedule and classes offered might boost your confidence in covering all the required subject areas in your home-based, parent directed and selected, course of study from home. As you will see, the public school day is not as flexible for public school students as it can be for homeschooling kids. The catalog says it is used for Ferris, Lewis and Clark, NEWTECH Skills Center, North Central, Shadle, Rodgers, and two more.
If you are not high schooling... or if you do not have kids in a public high school, please simply remember that here in America, the local public school is accountable to the people who not only use them, but also pay taxes to support them.... and it is important to know and care about what your local public school is teaching, regardless of if you have kids in the public school or not.
The PDF provided at the above link, (if it continues to work, )will supply you with a lot of helpful information. It also contains a list of tests that public high schoolers are given and a schedule as to when they are usually administered. There are tips for college admission and even student planning sheets that will give you an overview of a typical public school students day and their course of study when planning to head to college. Of course, this can all change, as curriculum and educational goals change, but it will give you some direction as you plan ahead. Remember, there are a lot of options that keep parents in the driver's seat regarding their kids educational decisions until they are grown and "driving" on their own.
Also, it can help to know that as a Home Based Student, as a tax paying person, there are ancillary classes for various subjects that may be available.
Regarding ancillary classes, the Washington Homeschool Organization, reports that:
"Homeschoolers may take "courses" at the public school on a part-time basis. A "course" is defined as any instructional curricular service or activity. They may also avail themselves of ancillary services. These are defined as co-curricular services or activities. Some examples are counseling, testing, hearing tests and speech therapy, etc. While participating at the public school for part-time courses or for ancillary services, homeschoolers remain under the home-based instruction statutes"
HSLDA The national organization offering homeschoolers legal defense, offers some high school consultants to help you plan too.
There are a lot of "ancillary classes" available to homeschoolers through tutors and other sources... and yes, some are even offered at the local public school but don't forget.... be aware.... your local public school now-a-days would "rather" you enroll full-time in their " parent partnership program" than homeschool your children on your own. This is because a school district gets a little bit of funding for your child taking an ancillary class, but they get a lot of money for full time enrolled students.... and a lot of money per student, is better than a little when the dollar is the bottom line.
You must remember that, as professionals who need employment, and as people whose employment depends upon your kids being under their care and supervision for which they are paid, they often dislike homeschooling as an option for education.... unless they have explicit jurisdiction over your time teaching your own kids. Remember, Home Based Education Laws were never intended to give the teachers employed at the local school jurisdiction over your homeschooling. In fact, it was the other way around. The state does not provide funding for people to home educate or "pay" people to school their kids at home, so make no mistake, schools prefer that you be a full time enrolled public school student than a student schooled at home, because when you are enrolled in their program, schools get more money and they get control.
The parent, in a partnership program is not the "teacher" and the teaching must conform learning to the objectives of school. Instead, the parent asan educational "coach," does the work of an educational mentor (not "teacher" though that is what a "teacher" is...) under the direct supervision of one "highly qualified teacher," Be reminded, that college-graduated and "qualified" parent, even one who has taken a "qualifying course" in order to homeschool legally in our state can legally home school without such oversight. Parents can be community based instructors, (CBI) in Parent Partnership programs, and they can be paid, (your tax dollars hard at work) to teach classes at the campus location by the school district, but are never really thought of as being on par with the "highly qualified" teachers.
Anyhow, you may, as a homeschooler, take ancillary classes at the local public school and you may also be able to participate in school sports,and do this without full-time enrollment.
For more information on how to access sports and classes in regular school (not taught by community based instructors,) view the Homeschool Legal defense Association' PDF on the topic of equal access, here. Participation in homeschool co-ops, like this one, private tutoring and other private self-pay options for learning is more often recommended by homeschooling support groups and organizations than is taking ancillary classes at school but as a Homeschooling High School Student seeking educational resources, you need to know that there are many options.... including using the local schools. You can even utilize your child's smarts at the local colleges through the program known as Running Start.
The running Start Program allows high school students to take college classes free of charge and earn college credit while in their high school years. This is done on the college campus or sometimes through teleconferencing classes. Juniors and seniors must have a GPA of at at least 3.0 to qualify and pass required entrance exams. Spokane Falls and Spokane Community, as well as Eastern Washington University all offer Running Start. Unfortunately, Running Start programs which used to be handled directly at the community college campuses are now accessed through the local high schools, but again, you register there, but do not necessarily have to attend in order to participate.
There's beauty in the flexible schedule allowed in homeschooling , especially in the high school years and there's a lot of options that you can make work for you too.
Contact your State support Groups like the Washington Homeschool Organization and the Home School Legal Defense Association to has the resource of you can confer with to help you in your decision to homeschool high school with your teens.
The link address for the Public School high School Cataloguecatalogue is: (as of July 28, 2015,)
http://www.spokaneschools.org/cms/lib/WA01000970/Centricity/Domain/1434/SPS%20Course%20Catalog%202012-13-proof.pdf
