Homeschooling for Kindergarten in Maryland

[Anonymous]

I'm thinking about homeschooling my kid for the kindergarten-1 and may be 2nd grades. My question is he's October boy (miss Sept 1 cutoff date, however still within the dates for early entrance in my county). Will it be possible to "enroll" him into homeschooling when he's not yet 5 years old? Again, there is such a thing as "early entrance" for public school, but I wonder if there is such a thing for homeschooling too.

I tried to google and google, but found nothing at all...

P.S. It's not a discussion about whether it's good or bad to start the kid earlier. As with everyone and everything it depends on kid, and there are advantages and disadvantages to starting earlier as well as starting late again depending on kid.

[Anonymous]

What I did for my child in MCPS is go through the EEK process, then put in the homeschooling papers and homeschool for K, then enroll my child for first grade. The tricky parts were getting through EEK and getting the school to enroll my child for first grade, instead of enrolling in kindergarten and then trying for EE1.

[Anonymous]

I would do the whole EEK process and then unregister them for Kindergarten fore homeschool. And you are doing the right thing. I am going to start homeschooling in 1st. We did public K and it is a waste of time.

[Anonymous]

OP here...

Thank you! So I assume you passed EEK exam, right? (I've heard it's very tough one and almost impossible to pass). I didn't even consider EEK because I don't want him to go to public school that young. Something to think about...

[Anonymous]

We considered getting EEK to get credit for K in our private school in another county - the school required your local elementary (MoCo in our case) to approve kids within the county cut-off. We didn't end up trying to do EEK, but will try for early entrance to first. I assume it's the same process for homeschooling, though once you're through 1st grade, there's no evaluating your kid.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm thinking about homeschooling my kid for the kindergarten-1 and may be 2nd grades. My question is he's October boy (miss Sept 1 cutoff date, however still within the dates for early entrance in my county). Will it be possible to "enroll" him into homeschooling when he's not yet 5 years old? Again, there is such a thing as "early entrance" for public school, but I wonder if there is such a thing for homeschooling too.

I tried to google and google, but found nothing at all...

P.S. It's not a discussion about whether it's good or bad to start the kid earlier. As with everyone and everything it depends on kid, and there are advantages and disadvantages to starting earlier as well as starting late again depending on kid.

Why would you enroll him early? What would you gain?

[Anonymous]

OP here...

Thank you again!
Yes, that's why I was thinking about K-1, because no testing AND the kid is already more mature to handle full day work. So will see how EEK goes...
I did look into private schools too (at least 2 were great, and one offers half-day K which would be just what I want), but their cut-off dates are even earlier than county's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here...

Thank you! So I assume you passed EEK exam, right? (I've heard it's very tough one and almost impossible to pass). I didn't even consider EEK because I don't want him to go to public school that young. Something to think about...

I'm 10:09. Yes, my child got admitted EEK.

Are you in MCPS? I think that you should call the homeschooling office at 301-517-8261 and ask them what they would do with a homeschooling form for a child who was not yet eligible for kindergarten. Actually maybe just discuss your whole idea with them? When I called the homeschooling office for help when our home elementary school thought that they had to enroll my child for K instead of 1, the person I talked to was very helpful. Unfortunately I can't remember her name!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here...

Thank you! So I assume you passed EEK exam, right? (I've heard it's very tough one and almost impossible to pass). I didn't even consider EEK because I don't want him to go to public school that young. Something to think about...

If you are even partially homeschooling your child during preschool they should pass the EEK. You are looking at basic early reading, some analogies, follow directions etc... It is not that bad.

[Anonymous]

OP here...

Thank you All for the info!

We are in Ho Co. I'll definitely call my office (it's still too early so I'm just gathering info and thinking about different scenarios).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are even partially homeschooling your child during preschool they should pass the EEK. You are looking at basic early reading, some analogies, follow directions etc... It is not that bad.

So this is applicable to "full" homeschooling too, right?

Glad to hear it's not bad! I'm OK with early reading, logic, directions, etc. -> that's totally fair to test. But reading some forums these tests sound really horrifying.

[Anonymous]

^^ That was OP answering...

[Anonymous]

I homeschool a 5 year old in MD. What is EEK? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Early Entrance to Kindergarten.

Also, I don't think that the MCPS EEK assessment is horrifying. Just long -- maybe 45 minutes? Anyway, my child (who passed) wasn't traumatized.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are even partially homeschooling your child during preschool they should pass the EEK. You are looking at basic early reading, some analogies, follow directions etc... It is not that bad.

So this is applicable to "full" homeschooling too, right?

Glad to hear it's not bad! I'm OK with early reading, logic, directions, etc. -> that's totally fair to test. But reading some forums these tests sound really horrifying.

My daughter was in there for less than 10 minutes. We got the okay right then and there. My youngest is in K this year and even now in March there are kids that don't know phonics or write anything but their name. It is sad. The EEK is not bad at all.