Homeschool World Forum

[dawnr1101]

I got the email yesterday to set up a date and time for my first ever homeschool review. I live in Maryland and I am just looking for some advice. I pulled my daughter out of school in November so we are just starting to get the hang of things so I just want to make sure I dont mess up when I have my meeting. What do you take with you when you have a review? What really happens at the review? I'm just a little confused right now.

Thanks!

[Ramona]

We haven't lived in Maryland for 4 1/2 years, but what I used to take with me to my reviews was:
a portfolio of 2 samples of work per child per subject for the semester, in the 7 required subjects, plus
the inventory of supplies,
daily schedule,
scope and sequence, and
whatever else they asked for. (Sorry I can't remember off the top of my head.)

I would also put a page at the front called "Philosophy of Homeschooling" that DH and I had written. Someone at a convention had suggested that if you start your portfolio with that, then any questions they have about stuff being different from what they expect, you can refer back to your own family beliefs. (The very first reviewer I ever had got tears in her eyes when she read our philosophy.)

I would meet the reviewer and say hi, then s/he would pull out a blank form to fill in, basically just checking off that s/he saw all the samples in my portfolio. At the end most of them would just say "keep up the good work" and that was it. I had one really mean, nasty reviewer who said in a very snooty way that I needed to do more work on handwriting with my left-handed child, asked me minutely about exactly what each child did for "socialization," and said my portfolio needed to be more organized. (I admit I had done a very sloppy job that time.)

HTH,
Ramona