diploma options and high school credits for sped student?

[debbiec]

I have a special needs son, but cognitively, the type of diploma he gets is of little concern for me. However, I have a friend with a daughter with some kind of diagnosis, but I don't know what. She has reading issues, but can read, and has some cognitive delays, though not noticable when you talk to her. Mom is wondering about what kind of diploma do you need in order for her daughter to take some elective college courses (horseback riding program at a local state college). She would not likely be getting a degree, just taking courses. She is homeschooled.

I know in our state there are different levels of diplomas (for public schools, I don't know about homeschool). If she was in public school, she would very likely be on an IEP. She cannot do high school math, science, or that level of writing. She would probably get a special ed diploma. But Mom is concerned she could not take college courses with that diploma.

The next part of this is high school credits. Do you guys have IEP's for your high school sped students? And do you work around the standard curriculum. I will possibly have her for a science class (with lots of mods) at our tutorial. Does she really need her to take Biology, Chemistry, etc for her diploma. I'm really clueless. My sped son is only going into 6th, so I'm not there yet and really have not given it much thought ~

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Debbie

[ClassicMom]

and has many issues. She has not taken "regular" high-school classes but what we have done is put them in the right categories. She still has taken the right amount of credits for math, science, social studies, english, etc.

We used Steck-Vaughn, Remedia, and Walsch Publications for most of her courses where the course-work was high-school related, but written at her reading level. So, she will be taking Government and Economics this year, but it's written at a 4th grade level. She did American History and World History through the courses through EPS. There are a lot of courses out there that you can tweak for your son.

While I could give her a high-school diploma, we decided to use an umbrella school to make it more "official" looking, but she is not going onto college anyway. She is starting her own business this year as her Senior project.

You have a long time to plan this out and a lot of resources to look into.
Even courses like SOTW or Mystery of History can be used for High School. You can use Classics that are written at grade level reading (as low as 1st grade level for literature. Rainbow Resources carries many of these resources.

[Becki in IN]

Candace had a lot of great ideas.

Here is IN you have to have a Core 40 diploma to even be accepted into most of the state universities. A lot of them want to see honors material too. The mom could also talk with someone at the school. She wouldn't neccesarily have to tell the admissions person that she HS. She could just say that her special needs dd is interested in taking such and such classes and she wasn't sure what kind of diploma she needed to be able to do that. Most state department of education websites explain the different diplomas in detail.

[Virginia in Tx]

I would suggest calling the college that she wants to attend. I am hoping my DS can take classes at community college and so I called and talked to both admissions and disability departments. They encouraged me to keep having my son do 3 year evaluations at the public school (no charge) so that I have current paper work on my son's learning disabliities.

Admission requirements are different everywhere - at our community college they require a standard high school diploma (but they don't look at books you use - so they could be a lower level reading level). If you don't have a high school diploma - you must have a GED. Then if don't take the state high school exit exam you must take an entrance exam (state requirement) - it is much less rigorous than the SAT. There are remedial classes for students who pass at a minimum level but there is a minimum pass level and if you don't attain it you can't attend. The disablity department will work with the student in getting accomodations for the entrance exam (more time, etc.) but no modificiations (they still have to take same exam).

Another option if they don't pass the exam is to take non-credit classes - these don't require a high school diploma and can be taken by anyone who is 18+.