More good news for Ohio HomeSchoolers

Got this in my e-mail Friday from the Homeschool Legal Defense Association:

New language was also added to the law making it possible for homeschoolers to fully participate in the PSEO program which pays for dual enrollment college courses at participating Ohio institutions of higher learning.
Homeschooling families who wish to participate in the PSEO program must notify the Department of Education by April 1 of the year prior to which they plan to participate. The legislation allows the DOE to relax that deadline for homeschooled students who wish to participate for the 2013-2014 school year. To find out more about how to apply for PSEO program funding, visit the Ohio Department of Education website. This page has not yet been updated to reflect the new law.
You can find the entire budget bill online. The extracurricular access provisions can be found on pages 836-837 and the PSEO provisions can be found on pages 1069-1074.

PSEO stands for Post-secondary Educational Option – basically it means that high schoolers who are ready for it, could attend a local college and obtain college credits FREE OF CHARGE while still in high school.  Public and parochial students have been able to do this for years.

In the past, homeschoolers interested in obtaining PSEO credits had to form their own private schools, called “08” schools – referring to the regulation in Ohio law that allowed them to form, or join an “umbrella” school that allowed them to get these credits.  The problem with this was that the state severely limited the number of credits each student could get.  So while a public school student getting PSEO credits could spend most of their time at college racking up the college credits, the 08 student could only get one or two credits.

This new legislation evens the playing field. And much like the sports and extra-curricular legislation that just passed, it came in under the radar.  I haven’t read or heard anything in the local media about it.