WELCOME TO RECORD KEEPING INSIGHTS

This resource is for families homeschooling under the auspices of Palmetto Independent Educators (PIE), a third option accountability association operating under South Carolina's Code of law, section 59-65-47.

Education records are perhaps the most intimidating part of an educational program for those considering homeschooling. After all, parents of children who attend either public or private schools are not responsible for this portion of their child's education.

The purpose of RECORD-KEEPING INSIGHTS is to help members of PIE gain an accurate and deep intuitive understanding of the record-keeping process – power-up, so to speak. Record-keeping is an essential part of the homeschool program for many reasons that parents will want to take full advantage of and are not merely for satisfying law requirements.

For example, effective record-keeping is useful for:

On the other hand, a lack of records could serve as evidence toward accusations of neglect, or ultimately, make it difficult to access various educational services or support systems in the future.

RECORD-KEEPING SOLUTION

Currently, the primary record-keeping software we used during our homeschool program is no longer available. Homeschool Easy Records by DataPlus-Solutions was a basic record-keeping program available for consumers on a national level. However, its functionality was not designed to produce the important documentation we needed formatted according to South Carolina's Uniform Grading Policy. Which meant the program was only useful to us as a lesson planner, calendar, and attendance tracker. Ultimately, we had to format key documentation for ourselves using Microsoft Office.

Since then, the office of PIE has continued to use Microsoft Word and Excel for designing and formatting documentation and record-keeping tools, which is useful for achieving the best results with customization. We are now using these tools to build and maintain an independent record-keeping system designed specifically for independent educators. Using Adobe Acrobat Pro DC to convert documents to a portable document format (PDF), we can also create protected PDF forms for members to use.

Record-Keeping Insights will bring you up to speed with the necessary details to help you create your record-keeping tools; or you can jump in and use the tools already available through the Document Library.

PIE’s Record-Keeping Insights and Knowledge Center serve as our frontline support tools. These are online resources used to convey information to members. We encourage members to use these resources to find information relevant to their specific needs first. If you do not find answers to your questions through these resources, please contact the office using the information posted in the following list.

Frontline support begins here.

Homeschooling is a rather large and seemingly complex project with many moving parts. To help avoid being overwhelmed by or lost in all that complexity, INSIGHTS, a framework of sorts breaks it down into some must-follow requirements, goal-dependent requisites, recommended best practices, and much more so that SMART decisions are the program’s focus. INSIGHTS offers various checklists, template forms, and relatable examples for your consideration. The following icons are provided to draw your attention to items of particular importance.

	SMART PRACTICE! A recommendation or suggestion that’s suitable for the program but not a requirement.
	REQUISITE! Something that may or may not be essential to the program, depending on your needs; requirement for some, but not others.
	REQUIREMENT! Something that is essential to the program and must be followed by all.
	INFORMATION! Information that may or may not be essential to the program, depending on your needs.
	DEFINITION! To analyze and define a term's meaning to determine the parts' nature and relationship.