7 ms·

Beach High School

186 points by PebblesRox 6y ago

sdan 6y ago
On google it seems like this "school" is a regular home
- recursive 6y ago
  It doesn't seem like the physical building has much to do with the operations of the school. I don't think students physically attend.
  - lisper 6y ago
    > I don't think students physically attend. If you read the description, that is clearly the case.
    - recursive 6y ago
      I did, which is why I think that.
      - 1000mA 6y ago
        You don't need to express the fact that "you think" at all in writing. If you wrote it, we know you think it, whether it is correct or not.
austinl 6y ago
> I'm often asked a question like, "How are you able to award a diploma on the basis of nothing other than an essay and a letter of support?" The answer to this very reasonable question has two parts. First, I'm in a legal position to offer a diploma on this basis simply because there are no mandated requirements, in California law or anywhere else, for graduation from a private high school. (California law sets many subject matter graduation requirements for public high schools.) A co-worker of mine formed her own private high school — while in public high school — and then graduated herself from it. She was running a successful business already, so it made sense to her at the time. I was pretty shocked to learn this because I had no idea something like that was possible, and might have considered that route as well (although who's to say it would have turned out better?). For self-motivated, intellectual kids, I think it would be a dream come true — at least myself and several folks I went to high school with would have chosen to enroll in college classes much earlier, or do self-directed study, if we had the choice.
- Waterluvian 6y ago
  Completing high school is one of those things that isn't a big deal for some people who are already on a good track, are broadly intelligent. But I'm going to guess the overwhelming majority of people who think it isn't for them actually need it quite a bit. I also think for self motivated intellectual kids, completing high school anyways really isn't much of a roadblock or time waster.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - anonymousiam 6y ago
    Some people have a learning style that is not compatible with public high school. This is true for both me and my kids. All of us had problems in school and were evaluated to see if we had learning disabilities. We all tested above the 98 percentile and were in AT/GATE programs. Also, we all tested out of high school via the CHSPE. For me, it was a choice that I have never regretted (except for not going to the prom). It put me on a career track where I was years ahead of my peers. For my kids, not so much. They had such bad experiences in high school that they are sour on higher education. I am still working on convincing them to finish a college degree, but I feel like a hypocrite because I did not get mine until age 50. Back when I was their age, I was lucky to work in jobs were nobody cared whether or not I had a degree. Today it's impossible to get a "professional" job without a degree.
    - oorza 6y ago
      Honestly sounds like you, and to a lesser extent your children, needed high school for non-academic reasons as much as most people need it for academic reasons. If you have problems in school and test in the top 2% of intelligence, you have problems in other areas that need to be addressed, and can be in a social classroom. Speaking from experience.
      - jcims 6y ago
        I think you have to allow for the possibility that not all high schools have ’social classrooms’. Mine was filled with a bunch of children in adult bodies operating on hormones and hairspray. I hated it so much I didn’t want to be surrounded by it in college and decided to commute instead. I dropped out after three years. I was also fortunate to find a career path that didn’t require a degree, and while my oldest child had no choice based on her career interests, I’m having the same struggle with my youngest who’s in her freshman year with an undecided major.
barnaclejive 6y ago
> Copyright 2002, 2004, 2010 Wes Beach Is this still a thing? Does anyone know how it worked out for any of those kids?
- zain 6y ago
  I graduated from Beach High School about 18 years ago. Without going into detail too much, the public school system failed me, and Beach High School was the stepping stone that allowed me to go to college. I would be living a very different life right now if Beach High School didn't exist.
jf 6y ago
In California one can also take the CHSPE: https://www.cde.ca.gov/Ta/tg/sp/ https://www.cde.ca.gov/Ta/tg/sp/ Many of my homeschooled peers took the CHSPE at 16 then enrolled in a local Jr College and graduated at 18 with an AA
- felipemnoa 6y ago
  >>16 then enrolled in a local Jr College and graduated at 18 with an AA I could definitely have graduated from high school a bit earlier if I had wanted to but didn't see the need. I was one of those weird kids that did not actually want to graduate from high school because I liked it so much.
  - ramraj07 6y ago
    No one should ever take away from a kid something they like doing. For you apparently it was going to HS but I imagine for many many of your peers it was not as much fun.
- musicale 6y ago
  That sounds great. This option is something that should be publicized more widely, and perhaps even encouraged by junior colleges. I think students in California would greatly benefit from 1) knowing that there are multiple educational options and 2) having the freedom to choose among them.
  - WalterGR 6y ago
    Or get a GED. I've never met anyone in the US of at least high school age who wasn't aware that there exist way(s) to test out, including but not limited to the GED.
    - toast0 6y ago
      You can't get a GED until you're 18; if you want to get out of high school early, GED doesn't help.
anonymousiam 6y ago
I tested out of high school at 15 by way of the California High School Proficiency Exam (CHSPE). I was free to enroll in Jr. college and to work full time. I even bought my own car at 16. Both of my kids did the same thing, but today the minimum age for taking the test is 16, so they had to suffer one year more than I did.
- dllthomas 6y ago
