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Q: What if my student is really sick and we can’t complete 180 days in a calendar year?
A: When a public school student is really sick, the school puts the student on home bound instruction. A teacher comes out a couple of times a week and works with the student and the workload is greatly reduced.
We are not the public schools and
cannot do the same thing, but we can work within our law to care for our
student and still meet the requirements.
How this works depends of course on what is wrong with the student and
if they have a chronic or progressive disease or if they have suffered an
injury and need time to heal while still remaining within the law.
Sometimes, the family can work with
the doctors to provide documentation and doctors’ orders as to what the student
is allowed to do. We know a student who
suffered a traumatic brain injury that required suspending school for a period
of time. The family needed to figure out
how to continue doing what the law required while mostly taking time off to
recover. The doctor ordered no testing and several
other specific things for the student. We
provided some suggestions for how to fit school in around the recovery
time.
Another student was in a car
accident which required multiple surgeries during the recovery time. That family essentially home schooled year
round in order to take off the needed time for each surgery and recovery.
By law homeschoolers are required
to teach each of the five subject areas within the 180 day school
calendar. But within those parameters we
have a great amount of freedom to tailor our school to our student’s
needs. There are no restrictions or guidelines as to when to teach those subjects or how often they have to be taught during the year.
For families with a sick child, this means that subjects that
require a student to sit at a table and work like math or handwriting can wait until the student is physically able to do that work - as long as you do some of each subject during the year. You may spend many days or weeks focusing on subjects that can be read quietly while resting, and other days, when your student is feeling better working entirely on math or other more difficult subjects.
We encourage you to allow your student to heal and recover as much as possible. Meanwhile, there are some subjects which can be
done more easily with a sick student. If the student is able to read in
bed, subjects like Reading or Literature, Science and History can be covered on a regular basis.
We have known some students with
brain or eye injuries who were not able to read for prolonged periods without
getting severe headaches. In these cases
reading material aloud might be a good solution. In fact many subjects can be done orally if a
parent acts as a “scribe” for the student, including composition and math. Not only does this help accomplish the
necessary school days, but it might help develop better listening and thinking
skills in your student.
Of course the solution and the extent to which you are able to cover certain subjects will be different for each family depending on the circumstances. These are just a few
suggestions to get you started thinking of ways to fit school in
around a prolonged illness.
For families with very sick
children one of the major concerns is that the student might fall behind. While we do encourage you to do what school
work your student is able to accomplish, we would also encourage you not to
worry about falling behind. One of the
great freedoms of homeschooling is that there is no exact standard for where
the student should be academically. You
may need to lower your expectations for what the student will be able to
accomplish during the school year. You
may also find that after the student recovers you are able to pick up the pace
again and make up for lost time.
The concern about falling behind is
doubled for high school students because they are trying to earn credits in
order to graduate. While the standard
for a credit earned remains the same, 150 hours of study, your student may need
to spread those hours over more time.
For example, it may take two years to complete one credit in Algebra
1. If your student is severely ill, you
may need to add a year or two to high school so that you can work together at a
slower pace.
The bottom line is this: if your student is sick, take the time needed to recover. When possible do some school work; seek creative solutions for putting school into the day, but expect to work at a slower pace.
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