A gifted New York teenager has been denied the chance to graduate from high school early and receive his diploma to attend his dream college, despite already being enrolled full time at a community college.
Michael Sweeney, a 14-year-old homeschool student, is preparing to apply to Arizona State University to study mechanical engineering. However, his plans were thrown into doubt after the Bethlehem Central School District rejected his request to enter his senior year, according to the Times Union.
Sweeney, who will turn 15 in December, has made several attempts to secure approval for early graduation. School officials said his homeschool program did not satisfy the credit requirements needed for advancement.
He has already surpassed the coursework available to him and is taking advanced subjects, including Calculus III and Physics II, at a local college where he has studied full time for the past two years.
“He’s moving on to 12th grade,” his mother, Nicole Sweeney, told the outlet. “He’s testing out of every high school category at this point.”
New York’s compulsory education law requires children between the ages of 6 and 16 to receive full-time instruction. Under the current situation, Sweeney may have to wait until the 2027-2028 school year to graduate.
The teenager has completed the California Achievement Test, a standardized assessment commonly used by homeschooling families to measure academic progress and ensure students are not falling behind.
The CAT results indicate the grade level a student’s performance is equivalent to.
Sweeney earned a score of 13.5, placing his academic performance at the level of a college sophomore and indicating that he has progressed well beyond typical high school coursework.
The district could grant him permission to move forward when he turns 15, but each request so far has been rejected because officials say his homeschool course load does not align with the requirements for a student his age.
“With no compliant homeschool program your student must enroll in school, either here at Bethlehem Central or elsewhere, such as a private school,” Bethlehem Superintendent Jody Monroe wrote in a rejection letter to Sweeney’s parents, according to the outlet.
The district rejected Sweeney’s individualized home instruction plan, known as an IHIP, last year because officials said it listed college courses without documenting credits covering the requirements for grades eight through 11.
During what would have been his eighth-grade year, Sweeney completed 26 college credits while also earning high school credits intended to satisfy the requirements for grades nine through 11, the outlet reported.
He also earned government-related experience by applying for his hometown’s tree advisory committee, becoming the youngest person to interview for a position on the panel.
Now facing the possibility of repeating much of high school, potentially in a traditional classroom, Sweeney worries he may have to stop taking college courses.
“Michael’s reached his point where he needs to start taking 300-level courses and you can’t transfer in 300-level courses, so he needs to enroll in ASU full time to continue his degree path,” Nicole Sweeney said.
A school board meeting was scheduled to allow Sweeney’s parents and their lawyer to challenge the district’s decision. However, the hearing was postponed for a month while the attorneys worked privately toward a possible resolution, the outlet reported.
Sweeney’s case comes as another young New York prodigy, Long Island’s Joe Petraro-Hyppolite, was accepted into NYU’s master’s program at age 13 earlier this year after overcoming cancer and Tourette’s syndrome.
Petraro-Hyppolite, who has an Einstein-level IQ, is set to begin studying sports medicine at the New York City university next fall.
“My IQ is 168,” Joe Petraro-Hyppolite, of East Rockaway, told CBS. “Whenever I tell people, it’s like, ‘Oh, Young Sheldon, Doogie Howser.’”