HCOS GRAD PROGRAM GENERAL INFO GUIDE

  1. Course Information
  2. Course Selection Instructions
  3. Setting up your Student’s Moodle Account (for Online/Hybrid courses)
  4. Funding Information
  5. How to order Curriculum for Individualized Courses
  6. Monitoring Progress and Official Reporting
  7. Additional Support and Resources

IMPORTANT INFO:

  • Regional Grad Program AcademicAdvisor - ______
  • ParentEncom User Name: ______Encom Password: ______
  • Student’s Moodle User Name: ______Moodle Password: ______
  • Student’s Purchase Order Number (PO#) ______
  • Student’s Personal Education Number (PEN): ______
  • Tech Support – or 877-630-8324
  • Office Questions - or 877-862-2375
  • Course Changes –

To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen

1 Peter 5:11

  1. Course Information
  • If you would like a guest pass to view a grade level of our Online Courses, please contact the office at for a Guest User Name and Password for that grade.
  • To see a list of courses and their teachers for the upcoming school year, please go to Click on these links:

COURSENOTES______

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  1. Course Selection Instructions (available for the next school year after May 5th)
  • New Students: Once your student’s application has been accepted, parents can log into Encom and select courses.
  • Returning Students: It is important that you have first re-enrolled your student so be sure to do so by logging into Encom at and using your parent User Name and Password. If you have forgotten your log in info, there is a Password Center where you can put in your user name and email and retrieve your password. If you cannot remember your user name or the email address on your Encom account, please contact tech support at
  • Log into Encom with your parent user name and password
  • Click on ”Re-enrollment” and follow the instructions.
  • Be sure you are in the correct school year by clicking on this tab at the top right of your student’s profile page:
  • Course Selection: Click on
  • Type the name (or parts of the name) of the course you are looking to add in the Quick Search bar
  • Add the courses you want to select for your student. Be sure to verify that you have chosen the “Individualized” or “Online” version of the course you want.
  • Select your pacing for the course (Semester 1, Semester 2)
  • If you want to find a course in another grade level, you will need to do a search in the “Advanced Search” section:
  • IMPORTANT – Once you have completed ALL of your selections, you much Review and Save. If you are not finished or confident at this point, DO NOT go through the final ‘Save’ process. Once you do so, you are locked out and will need to contact the office to make additional changes. Look for this link at the top of the page when you are ready to save your selections:
  • Once you have saved your selections, you will then be directed to a “Resources” page. Here is where you order any texts or resources needed for your student’s online courses. The price you see there is what you will be billed if you do not return the books so order them now so you get them in a timely manner. Click on “Submit” to place your resources order.
  • Confirm your student’s course list and get teacher info by clicking on the blue bar that says and click on “Course List”

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  1. Setting up your Students’ Moodle Account (for online/hybrid course access)

If your student is taking any Online or Hybrid courses, you need to set up their Student Moodle Account. Moodle is our ‘classroom’ area. Look for this icon in Encom:

If you are unsure which courses your student should see in Moodle, you can see them by clicking on this:

Enroll in Student Forums: These are like the classroom ‘hallways’ and parents can choose if they want their student to participate in these ‘chats’. If you think this will be distracting, leave the selection as “No”. You can always change this later.

Have your student set up a ‘Password’ for Moodle and click “Save Changes”

Wait 10 minutes

Test your password to see if it works at or you can log into Moodle from our home page at

Do the Online Orientation. Once this is done, they can click on any course and begin.

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  1. Funding Information

Now that your student has transitioned into the Grad Program (Grades 10 – 12), there are some changes to the way funding is allocated for your student.

How does the funding work?

The Ministry of Education funds a Grad Program (GP) student per course they take, not as a ‘full program of studies’, which is the process for students in Grades K-9. This enables a GP student to take courses with a variety of schools (Distributed Learning, campus etc) and each school only applies for the funding that is associated with the courses the student is taking with them.

Example: Sally signs to take English, Math, Planning and Science with Heritage Christian Online School. Once she is considered ACTIVE (completed 10% of the course as verified by her teacher), the teacher will post an ACTIVE DATE for that course in Encom. Once the student is ACTIVE in a course, HCOS sends a request to the Ministry of Education for the funding they provide for those courses. NOTE: We do not request funding for a course until an ACTIVE date posted by the teacher.

Sally also enrolls at a campus school for PE and Drama. The campus school requests funding for those two courses.

What sort of funding is provided to the parents for curriculum purchases?

Students have two options for course delivery when they are fully enrolled (taking the majority) of their courses with HCOS. Online and Individualized.

OnlineCourse Option: These courses have all their resources provided so there is $0 provided to the parent for curriculum purchases.

Individualized Course Option: These courses require a Student Learning Plan (SLP) created in consultation with a course support teacher. For these courses, parents are required to purchase the curriculum resources need for the student to earn credit. Updated Amount: HCOS provides $100 per Individualized course.

Why does my funding amount say $0 for my Grad Program student?

This would be because you have either not selected their courses or all of the courses on their list are Online (which offer $0 in funding as all resources are provided for your student). Remember, there is $100 per Individualized course. If there are no Individualized courses, there is no funding.

How can I check on my student’s account to see the amount they have?

Log into Encom at with your parent access info. If you do not know this, contact tech support at . Once in Encom, click on “Additional Resources” at the top of the page. All the info you need is there.

My student is taking two Individualized courses (Music 10 and PE 10) so I have $200 of curriculum funding available. Can I use it all for a gym pass?

Yes, as your purchase is needed to support PE 10 outcomes. NOTE: All expenses must correlate with a course on the student’s list and be listed in the course SLP.

