Does your student want to play sports, participate in band, choir, or speech class offered through the public school? If so, they need to be tested no later than August 15, even if their chosen activity will not take place until spring of 2026. An annual achievement test is required for each year a home…
August 15 is Oregon’s deadline to have your student’s testing completed. What’s next? Potentially a request from your ESD to turn in your test results. From the administrative rules, OAR 581-021-0026: 5 c. Upon request of the superintendent of the education service district, the parent or legal guardian shall submit the results of the examination…
The deadline for testing in Oregon is August 15, 2025. Testing to comply with Oregon homeschool law is very important. Besides testing for compliance, why else would you choose to test now? Here are three reasons: If you have not tested yet and would like to, or if you know someone who needs to as…
For close to 40 years home schoolers have enjoyed a simple communication process between themselves and their Education Service District. Our legal obligation has been to notify the ESD of our intent to home school and provide them with three essential pieces of information: · Your child’s and your name along with your address. · Your child’s birth date….
Hello subscribers, There’s hope in the new year! If you’ve tried everything and your child is still struggling academically, please read the guest article written by Susan Leckband of the HELP (Help Elevate Learning Processing) organization below. Their services and expertise may be the very thing your child needs to succeed. Be sure to click…
Last Friday, I wrote about the particular power of a single New Year Resolution, that of taking responsibility or ownership. This resolution had a profound effect in the life of Maxwell Perkins, a famous editor who worked at Scribner’s years ago. You can read about it here. The idea of “taking responsibility” means accepting where you find yourself and resolving…
At the turn of the century (1900) in New Hampshire, two teenage boys, Tom and Maxwell, decided to go for a swim across a deep pond. Tom, not a strong swimmer, began to panic and grabbed Maxwell in an attempt to stay afloat. They both began to go under. Maxwell, now panicking himself, freed himself…
Beginning today for a limited time, register and pay for remote testing to take place in 2025 and save $5.00 to $13.00 per student! This offer applies to private, semi-private, and remote group testing. Go to www.basicskills.net/testing for more information. Discounts are applied at the time of check out on the PayPal payment page. Below is our…
I’m going to add a 6th rule that I think should inform how we teach our children to read critically. We must teach them to rarely cancel or censor a writer or blogger simply because he or she takes a position that from our perspective is intolerable. Freedom expression is after all, the first amendment in…
The final rule in this series of posts, brief tips on how to help our older children read critically, is to encourage them to read with their eyes open. In other words, all books are bound to contain some errors. I’m not talking about factual errors although that can sometimes be the case. I’m mainly thinking…