  I worked around this (with parental support) by simply enrolling the local community college and getting a home-school program (which I think had some connection to Wes Beach? It's been a while...) to say "yeah, you're doing at least what you'd do in high school".
- ghufran_syed 6y ago
  One of my sons took it and passed it when he was 12, because the community college wouldn’t enroll him without it. We were homeschooling, so we had a california home private school - so we just had to certify that he had completed the 10th grade in our school, which he had.
- alert0 6y ago
  This is the route that I took as well. I dropped out, realized I needed a GED to start community college, realized I needed to be 18 to get a GED, then took the CHSPE and everything worked out.
- cbkeller 6y ago
  I did this too, it was great. I’m sometimes surprised by how few of the people around me in academia seem to have done anything similar.
DoreenMichele 6y ago
To be fair, it sounds like the success of this program is strongly rooted in the knowledge, wisdom and judgement of the individual running it. As a homeschooling parent, I de facto ran a private school under California law for some years. I think we listed my husband as the Administrator and me as the teacher, but I did almost everything. He played a really minor role. A student can do a lot with a modicum of the right guidance. That "right guidance" can be hard to come by. Many adults aren't really equipped to supply that piece. Edit: By success, I mean the stuff on this page: http://www2.cruzio.com/~beachhi/students.html http://www2.cruzio.com/~beachhi/students.html
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
enjoyyourlife 6y ago
It's in the California School Directory https://www.cde.ca.gov/SchoolDirectory/details?cdscode=44698236940738 https://www.cde.ca.gov/SchoolDirectory/details?cdscode=44698...
throwawaysea 6y ago
I wish I knew about this option growing up. Public schooling was a massive time sink full of problematic social dynamics that made life difficult but imparted no life lessons, lots of busy work and time consuming but worthless projects, and odd curricula dictated by the state but not useful in life or career. I did my best learning on my own time, but of course that time was limited since I still had to attend school and also lose free time to homework. My parents would much rather have had vouchers and school choice, or at least the freedom to have me not attend any school, and instead spend my time in a self guided manner (or guided by my parents or some other person or group of our choosing). I think such freedoms are especially required in this day and age, where schools are turning into ideological battlegrounds to propagandize children. Maybe that was always how it was to some extent, but it seems much more blatant today, with states like CA mandating ethnic studies, and schools injecting politics (like BLM) and critical race theory into schools. Ultimately I see the massive centralization of education as being at odds with both the individuality of children and also parental choice over how they want to raise their kids. It’s especially dark how far parents’ rights are being reduced when you look at situations like Loudoun County’s schools in Virginia tweeting about silencing parents (https://thefederalist.com/2021/03/29/loudoun-county-crazy-diversity-council-says-we-can-and-we-will-silence-the-opposition/ https://thefederalist.com/2021/03/29/loudoun-county-crazy-di...). What little choice parents have today is already at risk, with academic ideologues like Harvard’s Elizabeth Bartholet calling for a ban on homeschooling (https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemcshane/2020/04/21/harvards-lazy-attack-on-homeschooling/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemcshane/2020/04/21/harvards...).
- wrongdonf 6y ago
  What is critical race theory
zerof1l 6y ago
One issue I see with this, unfortunately, is that most universities require a High School transcript that details the grades and subjects taken along with GPA. By getting this diploma, you won't get that. That eliminates a lot of choices for getting a university degree. Sadly many jobs in STEM require a university degree.
- vertis 6y ago
  It's true that a lot of entry-level technology(T) positions look for a university degree as minimum. Unlike some other parts of STEM it's not a regulatory requirement. There are also movements like https://www.nocsdegree.com/ https://www.nocsdegree.com/.
- schwartzworld 6y ago
  You can probably get around this by starting at. community college and then transferring to the school of your choice. Most schools have stricter admmissions standards for new freshmen than they do for older students transferring over.
  - itronitron 6y ago
    Also, some states (maybe all) require that state universities accept students that have completed two years of community college.
vertis 6y ago
I really wish something like this existed at a University level. I started and never finished a university degree in Australia (circa 2000), because I ran out of money and my home life was in a state of disarray (parents mid divorce). 20 years later I'm a working technologist and could probably teach almost all the undergraduate subjects, but I never got that piece of paper. Universities usually have the ability to award credits for prior knowledge, but I doubt they would respond well to you rocking up and asking for credits in everything. When I was applying for tech jobs, the lack of degree has never really mattered. Now that I'm self-employed it matters even less, except with things like long-term visas that often have requirements to have a bachelors degree as a minimum. I don't keep up-to-date with how the computer-science degrees have changed over the years, though I'm not still programming in C/C++ either :)
- erdos4d 6y ago
  > Universities usually have the ability to award credits for prior knowledge, but I doubt they would respond well to you rocking up and asking for credits in everything. I did half of my BS this way, it was via an experiential knowledge option at my university. I was at a state school and it boiled down to money either way, so be ready to pay wherever you go. I had to pay most of the tuition for each class and take the final exam for the credit. Saved me 2 years of actual time though.

