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BETHLEHEM – A homeschooler who has finished Calculus II and linear algebra is asking to graduate high school early – but Bethlehem Central School District has instead told him to come back to public school.
Michael Sweeney, 14, has been attending college full time for more than a year. He’s racing through Calculus III and Physics II right now.
In community college, he finished Composition 1 and Composition 2, as well as courses in history, engineering, physics and health. On the CAT, a standardized test used by many homeschoolers, he scored at grade 13.5 in every category. A grade of 12 would mean 12th grade.
When it came time to submit his homeschooling plan for this year, his mother wrote that it would be his final year.
“He’s moving on to 12th grade,” said Nicole Sweeney. “He’s testing out of every high school category at this point.”
He’ll turn 15 on Dec. 10. But the law on compulsory education says he must be in school for two more years – this school year and next year, since he won’t turn 16 until after the school year starts.
He is not trying to drop out. He’s applying to Arizona State University’s mechanical engineering program. But he can’t attend it without graduating from high school.
Based on his college classes, New York would consider him a graduate – at age 16.
To graduate at 15, he must get the school district’s permission.
His parents have submitted his homeschooling education plan three times this school year. The district has rejected every plan.
“With no compliant homeschool program your student must enroll in school, either here at Bethlehem Central or elsewhere, such as a private school,” Superintendent Jody Monroe wrote in the most recent rejection. The school district did not respond to a request for further comment.
Monroe said in her rejection letter that the family could contest her decision at the school board – so the family asked to do so and hired a lawyer. The day of the scheduled meeting, the district told the Sweeneys that the meeting had been delayed a month to give the lawyers time to work out a solution.
The district had proposed Sweeney complete ninth grade this year. The district rejected his college credits on the grounds that last year’s individualized home instruction plan, or IHIP, only said he would be trying college and each quarterly report would provide an update. In each report, the family included his course schedule and his transcripts. He has earned an A in all but one class (he got a B in linear algebra).
The district noted that last year, Sweeney should have been in eighth grade. His family essentially said he completed ninth through 11th grade in one year, by completing 26 college credits as well as high school credits, including discus competitions, cycling, and music appreciation class. For participation in government, he applied to join the town’s tree advisory committee.
“I was the youngest person they’d interviewed,” Sweeney said.
He now works as a volunteer for the committee.
“I worked on the design for a tree catalog … that also they can update very easily,” he said.
Last summer, he kept taking college classes. He mapped out a plan in which he could finish his lower-level college classes this school year and move to the mechanical engineering degree program next year.
As college students know well, it is not easy to transfer degree-program courses. So he wants to take those at the college from which he wants to graduate.
“Michael’s reached his point where he needs to start taking 300-level courses and you can’t transfer in 300-level courses, so he needs to enroll in ASU full time to continue his degree path,” his mother said.
He would enroll in the online degree program. ASU’s online program is accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. ASU sends students kits to build items and has them use professional simulation and computer-aided design programs.
He wants to eventually get a job designing, creating and testing animatronics, like the ones used in theme parks.
“I really like the problem-solving, but also the creativity of it,” he said. “Something that’s fake but magic almost.”
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This article originally published at Bethlehem tells 14-year-old college student that he’s too young to graduate high school.