High School Program

Compass has offered high school classes since 2015, and now enrolls more than 150 teens! Compass offers a full slate of high school classes taught by subject matter experts, many of whom hold advanced degrees, and some who also teach at the college level. Compass high school courses include core classes in math, science, English, humanities/social science, and foreign language, some of which are offered at the Honors and AP (Advanced Placement) level. Teens at Compass can also select from a wide range of elective, fine arts, and just-for-fun classes. Homeschooled high school students at Compass can also select from a variety of socials, clubs & activities, awards & honors, and special events/programs to enrich their high school experience.

Compass has developed a variety of resources to support you in your decision to homeschool high school:

  • Help! for Homeschooling High School Videos
    Program of Study
    Challenging Coursework
    Awarding Credits
    Transcript Design
    Student Activity Resume
    Other Documentation
    Grades & GPA
    Watch for additional videos to be added!
  • Fillable High School Forms
    Transcript- by year (“high school”)
    Transcript- by year (“secondary school”)
    Transcript- by subject (“high school”)
    Transcript- by subject (“secondary school”)
    Class Description Template
    Compass School Profile

    • The Compass Family Handbook has important details about our High School Program. See an excerpt of the high school topics here:

  • High School Program
    Philosophy
    Compass believes it is the homeschool parent’s responsibility to plan a course of study, craft the student’s transcript, and award grades. It is the parent’s responsibility to determine how each Compass class fits into his/her child’s overall portfolio. A Compass class that one family identifies as a core requirement may be considered an elective element by another family, or simply an enrichment activity by another. It is the parent’s responsibility to determine how a Compass class will be “packaged” with other opportunities such as small group classes, online courses, independent study, dual enrollment, work-study, individual or group projects, internships, travel, reading lists, volunteer work, etc., to complete a high school credit.

    Grades
    The assignment of final grades for purposes of a parent-tracked and parent-produced homeschool transcript is always the responsibility of the homeschool parent. Letter grades will not be awarded in Compass classes. Some instructors of high school level classes may elect to provide quantitative feedback such as a scale of completeness (i.e. 9 out of 10 points on a lab), percentage correct (i.e. 90% on a quiz), or portion of overall class work completed (i.e. 920 out of 1000 possible class points). Other instructors of high school classes may opt to provide qualitative feedback on a student’s performance, understanding of the subject, class participation, portfolio progress, areas for improvement, etc. Feedback from Compass instructors, whether quantitative or qualitative, can be taken into consideration by the homeschool parent when assigning a final grade. Neither grades nor quantitative feedback will be provided for elementary and middle school classes.

    Academic Honesty
    Academic Honesty ensures that the learning environment at Compass is fair for all students. Expectations of Academic Honestly will specifically apply to semester-long and year-long classes, particularly in high school level classes where instructors may give graded homework, quizzes, or tests and/or where the instructor provides quantitative feedback on the student’s performances. However, academic honesty as a value, is encouraged at all levels and ages. Academic Misconduct occurs when a student has not acted in an academically honest manner such as committing: plagiarism (representation of another’s words or works without proper acknowledgement/citations); copying another student’s work, collusion (aiding academic misconduct of another student); cheating (giving or receiving unauthorized aid on an assignment or examination); lying (communicating untruths or misrepresentations or falsifying information); stealing (intentionally taking the real or academic property of another, without permission); or any other behavior that gives an unfair advantage to a student or that affects the results of another student.

    If a student is suspected of engaging in academic misconduct, a meeting shall be held with the Instructor, the Compass Director, and the student to determine the next course of action. Individual instructors may include provisions or penalties for misconduct in their individual course syllabi or policies such as awarding zero points or assessing a failing grade.

    Award of Credit Hours
    It is the parent’s responsibility to track the number of hours or effort spent on a topic of study and award the corresponding credit for high school. Compass makes no representation about the hours spent in class as compared to typical credit hour unit. Alternately, the homeschool parent may take the approach of awarding high school credit for work accomplished in a subject. In this approach, the homeschool parent determines the amount of work expected and how much each Compass class contributes to that goal. See the Compass video, “Help for Homeschooling High School- Awarding Credit” on this topic.

