How do you include work experience on the high school transcript?
This week, this question has come up more than once, so I thought I’d share the answer here for you.
Just in case a summer job or working during the high school years ends up on your radar.
Or already is in progress.
First jobs are amazing times of learning.
Everything from the job hunting process to applying and interviewing, to actually working and navigating workplace protocol and communication…
all the way to how to give notice and resign gracefully so that you end with a great reference.
These are fabulous learning experiences that build confidence and lay a foundation for the future.
In public school, work experience is an actual credit offered. And you can offer it too for your employed teens.
In the Course Description Basics workshop, I shared the Work Experience credits I assigned for my sister, when she lived with us for a semester.
I structured these credits as semester credits, matching what she needed to return home to a conventional school environment
If it’s hard to read in the image, here’s the exact text of the course descriptions I used.
Work Experience A
Combines supervised part-time employment with work/life skill preparation one-on-one with a mentor. Takes student through the job search process, including completing job applications, arranging for references, first impressions and interview skills, and through the first 60 hours of employed work experience. Provides mentored experience in desirable and appropriate attitudes, work habits, time management, workplace communication, customer service, and difficult workplace situations. Credit Assigned: 0.5
Work Experience B
Continues the supervised part-time employment and mentored work/life skill preparation begun in Work Experience A. Student maintains part-time employment for an additional 60+ hours and meets regularly with mentor for one-on-one coaching to build work/life skills, including appropriate workplace attitudes, work habits, time management, workplace communication, customer service, and difficult workplace situations. Credit Assigned: 0.5
As always, choose and customize course titles and descriptions that reflect your teen’s specific learning and experiences.
This is what I used for my sister, but I had different versions for each of my sons’ experiences.
Feel free to use these as inspiration, as a starting point, and tweak them to reflect your teen’s own work experiences and mentoring.
But also keep in mind, aside from employment-specific skills, our kids are gaining other skills too.
Both soft skills and hard skills
And those can be captured as credit too.
Just depends on what they are doing, and the scale of coaching, mentoring, and skill development in play.
For some ideas, check out the next in this series: Work-related Hard and Soft Skills translate to High School Credit.
Until Next Time,
…Shannon
P.S. For a deeper dive into course descriptions, check out Course Description Basics in Getting Started with Homeschool Transcripts.
