Getting Started Homeschooling in Oregon (Part 2): Testing, Recordkeeping, Charter Schools, & More

Lighthouse: Standardized testing is the other thing mainly that you need to be thinking about when it comes to Oregon homeschool requirements and laws. In Oregon, you don't have to test every year. The standardized tests are required by August fifteenth, so the end of grades three, five, eight, and ten for independently homeschooled students. There are requirements about which tests you can choose from. There's a list of them. you have to have a qualified examiner I will leave you the link that tells you exactly what those qualifications are. In Oregon, what most homeschool parents do is they find a tester by word of mouth because there are several testers. out there you that you can have do private testing for your child or they can do group testing for your child. There are some that are approved by the ODE, the Oregon Department of Education to do online testing. you can call Ocean Network and ask and we can help you find one that works in your area or you can ask in a local Facebook group or your support group or a co-op and typically families have you know experience and they know their favorite testers. a lot of parents get really stressed out about the standardized test. And I'm just gonna tell you, don't don't stress out. it's gonna be fine. I promise. I remember when we first started doing standardized testing, I was like, no, what is this gonna be like? the test that's administered, Your child only has to 15th percentile or greater. And most homeschoolers blow that out of the water. So it really doesn't end up being a problem. So 15th percentile or higher is what you're looking at for the composite score that's nationally normed. And so what that means is you will get your test results back from your tester and there will be a bunch of numbers depending on how they do things, but that one score is what you're looking at. at and they only standardized testing only covers math and language arts, it's reading, reading, comprehension, and then math. So it's not the whole scope. It doesn't cover science and history and everything. So it's just those two things. what I recommend to prepare, because a lot of homeschoolers ask us, well how do we prepare for this testing? You know, what's on the test? And my advice, my personal advice is to not worry too much about that. Your goal should be to teach your child generally at their level, as best you can. You know, I have kids at a a wide range of abilities, okay? And for all of them, even my kids who had dyslexia, I just kept teaching them at their level and they did just fine. You know, they were able to get above that 15th percentile. what I did do was prepare them by pr doing practice tests, because not all homeschool curricula and not all homeschoolers. do a lot of filling in the bubbles, you know, and time tests and things like that. So you can get some practice tests And some tips in there for how to help them on test day, like making sure that they get a good night's sleep, making sure they know the procedure to follow if they don't know the answer to a question or They're not sure or what to do when they come to the end and they have all this time left. to go back and look over their work, you know, and make sure that they are checking their things. So there that's what I think is the most valuable for preparing them. Otherwise, just keep teaching them at their level. Now, if you do have a child where you are really concerned about this, like maybe they have a severe learning disability or you're just concerned for whatever reason, there are other options besides the standardized testing. Now independent homeschoolers in Oregon, do not have the option to opt out of the standardized testing other than if they have a special needs student that they want to get an IEP or a PDP for. So you have a couple options. If you have a child that you suspect might not hit that 15th percentile or or above. Or maybe they have just severe test anxiety, for example, and the practice testing didn't help with that. You can work with a public school to do IEP. Now the public school system is not required to provide you services. They are required to meet with you to talk about options, but they're not required to provide services. So some families do choose to do that. for families who don't want anything to do with that and they want to do their own thing, there's the option of a PDP, which is called a privately developed plan. and I will make sure you guys get a link for this that you can look into more detail. And this is something that the OSHA Network Freedom Watch team actually worked with the ODE and the legislature to to you know craft this this kind of option for these students that was as frugal as possible, as developmentally appropriate as possible. And didn't have to go through the public school system. And so what you would do is in at the beginning of the school year that they're going to be required to test. you would make sure that your student has a diagnosis and there's a list of accepted diagnoses that you can look through. you would find a provider, some sort of service provider who has experience with students in this area. Doesn't have to be somebody who does you know PDPs on a regular basis. It could be maybe a therapist you're working with, or a doctor you're working with, or a really experienced homeschool mom who has some, you know, experience and certifications in these areas or whatever. You would work with that provider to come up with a privately developed plan. You would do an evaluation, and then you would say, This is what we're going to measure at the end of the year. These are their developmentally appropriate goals that may or may not require standardized testing. That would be up to you and the provider, and then at the end of the year, they would evaluate your student based on those goals that you set at the beginning of the year, and they would give you a statement that said that they made satisfactory educational progress. And that is what you would keep on file. Okay, that was a lot of information. But what here's what to keep in mind. You are required to either do standardized testing or a PDP or IEP evaluation at the end of grades three, five, eight, and ten. You keep Those results, whether it's the standardized test results or that statement from your provider, on hand in your records in case your ESD asks for them. Some ESDs always ask for them. Some of them actually say in their acknowledgement when they received your letter of intent, they say, We always want your test results. Some