Anyone still reading the comments down this far? Could this be written into a separate post? (Anyone?)

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865615543/LDS-women-with-children-now-eligible-for-full-time-seminary-institute-jobs.html?pg=all

http://thebrazilbusiness.com/article/obtaining-a-religious-visa-in-brazil

Note that eighth on the list is a “Notarized copy of ordination certificate and/or diploma and school transcript for theological studies, which will be authenticated by the consular office.” Looking at the list, it’s no wonder so many missionaries wait for their visas so long.

Best wishes to Rigel and TLC and your families and any others dealing with complicated seminary schedules. May we all be blessed with local leaders who are as kind and sensible as the ones SJ mentioned early in the discussion.

This year we are living in Europe and our daughter is doing parent-directed home-study combined with once-a-week evening meetings with a teacher from the ward (held just after mutual). It’s working out OK. She’s supposed to spend 50 minutes per day, 4 days per week, on her own, but we go through the lessons with her in 20-40 minutes. She doesn’t do all of the journal-writing exercises that Rachel talked about since no one checks them and a lot of them seem pointless. She is doing seminary in French (books, scriptures, and the weekly class), and we love that, but I can see that it would be hard for foreigners who don’t speak French. There are some families in the ward whose kids go to American schools who would have a hard time with it but the kids aren’t of age yet. An online class in English would be perfect for them (although I have a big problem with online programs that require logging in everyday). One thing that really bothers us is that the teacher told our daughter she was close to not meeting the attendance requirement because she had missed 2-3 of the weekly meetings; the attendance figures apparently didn’t take into account the 4 days per week that our daughter studies with us! Another family in the class does *none* of the home study work but shows up to the weekly classes and was considered to have better attendance. That is ridiculous! (Perhaps I am also bitter about this because there has been at least one time when my daughter showed up—walked 15 minutes, then took the bus across town by herself to get there–and was the only one who came, so the teacher canceled the class.)

There are other reasons we are considering having her not do seminary, including those already mentioned by Rachel and others above (as well as in the other posts here and elsewhere — e.g., the hiring policies for women in CES). Another (related to one comment above): Our daughter just took her first test. The French kids were having a hard time with it. They do not do multiple choice tests here in France, so it was a completely different experience for them, and they were very confused by it and scored badly. (Some of that might have to do with the fact that at least some of them are not doing their 4 days per week at home.) Our daughter at least was familiar with the format. One of the questions, though, was something like “Why do we believe that the talks of the prophets (i.e. General Authorities in General Conference) are Scripture?” Our daughter had no good answer to choose from since she doesn’t believe this — at least not in the “black and white” way clearly envisioned by the people who wrote the test. At least with the home-study, family-oriented seminary that we are doing, we are able to use the manual as a jumping off point for our own scripture study and discussion. We would rather spend time as a family searching the scriptures ourselves than have her indoctrinated with things we don’t believe just so she can get a graduation certificate. The manuals today are filled as much with randomly selected quotes from modern prophets, basically telling you how to interpret the scriptures and apply them today, as with the actual content of the scriptures. I liked the old booklets that focused on the actual content and contexts of the scriptures. I suppose the new formats may be a hint of what we will see with the new college-level curricula. I don’t like it. I know firsthand what cognitive dissonance and, yes, mental harm can be caused in youth and young adults (or adults of any age) when what they were taught at church and through church culture, and what was tested and drilled in to them, does not match their lived experiences or their personal testimonies gained through prayer and scripture study.

All of that said, the suggestion for Rachel to have her son do an online academic class and release-time Seminary seemed a good one.

I guess this must be the routine some of you are putting in already. God Bless You. I am hoping to send my kids to non-BYU schools, but want my children to have some of that ‘community’ and excitement of learning from a non-family member teacher that I got—though I got it in released time. If I could get the online program approved, it would certainly be a nice second option. And I did sit through Ward Council meetings where the seminary teacher reviewed attendance, including those who missed early morning because of returning from later evening school sports trips. Made me cringe.

My homeschool-for-academics kids have attended both released time and early morning on various years. Last year (again, contrary to the rules, we are again in Utah), my junior daughter used the home study packet program. She was allowed to do so because: she attended a performing arts charter school part time (which did not offered seminary), she got a custodial job before school (which interfered with early morning classes), and her school and company rehearsals conflicted with released-time.

In some cases they are flexible, but I’d honestly guess that “I’m too tired to go” isn’t going to be accepted most times because, well, everyone is tired for early morning.

I’m glad they are working on an online home study program, but wish that the timing was more flexible than “log on every day or get locked out.” This year (when my daughter and son attend the released time seminary provided by a local private school two afternoons per week), that simply wouldn’t be possible as there are some days she could never log in, but she could double up on others.

CES/S&I produces centralized materials and online attendance tools/tracking. As fas as I was told at training meetings with S&I, everything else (staffing, how to implement the curriculum, times, locations, etc) is decided by the Stake Prez (and delegates).

*The chapel where it was held was essentially across the street from the high school, so it was easy to pop over and spend 30 of your 45 minute lunch each day at seminary. We weren’t allowed to miss any days though, so lunch-time seminary had the same amount of time at the end of the year as the other class times

Unfortunately I don’t know if that situation is useful for you, since we were overseas, didn’t really have mutual on a regular basis (lack of youth/language barrier), so this became something of a catch all. Good luck, though!! I was definitely a fan.

The only downside was the battle we had to win to get into the online program in the first place. We live in Utah, so released-time seminar is available. But our son had scheduling conflicts because of an A.P. class he wanted to take. Our Stake President was very understanding. But CES employees do feel threatened by the online program. (They should not feel that way, it takes a skilled, knowledgeable teacher to work with students online. And a teacher can only handle about the same number of students online as a teacher in a traditional setting, I would argue that effective online instruction is more difficult than traditional instruction in many ways.) Several CES administrators really attempted to put a guilt trip on my wife and son for even requesting the online class. They reluctantly followed the direction of our Stake President.

So if you feel your child needs an online experience, I encourage you to fight the battle and get in. Most Stake Presidents are thrilled to see kids take seminary in any form. But if you live in an area with released-time seminary, you will have to be very firm in your approach with the CES.