    AP/Honors Levels
    Some Compass classes have an option to be taken at an Honors level. In these classes, students are expected to think more critically, perform more investigations, dig more deeply, and evaluate course themes at a higher level than a typical on-grade-level class.

    Some Compass classes are indicated to be offered at an AP, or Advanced Placement, level. Compass is a recognized school program with the College Board, the governing organization for AP. Only “official”, approved AP courses can carry the AP designation. AP courses must be registered, reviewed, and approved by the AP division of the College Board which means that the instructor’s qualifications, syllabus, selected textbooks, and supporting materials have been audited and accepted. AP classes are generally considered to be at an introductory college level.

    AP courses prepare students to take the corresponding AP exam each May, but students are not required to take the exams. Compass will not administer AP exams. Instead, homeschool families must register for AP exams through a nearby public school. Many colleges award credit or allow students to place out of introductory classes if they receive satisfactory scores on AP exams. Consistent with the practices in many public and private schools, some homeschool parents elect to award additional quality points for Honors and AP classes when calculating their child’s homeschool GPA. For more information, see: https://ap.collegeboard.org/

    Transcripts/Portfolios
    Since Compass does not provide a complete high school program, student transcripts are not maintained by Compass. Parents are encouraged to keep their own portfolio such as a record of the class description, instructor name and qualifications, weekly instructor e-mails, schedule/hours, class syllabus, table of contents from any textbooks, papers written, projects produced, and any other relevant work for purposes of developing their child’s own portfolio and transcript. Class descriptions from current and prior Compass classes are available through the Family Profile login for purposes of developing student records.

    Recommendation Letters
    Some Compass instructors are willing to write recommendation letters for students whom they have gotten to know well in class. Focused, personalized recommendation letters for scholarships, awards, selective programs, and college admissions are time consuming for instructors to write. Therefore, instructors who agree to write these letters will do so only for students who are currently enrolled in instructor’s class, or previously enrolled in the immediate past term. Instructors are unable to write reference letters for students who have not been enrolled for more than a quarter.

    Scope/Sequence
    Compass high school classes are not designed to mimic courses offered at a typical public high school. A Compass high school class with a similar name as a typical public high school class may cover a different scope and sequence in a different number of classroom hours.

    Prerequisites/Expectations
    Some Compass high school classes require prerequisite knowledge or minimum skills. Other classes also have expectations about a student’s anticipated workload outside of class, projects, homework, etc. Please read class descriptions carefully for this information. In order to get the full value out of the course, students should complete the assignments made by the instructors.

    Year Long Courses/Payment
    For year-long high school classes, parents may opt to pay the tuition in two installments. The first half would be due at the time of early registration, and the second half of the tuition would be due by August 31. There is a $25.00 administrative fee added for the two-part payment. Registration and first half payment is an implied contractual agreement to pay for the balance of the class. Failure to pay the second half of the tuition by the due date will result in complete forfeiture of the first half paid.

    High School Instructors
    Compass makes no representation that its courses are accredited or that instructors hold any teaching licenses or professional certifications, although some do. Parents are responsible for reviewing the online profiles of each instructor to evaluate his/her qualifications to provide instruction and meet the individual student’s educational needs.

    Younger Students in High School Classes
    For classes noted as 9th-12th grade or for high school students, accelerated 8th grade students may register for the class subject to the Age/Grade placement guidelines in this handbook. 8th grade students must be 13 by September 30 of the school year and must be socially and emotionally mature enough to participate in high school level discussions and complete high school-level readings and workload.

    Adults in High School Classes
    Several high school electives, such as painting, mosaics, or yoga, permit adults to enroll alongside teens. Adult registrations are intended to be for a homeschool student’s own parent, grandparent, or young adult sibling to take the enrichment or elective class along with the enrolled, homeschooled teen. These classes are not open to adults from the community who are not connected to a Compass family.