of them never ask for them. So you just keep them on file in case your ESD asks. For all students across the board, whether it's their special needs or not, if they take one of those standardized tests, like let's say in grade three, and they don't make the 15th percentile, you're still fine. All you have to do is the following year, you take the standardized test again for the following grade level. And if they don't make any progress, so if they stay if they stay below or if they decrease their performance, then you may run into issues But that means that you have two whole years of working with your student to get them where they need to be for the standardized test. And we really haven't had very many issues in Oregon with students not being able to do that. Because it let's say that your dyslexic students student doesn't get the 15th percentile in grade three. And so then you decide, well, then I'm gonna do a PDP for the following grade level and go at their developmental level. There are many ways to work through that successfully and do it in a way that doesn't stress your kid out and cause a lot of problems. I gave you the requirements for the two most important pieces: the standardized testing and the letter of intent. There are some variations for standardized testing if you decide to participate in interscholastic sports. So Oregon allows homeschoolers to participate in interscholastic sports, and then the school district. gets to decide what is required. Typically it means they test every year by a s by an earlier date. So, you know, instead of August fifteenth, it's more like June something or July something. I can't remember exactly. And it has to be a little bit higher of a score. You can work with them to possibly do a portfolio instead, but that's really at at their discretion. So if interscholastic sports is something that's interesting to you, I will go ahead and give you a link for that. I will put that in the notes for the email. In our family, I just want to say across Oregon, more and more there are more options for homeschoolers that don't require you to go get involved with interscholastic sports or things with a public school system. So I know, you know, when you're coming out of a public school mindset, because I I did, I was public schooled, you think, well, how are my kids going to get those public school experiences, but still do homeschooling? And what we have found is that we prefer to just do the homeschool experiences. Homeschoolers still can have prom, homeschool schoolers still can have, you know, baseball leagues and basketball leagues and, you know, Lego clubs and chess clubs. We do, they're all across Oregon. If they're not available, families just start up themselves. so do ask around, you know, because you may have other options. So record keeping. Record keeping is really easy in Oregon. you sent them your letter of intent, so I always keep a copy of that. But legally, all you have to keep is the acknowledgement from your ESD saying that they acknowledge that they received your letter of intent Keep your test results for your official standardized test results from grades three, five, eight, and ten. And that's it. That's actually all that's legally required. many times families will decide to keep, samples of student work or maybe they'll keep the test from the math curriculum. That is all optional, but you can do that. You can keep a reading list. you don't have to keep attendance or any sort of learning log or anything like that. Once they hit high school then you obviously want to keep a transcript. You know, technically that's not even legally required, but obviously you want to have a high school transcript. And then you would issue a diploma as well. the next big question that we get asked is what about charter schools? So, charter schools legally, charter schools are public schools. they are funded publicly. There are many different kinds. So we can't even really tell you all what they all do and what they all require because there are many different kinds, just like there are many different kinds of support groups and co-ops for private homeschooling that have different things that they do. There are many different kinds of charter schools. So if you are interested in what a charter school does, you're really gonna need to go talk to that charter school. but charter schools are legally public schools because they're publicly funded and when you enroll in them, you are no longer An independent homeschooler according to you know the Oregon laws. You are now they are now enrolled in public school. So that means the the there's many ways that that matters, but the main reason it matters is that public school laws and requirements now apply to you, not homeschool laws and requirements. So if you are going to enroll in a charter school, you don't necessarily do the letter of intent or do the standardized testing on those grades. They have different requirements, different tests. Different things for each charter school in some cases. both of them involve learning at home, which is part of some of the confusion that happens. So when people say homeschool, sometimes they just mean you're teaching your child at home, and that could mean a lot of things. But you know, when Ocean Network says homeschool, we're specifically talking about privately funded parent-led homeschool education because of that legal distinction. Ocean Network's position on it is that parents know their children best and it is their right and responsibility to choose the form of education that fits their child best, that they think is best. our mission at Ocean Network is specifically to promote and encourage independent, privately funded homeschooling because we have seen what a blessing that that is to to families. since we work really hard to protect the freedoms of homeschool families that are independently homeschooling, we want to have a clear distinction from what is government funded and what is privately funded because that can really affect what happens in the legislature and what happens in the OARs, the regulations and rules for Oregon when it comes to the freedoms that we experience. So just you need to be aware of that distinction and some of the confusion that's happening. And of course, you know, if you enroll in a charter school or online public school, the school will oversee their education as far as requirements. So if there's laws that change relating to public education, it it may and often does affect charter schoolers. So you'd wanna be aware of that and make sure you're paying attention to the right rules and laws.