Beach High School

186 points by PebblesRox 6y ago

sdan 6y ago

On google it seems like this "school" is a regular home

recursive 6y ago
It doesn't seem like the physical building has much to do with the operations of the school. I don't think students physically attend.
- lisper 6y ago
  > I don't think students physically attend. If you read the description, that is clearly the case.
  - recursive 6y ago
    I did, which is why I think that.
    - 1000mA 6y ago
      You don't need to express the fact that "you think" at all in writing. If you wrote it, we know you think it, whether it is correct or not.

austinl 6y ago

> I'm often asked a question like, "How are you able to award a diploma on the basis of nothing other than an essay and a letter of support?" The answer to this very reasonable question has two parts. First, I'm in a legal position to offer a diploma on this basis simply because there are no mandated requirements, in California law or anywhere else, for graduation from a private high school. (California law sets many subject matter graduation requirements for public high schools.) A co-worker of mine formed her own private high school — while in public high school — and then graduated herself from it. She was running a successful business already, so it made sense to her at the time. I was pretty shocked to learn this because I had no idea something like that was possible, and might have considered that route as well (although who's to say it would have turned out better?). For self-motivated, intellectual kids, I think it would be a dream come true — at least myself and several folks I went to high school with would have chosen to enroll in college classes much earlier, or do self-directed study, if we had the choice.

