This is one of our most important Happy Stories ever published. If you’ve read the countless stories from families that seem to effortlessly manage 30+ college credits and felt like that goal was out of reach for your family, Wendy’s story will encourage you.
Wendy Girard is a Homeschooling for College Credit parent in Texas, but she’s also your monthly scholarship writer for Homeschooling for College Credit. You’ve certainly read her posts here, and she’s also been serving as one of our volunteer Facebook moderators for a few years.
The old expression is “if you hang around the barber shop long enough, you’re going to get a haircut!” and that’s what happened with Wendy. As a valuable member of our team, naturally, her kids would take college classes in high school. When Wendy shared her story with me, I begged her to allow me to share it with all of you.
Often we only see the “highlight reel” and never see the REAL challenges, difficulties, and stress behind the scenes. Wendy was so brave sending me this, and while you’ll celebrate with them by the end just like I did, it’s so important that we remember if our students earned even ONE college credit in high school, that’s ahead! They are AHEAD!! Homeschooling for College Credit looks different for each of us, and our community applauds the hard work – no matter what the outcome.
Wendy writes:
It can feel a bit intimidating writing a “Happy Story” for one dual enrollment class completed by graduation when many of the stories written and shared are for many, many more credits or for degrees earned (or nearly earned) before the student graduates high school. However, I write my daughter’s story to share that even one class completed in high school is valued by the organization and worthy of recognition.
I always assumed that my children would go to college. After all, when I was in high school, that was the
push: “You need to go to college to get a good job.” Plus, my husband and I each have a Master’s Degree,
so it seemed natural to expect my children to go to college. With a college degree in my mind for my
children, I wanted to start them early to help them get use to the course load (and help them manage it) and help them get out of college with limited debt.
I am thankful to have found HS4CC! What a wealth of knowledge and resources, plus the Facebook
community is super helpful and supportive! Armed with a tiny bit of knowledge from the blog and the FB
pages of HS4CC, I decided to forge ahead. I knew I wanted my children to take something that would
take care of a high school requirement and count towards a general education requirement in college. At the time, Olivia was in 10th grade, and her brother was in 9th.
I searched, researched, and engaged with many people through the FB community searching for the “perfect” class. Success! I had a class in mind, and ASU seemed the logical choice of colleges since they offered “grade protection.” I informed my children, signed them up, and away they went on the course.
PROBLEM!!!! I never asked them if they wanted to take a dual enrollment course or what course would interest them, and they had never done a computer-based course before.
(By now you’re probably thinking, “How is this a Happy Story??”)
Olivia seems to have all kinds of problems with her computer, and taking an online course was extra
frustrating for her because of that. She was enrolled in “The Living World,” which included several
online labs, so it was considered a lab science. She appreciated the checklist of items that neededto be
completed, and the progress bar for each module. This class was a new way of learning (we had never
done computer-based learning), the content wasn’t interesting, and it wasn’t me teaching her and adapting
the content or requirements to fit her learning style and needs.
These factors made it very difficult for her to complete the course. And, if I’m being honest, she was not really ready for college-level work or the independent work that it required. These are things I wish I had thought about before jumping into dual enrollment courses.
Throughout her time taking this course, I would support her as best as I knew how. Admittedly, learning
the online system myself was quite challenging, as, I, too, had never done an online course either. It was
kind of like the blind leading the blind. By May she had completed most of the course. Wanting to be independent (and get the course completed), she forged ahead with submitting an item that could not be redone, and, consequently, missed several key components of the project and scored poorly. I wanted to be able to transcript the grade, but wanted her to earn at least a B. Unfortunately, with the project being scored poorly, she had a C. Together we looked at other modules and figured out what assignments she could resubmit to earn a B. She re-completed the necessary assignments and finally brought her grade up to a B. HAPPY DAY!
The course was transcribed, and she earned 4 college credits in high school!
After that course, I realized she was not yet ready to engage in other college courses. She also showed no
interest in the following years to attend college. However, if, in the future, she decides to earn a degree,
she is one class closer than many when they begin that journey. We both learned a lot with that first dual enrollment class. It seems ridiculous to me that I never even asked if she wanted to take a dual enrollment course, and, if so, what she would like to take.
She learned perseverance and that it is OK to not do well initially, yet still be able to succeed at a task if you keep working at it. When spring of 2026 (her graduation year) came around, I asked her if she wanted a cap and gown (yes), and if she wanted an HS4CC honor cord to acknowledge her hard work in earning college credit (yes).
College is not in her immediate future, but we are always telling her (and he brother) to not rule anything
out – they are only teens. However, I believe the US Army has one heck of a future soldier heading their
way in September!
