A transcript when there are no prior records.

The enrollment meeting is set. The school asks for a transcript, and what the family has is a folder: report cards in another language, a certificate from a program that no longer answers email, a parent’s own list of the books and the work. The student did the learning. The paper that shows it, in the shape a school expects, does not exist. This page is for the three families who live that moment most often: the newcomer student whose formal schooling was interrupted (schools call this SIFE, Students with Interrupted Formal Education), the homeschooled student enrolling in a classroom school and asking that the years at home count, and the student whose school closed or cannot produce records anymore.

The folder instead of the transcript

It helps to name what this problem is and is not. It is not a judgment about the student, and it is not the receiving school being difficult. A school that has never met your child is trying to place them well, and placement needs something to rest on. The gap is a paperwork gap: the learning happened where no registrar was keeping a file, or the file was kept by an institution that no longer exists. Nobody organized the evidence into something a school can act on. That last part is the part a family can fix, starting today, whether enrollment is next week or next year.

What a receiving school can act on

Three things turn a folder into a record. First, evidence: dated entries for the courses and the work, each carrying what actually exists, a work sample, a photo of a notebook, a certificate, a reading list. Second, named people: the adults who were there, a parent who taught, a tutor, a former teacher, a program director, co-sign the entries they can stand behind, so the record carries human signatures rather than only a family’s say-so. Third, a public check: every sealed entry and the family-issued verifiable transcript built from them resolve at a public link, where a counselor or admissions reader checks the record in about thirty seconds, with no account and no login.

That shape matches how placement already works. New York’s education department frames incoming credit as something a school can award on the basis of assessment or evidence of the learning, not only on paper from a prior building. A verifiable record is that evidence, organized: the school still makes the placement call, and the family hands it something worth calling on.

The free record, and the free New York kit

The record is free for families, forever: capture, the portfolio vault, the verifiable transcript, verification, export. Generating filled-in compliance artifacts from it is the one optional paid family service, part of Family Pro, $99 per year, and every document previews filled-in, free, first. A family returning to home instruction in New York, or filing there while a re-entry decision settles, can start from the free New York IHIP kit.

One thing this page will not promise: how a given state or school handles re-entry credit outside New York. Rules differ, and the receiving school decides. The family’s job is a record that decision can rest on, and that record belongs to the family either way: it moves with the student across schools, states, and whatever the years bring. Read the sovereignty contract.

For counselors

If you are the counselor receiving this student, the counselor surface is free, always. The family invites you, you co-sign the entries you can stand behind with no account to create, and your named signature is what the next reader of the record checks. For a student who arrives without a record, a counselor who witnesses the first semester is the start of the continuity everyone wishes had existed all along.

Frequently asked questions

What is a SIFE student?

SIFE stands for Students with Interrupted Formal Education (some states say Students with Inconsistent/Interrupted Formal Education): a newcomer student whose schooling before arrival was interrupted or uneven, often across countries and languages. The label matters at enrollment because it names the real problem, a gap in the paperwork and the continuity, not a gap in the student. A family can start a record of what the student did learn, wherever it happened, and keep adding to it from the first week at the new school.

How does a school place a student without prior records?

Receiving schools handle this more often than families expect, and they have ordinary tools for it: a conversation with the family, placement assessments, and whatever evidence of past work exists. The better organized that evidence is, the more the placement conversation can rest on what the student actually did. A record with dated entries, work samples, and named adults who co-signed what they saw gives the school something specific to act on.

Can a homeschooled student get high school credit for work done at home?

Often yes, and the receiving school decides how. New York's education department frames incoming credit as something a school can award on the basis of assessment or evidence of the learning, and in practice schools use placement tests, portfolio review, or both. What the family controls is the evidence side: course entries with descriptions, dates, and work samples, co-signed by the adults who taught or watched the work. A homeschool record kept that way arrives as evidence a school can read, not a bare list.

What if my child's school closed and cannot send records?

Start from what the family holds: report cards, certificates, coursework, emails from teachers, photos of projects. Enter the courses in the family vault with dates and whatever evidence exists, then invite the people who were there, a former teacher, a program director, a tutor, to co-sign the entries they can stand behind. A named person who saw the work, signing a public, checkable record, is the most honest substitute a family can offer for a registrar's stamp that no longer exists.

What records should a newcomer family bring to enrollment?

Everything, in any language and any condition: report cards, exam certificates, notebooks, and a written list of subjects studied and for how long. None of it needs to look official to be useful. The school will make its own placement decisions; a family that organizes what it has into one record, and keeps adding to it from day one at the new school, is building the transcript going forward even though the one looking backward was never issued.

Does the receiving school need an account to check the record?

No. Each sealed entry and each issued transcript carries a public link, and a counselor, registrar, or admissions reader opens it and checks the record in about thirty seconds, with no Eformogi account and no login. What they see is the entry, its evidence, and the named people who co-signed it.

Start the record, free

No credit card. The record is free for families, forever. When the first entries exist, invite the people who were there to co-sign them: a named witness is what turns a family’s account into a record a stranger can act on.