Waterluvian 6y ago
Completing high school is one of those things that isn't a big deal for some people who are already on a good track, are broadly intelligent. But I'm going to guess the overwhelming majority of people who think it isn't for them actually need it quite a bit. I also think for self motivated intellectual kids, completing high school anyways really isn't much of a roadblock or time waster.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- anonymousiam 6y ago
  Some people have a learning style that is not compatible with public high school. This is true for both me and my kids. All of us had problems in school and were evaluated to see if we had learning disabilities. We all tested above the 98 percentile and were in AT/GATE programs. Also, we all tested out of high school via the CHSPE. For me, it was a choice that I have never regretted (except for not going to the prom). It put me on a career track where I was years ahead of my peers. For my kids, not so much. They had such bad experiences in high school that they are sour on higher education. I am still working on convincing them to finish a college degree, but I feel like a hypocrite because I did not get mine until age 50. Back when I was their age, I was lucky to work in jobs were nobody cared whether or not I had a degree. Today it's impossible to get a "professional" job without a degree.
  - oorza 6y ago
    Honestly sounds like you, and to a lesser extent your children, needed high school for non-academic reasons as much as most people need it for academic reasons. If you have problems in school and test in the top 2% of intelligence, you have problems in other areas that need to be addressed, and can be in a social classroom. Speaking from experience.
    - jcims 6y ago
      I think you have to allow for the possibility that not all high schools have ’social classrooms’. Mine was filled with a bunch of children in adult bodies operating on hormones and hairspray. I hated it so much I didn’t want to be surrounded by it in college and decided to commute instead. I dropped out after three years. I was also fortunate to find a career path that didn’t require a degree, and while my oldest child had no choice based on her career interests, I’m having the same struggle with my youngest who’s in her freshman year with an undecided major.

barnaclejive 6y ago

zain 6y ago
I graduated from Beach High School about 18 years ago. Without going into detail too much, the public school system failed me, and Beach High School was the stepping stone that allowed me to go to college. I would be living a very different life right now if Beach High School didn't exist.

jf 6y ago

In California one can also take the CHSPE: https://www.cde.ca.gov/Ta/tg/sp/ https://www.cde.ca.gov/Ta/tg/sp/ Many of my homeschooled peers took the CHSPE at 16 then enrolled in a local Jr College and graduated at 18 with an AA

felipemnoa 6y ago
>>16 then enrolled in a local Jr College and graduated at 18 with an AA I could definitely have graduated from high school a bit earlier if I had wanted to but didn't see the need. I was one of those weird kids that did not actually want to graduate from high school because I liked it so much.
- ramraj07 6y ago
  No one should ever take away from a kid something they like doing. For you apparently it was going to HS but I imagine for many many of your peers it was not as much fun.
musicale 6y ago
That sounds great. This option is something that should be publicized more widely, and perhaps even encouraged by junior colleges. I think students in California would greatly benefit from 1) knowing that there are multiple educational options and 2) having the freedom to choose among them.
- WalterGR 6y ago
  Or get a GED. I've never met anyone in the US of at least high school age who wasn't aware that there exist way(s) to test out, including but not limited to the GED.
  - toast0 6y ago
    You can't get a GED until you're 18; if you want to get out of high school early, GED doesn't help.

anonymousiam 6y ago

I tested out of high school at 15 by way of the California High School Proficiency Exam (CHSPE). I was free to enroll in Jr. college and to work full time. I even bought my own car at 16. Both of my kids did the same thing, but today the minimum age for taking the test is 16, so they had to suffer one year more than I did.

dllthomas 6y ago
I worked around this (with parental support) by simply enrolling the local community college and getting a home-school program (which I think had some connection to Wes Beach? It's been a while...) to say "yeah, you're doing at least what you'd do in high school".
ghufran_syed 6y ago
One of my sons took it and passed it when he was 12, because the community college wouldn’t enroll him without it. We were homeschooling, so we had a california home private school - so we just had to certify that he had completed the 10th grade in our school, which he had.
alert0 6y ago
This is the route that I took as well. I dropped out, realized I needed a GED to start community college, realized I needed to be 18 to get a GED, then took the CHSPE and everything worked out.
cbkeller 6y ago
I did this too, it was great. I’m sometimes surprised by how few of the people around me in academia seem to have done anything similar.