Is there a limit to how much I can use for consumables and third party vendors (lessons etc)?

Yes, if you have the funding available in your student’s account, there is a government regulation cap of $600. For more info on Restricted Funds please email the school office at

Can I pool family curriculum amounts and pay for an invoice for one student?

Yes, as long as you keep in mind the $600 limit for consumable or third party vendors. If you have any questions about this, please contact the office at

How do I spend my student’s available funds?

Once the office has received all your student’s required documentation, they will issue your student a Purchase Order # (PO#). You can see your student’s PO# in Encom, in their profile. You can then use this PO# to order from any of our resource vendors Invoices for lessons etc are processed by the school and can be submitted after November 1st. NOTE: The school can NOT reimburse parents directly so make sure all your purchases and invoices are processed by PO# or vendor invoices sent to the school office. All vendors must have a Criminal Record Check on file with the office in order for us to pay their invoice.

What if my student does not get an ACTIVE date for an Individualized course?

If your student does not get an ACTIVE date in an Individualized course, then we did not request the funding. As a result, the $100 associated with that course will be removedfrom your student's funding account. The amount will come out when a student removes the course from their list in Encom or at the year end when the office does reconciliations.

If you have any additional questions, please contact your Individualized Course support teacher.

They are there to help!

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  1. How to order Curriculum for Individualized/Hybrid Courses

First of all, be sure you know who your student’s teachers are. You can preview this in Encom – click on

and

When your student enrolls in an Individualized or Hybrid course, your main contact person is the course teacher. You should receive email information from them but if you do not, please contact them. They can be reached at (eg )

When you have questions to do with course resources or your Student Learning Plan for any Individualized/Hybrid course, you can

  • Contact the course teacher via email ( )
  • Read through the sample SLPs and see what the teacher suggests at (scroll down the page)

Using your Purchase Order (PO) number MY PO NUMBER IS: ______

  • Once the office has received all your documents, your student will be issued a PO number for the year. You can see that in Encom in the column on the left. It will start with the school year (eg 1718…..) If you do not have a PO number posted in Encom, please email and request one.
  • You can use your PO number at the vendors found here:
  • The office can take care of your Individualized/Hybrid curriculum orders for you for vendors that DO NOT take our PO numbers – just log into Encom and look for this link:

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  1. Monitoring Progress and Official Reporting

Your Student’s Schedule

Each of our dedicated Course Specialist teachers is there to support your student but ultimately, it is the parent’s responsibility to ensure their student sets up an appropriate study schedule.

At the Grad Program level, each course constitutes up to110 to 120 hours of work so be sure your student’s schedule takes that into account. Generally, students need to dedicate at least 25 hours per week (plus extra reading and research time) to finish 4 courses in a semester (18 weeks).

Course Progress in Moodle

Be sure you know your student’s Moodle User Name and Password (this can be set up in Encom). Until you are sure your student is on pace, please log in every week to monitor your student’s progress. When you log in, their home page will give you a quick overview of their progress and grade. Click on either one (Progress or Grade) and more details will show up:

Warning!!! The system will tell you if your student is off pace. First the progress line below the course name will go yellow, then redwhen your student is seriously behind. Yellow usually temporary and not too serious but when the line is RED, you should be hearing from their teacher. Hopefully, you catch issues before things get this far, though!

ALWAYS have your student (or you can do this) contact their teacher if they need assistance! They are there to help!

Proctored Exams

For some core courses, a support teacher may request a student write a supervised Proctored Exam. This is at the teacher’s discretion and the student and parent will be notified by the teacher. At that time, the teacher will also inform the parent and student about the process of proctoring and how that exam mark is weighed.

Official Report Cards

If your student has an Active Date (done 10% or more in a course) they will receive an term report card until they are done. Term report cards are posted in Encom in November, end of January, mid-April, end of June, and if the student is doing summer session, mid August.

In Encom, there is the option to print out the report if you would like a paper copy.

If you do not see a report for a course your student is active in, please contact their support teacher.

Ministry of Education OfficialTranscripts

We regularly submit final grades to the Ministry of Education and they post them onto the student transcript within about 4 weeks. Students can check on their transcript at

If you have questions about your transcript, please contact your Academic Advisor.

Grade 12 students may request a copy of their official transcript here:

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  1. Additional Support and Resources

Subscriptions:

We have lots of online subscriptions you can access. To find your subscriptions login information, go to your parent homepage in Encom and click on “Curriculum Resources”:

Then scroll down to find the links and passwords to the subscription(s) you are interested in.

MyBlueprint.ca

This subscription has been specially purchased for our Grad Program students and allows then to do some Career

Profiling, track their high school credits, create resumes and budgets and investigate their postsecondary options.

Students will set this account up in Planning 10 but if you would like to set it up early, feel free to go to

Code is hcos

Learning Camps/Community Connections

You may sign up for our learning camp e-alerts here: For more info on our

website, visit

Learning Commons (Online Library)

Be SURE to visit our Learning Commons and check out all the fabulous resources there! An excellent source of help is

Pippa Davies who is our Learning Commons Librarian. She can help you with both physical and virtual resources to

cover most, if not all, of your curricular needs.

Follow the link and click on this:

Request Learning Commons access info:

  • For EXPLORA (High School Online Library) - Beth Johnston –
  • L4U(Physical Library at the HCS Campus) – Shandra Wiebe –

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FINAL NOTE:

We look forward to working with you and your student in the future and pray God’s blessing on your planning and programs. Please stay in touch! We have an amazing support network and are here to serve you!

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