One record for every child, not three documents to reconcile
This workbook keeps homeschool attendance, the portfolio and the high school transcript as one computed record. Every hour you log to an hour-based high school course counts toward that course’s credit on the transcript (a course credited by an outside provider takes its awarded credit), against the hours-per-credit threshold you set, so the attendance log, the portfolio and the transcript read from the same entries, for every child.
Kept apart, those records often end up in three places: an attendance sheet that counts days, a folder of work samples, and a transcript typed up separately with the credits worked out after the fact. Kept apart, they drift. The transcript says a course was worth a full credit; the hours behind it were never added up. The attendance sheet says 180 days; nobody checked whether that pace would actually land by June. The portfolio has four science samples and no history.
How logged hours become credits
Set the hours per credit once on Setup, for each credit type. The example uses 120 hours for a core academic course and 150 for a lab science, which are starting values, not rules; change them to whatever your family, your umbrella school or your state uses.
Then log hours as you go: a row per session, per day or per week, on the Hours Log (or on the printable weekly hours sheet, typed in later). Courses adds up the hours for each course, divides by that course’s hours-per-credit rule, rounds to your increment (down, by default) and caps it at the planned credit. In the example, 85 hours of English 11 against 120 hours per credit shows as 0.5 credit earned so far.
Three honesty rules are built in:
- Only completed courses count. Earned credit and GPA read Complete courses only. A course still in progress prints its credit to date in parentheses on the transcript, outside every total.
- A grade is not a credit. Enter a final grade before the hours reach the planned credit and the course is flagged Hours short, never printed as a full credit.
- Nothing is silently left off. Each grade year prints 12 course lines. A 13th course is flagged Not printed on Courses and counted on the Family Dashboard.
A one-page transcript per learner
Pick a learner and the Transcript fills itself in: a header with the student’s full legal name, date of birth, class year and an as-of date; four grade-year blocks with course, level, letter grade and credit; weighted and unweighted GPA for each year and overall (Honors +0.5, AP and dual enrollment +1.0 by default, all editable); credits by subject area; the grading scale and weighting legend; up to 6 tests and 6 activities you mark for the transcript; and a footnote stating the hours-per-credit rule you used. It prints on one page, with a signature line.
Attendance against your own target, with a pace
Set a target of days and hours for each learner. From the attendance codes and the Hours Log, the Learners tab works out days and hours logged, the share of the target, a projection to the last day of your school year that allows for planned breaks, whether each learner is on pace, and the days per week still needed to catch up.
The whole family on one tab
The Family Dashboard puts up to 6 learners side by side: days and hours against target, pace, high school credits earned and projected, subject areas still short of your graduation targets, GPA, work samples and books this year. Underneath, a list of what needs attention: requirements overdue or due soon, the next requirement and how many days away it is, courses graded while hours are short, hours logged to no course, hours dated outside the school year, and course titles listed twice.
The portfolio, the plan and the paperwork
- Four-Year Plan — the credits you want in each of 8 subject areas, set against what each learner has earned and still has planned, with the gap by area.
- Portfolio Index and Coverage — every work sample with an ID, course and where it is stored; samples counted by subject area and by quarter, so a thin subject shows up before a review, not during one.
- Course Descriptions — a short paragraph per course, with the grade year, level, credit and hours pulled in from Courses.
- Reading List, Tests & Evaluations, Activities & Awards, Field Trips & Co-op — the logs a portfolio review or a college application may ask for. Field trip and co-op hours can count toward a course’s credit.
- Requirements — a page you fill in with the records and deadlines your own state asks for, the rule, and where you found it. It counts the days until each one and marks it Done, Upcoming, Due soon or OVERDUE.
- College Checklist — 16 application-paperwork tasks with suggested timing and days until each.
What this is, and what it isn’t
This is a records tool. It states no state’s homeschool law and is not legal advice: the Requirements page holds the rules you look up, and the default hours-per-credit values are starting values for you to change. It makes no promise about how any college or reviewer will read your records; it keeps them complete, dated and consistent.
Own the record, don’t rent it
This is a file you keep: no account, no subscription, no per-child fee. It opens on a clearly fictional example family (Quillbrook Home School) so you can see every tab working, and a blank copy is included for your own records. It works in Excel 2016 or later and Microsoft 365, in Google Sheets through the one-click copy, and in LibreOffice.
Want to try the logging first? The free Homeschool Attendance & Hours Log is a one-learner, one-tab log: school days counted by the day codes you set, and hours added up by subject, against your own targets. It opens on a fictional worked example. No email, no signup.
New to the vocabulary? Start with what a homeschool portfolio review is, compare a portfolio review with standardized testing, or see every template for homeschool families.
Still deciding whether to homeschool at all? The School-Path Decision Helper scores public, charter, private, hybrid and homeschool side by side against the priorities you weight.