DoreenMichele 6y ago

To be fair, it sounds like the success of this program is strongly rooted in the knowledge, wisdom and judgement of the individual running it. As a homeschooling parent, I de facto ran a private school under California law for some years. I think we listed my husband as the Administrator and me as the teacher, but I did almost everything. He played a really minor role. A student can do a lot with a modicum of the right guidance. That "right guidance" can be hard to come by. Many adults aren't really equipped to supply that piece. Edit: By success, I mean the stuff on this page: http://www2.cruzio.com/~beachhi/students.html http://www2.cruzio.com/~beachhi/students.html

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

enjoyyourlife 6y ago

It's in the California School Directory https://www.cde.ca.gov/SchoolDirectory/details?cdscode=44698236940738 https://www.cde.ca.gov/SchoolDirectory/details?cdscode=44698...

throwawaysea 6y ago

I wish I knew about this option growing up. Public schooling was a massive time sink full of problematic social dynamics that made life difficult but imparted no life lessons, lots of busy work and time consuming but worthless projects, and odd curricula dictated by the state but not useful in life or career. I did my best learning on my own time, but of course that time was limited since I still had to attend school and also lose free time to homework. My parents would much rather have had vouchers and school choice, or at least the freedom to have me not attend any school, and instead spend my time in a self guided manner (or guided by my parents or some other person or group of our choosing). I think such freedoms are especially required in this day and age, where schools are turning into ideological battlegrounds to propagandize children. Maybe that was always how it was to some extent, but it seems much more blatant today, with states like CA mandating ethnic studies, and schools injecting politics (like BLM) and critical race theory into schools. Ultimately I see the massive centralization of education as being at odds with both the individuality of children and also parental choice over how they want to raise their kids. It’s especially dark how far parents’ rights are being reduced when you look at situations like Loudoun County’s schools in Virginia tweeting about silencing parents (https://thefederalist.com/2021/03/29/loudoun-county-crazy-diversity-council-says-we-can-and-we-will-silence-the-opposition/ https://thefederalist.com/2021/03/29/loudoun-county-crazy-di...). What little choice parents have today is already at risk, with academic ideologues like Harvard’s Elizabeth Bartholet calling for a ban on homeschooling (https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemcshane/2020/04/21/harvards-lazy-attack-on-homeschooling/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemcshane/2020/04/21/harvards...).

wrongdonf 6y ago
What is critical race theory

zerof1l 6y ago

One issue I see with this, unfortunately, is that most universities require a High School transcript that details the grades and subjects taken along with GPA. By getting this diploma, you won't get that. That eliminates a lot of choices for getting a university degree. Sadly many jobs in STEM require a university degree.

vertis 6y ago
It's true that a lot of entry-level technology(T) positions look for a university degree as minimum. Unlike some other parts of STEM it's not a regulatory requirement. There are also movements like https://www.nocsdegree.com/ https://www.nocsdegree.com/.
schwartzworld 6y ago
You can probably get around this by starting at. community college and then transferring to the school of your choice. Most schools have stricter admmissions standards for new freshmen than they do for older students transferring over.
- itronitron 6y ago
  Also, some states (maybe all) require that state universities accept students that have completed two years of community college.

vertis 6y ago

I really wish something like this existed at a University level. I started and never finished a university degree in Australia (circa 2000), because I ran out of money and my home life was in a state of disarray (parents mid divorce). 20 years later I'm a working technologist and could probably teach almost all the undergraduate subjects, but I never got that piece of paper. Universities usually have the ability to award credits for prior knowledge, but I doubt they would respond well to you rocking up and asking for credits in everything. When I was applying for tech jobs, the lack of degree has never really mattered. Now that I'm self-employed it matters even less, except with things like long-term visas that often have requirements to have a bachelors degree as a minimum. I don't keep up-to-date with how the computer-science degrees have changed over the years, though I'm not still programming in C/C++ either :)

erdos4d 6y ago
> Universities usually have the ability to award credits for prior knowledge, but I doubt they would respond well to you rocking up and asking for credits in everything. I did half of my BS this way, it was via an experiential knowledge option at my university. I was at a state school and it boiled down to money either way, so be ready to pay wherever you go. I had to pay most of the tuition for each class and take the final exam for the credit. Saved me 2 years of actual time though.