A Resource for Parents
Events and Support
Evaluations and Testing
Families registered with their school district as providing a Home Education program are required by law to arrange for an annual evaluation with a PA-certified teacher or licensed school or clinical psychologist. (For a copy of the law, go to: www.pde.state.pa.us/home_education/cwp/view.asp?
a=148&Q=56276&home_educationNav=%7C606%7C#HE) Open Connections will be able to provide this service for interested families beginning in the spring of 2007 for a reasonable fee. Please contact Barb in the office for details after May 15th, 2007.
Similarly, the law requires parents to submit standardized test scores for young people in the 3rd, 5th and 8th grades. Open Connections offers a half-day “test prep” in the early spring in order to familiarize both parents and youths with what to expect if they take their test at OC, including a chance to practice and ask questions about both the process and the content of such tests. We have found these preparatory experiences to be incredibly helpful in reducing anxiety levels and in providing insight into which areas, if any, a family might wish to practice some more on their own.
We then administer the actual tests in early June in a relaxed manner that allows for young people to fulfill the requirement in a comfortable setting. The fee for the test prep experience is $45 for currently enrolled youth; for the testing itself, $40; for a combination of the two experiences, $75 for OCers. Each service is $5 additional for the general public. For each additional youth in the same family, each service is discounted $5.
"Having my ambitions valued and my opinions invited made me behave more maturely because I was finally being recognized as an important human being, not ‘just a kid’...the freedom and control one has over their education at OC, I have not seen elsewhere."
— OC Teen, now taking college courses