University-Model Home Days: A Parent's Role¶
A director opening a university-model program for the first time has to answer a question that sounds simple and isn't: what is a parent supposed to do on a home day?
Get the answer wrong in one direction and a parent thinks she's supposed to teach the subject from scratch, which is not what the model asks of her and not what most parents signed up for. Get it wrong in the other direction and home days turn into unsupervised time, which undercuts the two or three days a week the campus teacher is counting on students to arrive prepared for. The gap between those two failure modes is exactly where a written expectation, set before the year starts, earns its keep.
What a home day is not¶
It helps to start with what the role isn't. NAUMS, the national association for the model, says "the teachers are in charge of all direct instruction in the central classroom," and that on home days parents "serve as paraprofessionals by providing extension, enrichment, tutoring, and study skills instruction." That's a description of who teaches what, not a grading rule, but it settles the shape of the role: a home day isn't a parallel curriculum the parent builds herself.
That distinction matters for how a director writes the expectation down. A home day isn't "teach chapter 4." It's "work through the practice set the campus teacher assigned, using the method she taught on Monday, so Wednesday's class can move forward instead of reteaching."
Setting the expectation by age¶
The role looks different depending on how much of the week is home days, and NAUMS's own structure gives a starting point. The useful part for a director is what to actually tell each family, not just which days fall on which side.
In elementary grades, where the pattern is typically two campus days and three home days, write the expectation as a time commitment, not just a task list: something like "expect about 45 focused minutes per home day, split between the reading and math practice the teacher assigned, using the method demonstrated that week." Say what "stuck" should look like, too. If a child can't get through the practice set after two tries, the instruction is to stop and note it, not to reteach the lesson from scratch.
By middle school, where the split usually flips to three campus days and two home days, shift the instruction from "sit with them" to "check in and confirm." A workable version: "confirm the assignment is complete before it's due; if something doesn't make sense, have your student write down the specific question for the teacher rather than working around it." The parent is a checkpoint here, not a co-teacher.
By upper school, where NAUMS describes a schedule that moves toward individual class meeting times rather than a fixed campus/home split, most of what a director needs to communicate is logistical: which days each class meets, when work is due, and who to contact if a student falls behind. The instructional expectation for the parent is usually short enough to fit in a paragraph.
None of this is a rule NavEd enforces. It's worth writing down and handing to families at enrollment, because a family with a first grader and a family with a tenth grader are picturing very different afternoons, and they should be told that before the year starts rather than discovering it in October.
What gets graded where¶
Grading stays with the campus teacher. That's how NavEd is built: parents can view grades and transcripts through the parent portal, but grade entry is a staff function. A parent cannot log a grade for home-day work, and that's intentional. It keeps one person, the campus teacher, responsible for the grade that ends up on the report card and the transcript, no matter how much of the course's preparation happened at a kitchen table.
That means home-day work isn't itself a gradable event in the system. It's preparation for the next campus session, where the teacher sees the result, whether that's a completed problem set, a discussion the student can now participate in, or a quiz that shows whether the practice stuck.
Recording a home day that happened¶
Attendance is where directors most often ask for something the system doesn't have: a "home day" status separate from present or absent. NavEd's attendance statuses are Present, Absent, and Late. There's no separate home-day category, because a home day, structurally, is still a day the school expects the student to be doing schoolwork, and the question that matters is whether they did it.
What NavEd does have is a way to let the record reflect who's confirming that. An admin can turn on "Allow parents to take attendance." Once that's on, parents get an At-Home Attendance page where they record their child's attendance for the day, and each record is tagged as entered by a parent or by staff. If a teacher also marks that day for some reason, the teacher's record is the one that stands, so there's no ambiguity about which entry wins.
The school also sets which weekdays it meets, which is the piece that makes this map onto a university-model calendar. A school running Monday/Wednesday/Friday campus days and Tuesday/Thursday home days configures those as its meeting days, and the At-Home Attendance page becomes the parent's way of confirming Tuesday and Thursday happened, the same way the campus teacher confirms Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
What to write down before the year starts¶
A short document at enrollment saves most of the confusion that shows up later. It doesn't need to be long. It needs to answer three things for each grade band: how much of the home day is direct instruction versus independent work, what the parent should do if the student gets stuck, and how attendance gets recorded that day. Put a name and a deadline on it. "Log at-home attendance by end of day" is a clearer instruction than "keep track of school days," and it's the difference between a record you can hand a state auditor or a transcript reader without reconstructing it in May.
FAQ¶
Can a parent enter a grade for work done on a home day?
No. Grading is a staff function in NavEd. A parent can view grades, transcripts, and report cards through the parent portal, but the campus teacher is the one who enters the grade for the course.
Is there a separate attendance status for home days?
No. A school records a home day the same way it records any other meeting day, using the same three statuses and whichever day pattern the school has set. What changes is who can enter it: with "Allow parents to take attendance" turned on, a parent records her child's own home-day attendance.
What happens if both a parent and a teacher mark attendance for the same day?
The teacher's record wins. Each attendance entry is tagged as entered by a parent or by staff, so a director can see who confirmed a given day, but only one record stands per student per day.
Does the parent's role change by grade level?
The model's own structure suggests it should. Elementary students typically have more home days and benefit from a parent closer to a co-teacher; by upper school, many university-model schools move toward independent, per-class scheduling where the parent's role is closer to a check-in than direct instruction. Individual schools vary, and it's worth writing your own school's expectation down rather than assuming a family already knows it.
Do parents need a NavEd login to record home-day attendance?
Yes, they use their existing parent portal login. The At-Home Attendance page appears there once an admin turns the setting on.
Is any of this free?
Yes. Attendance tracking, the parent portal, and student records are all part of NavEd's free plan. The first five students are free, on every plan, and that does not expire.
Home days are the half of the week that never shows up on the transcript by name, but the attendance record built during the year and the transcript built at the end of it both depend on getting this expectation right from the start.