does anyone know of a free or cheap correspondance school?

[rocky]

Hi everyone, new here -

I live on a Dutch Caribbean Island where homeschool is not legal.

I think I can enroll my kids (ages 5, 8 and 10) into a 'correspondance school' in order to comply with the law here. 

but I'm a single mom of three kids and already this will be hard - I cannot have financial burdens to go along with it - espcially since I don't want the course.  I just need it to comply with the laws of this country.  I need to be careful b/c my ex H does not agree with HS and could try to take the kids away from me.  (things have calmed down since our divorce, however, and I'm becoming more confident that this will not happen).   

I would really appreciate your help with creative solutions for this. I divorced about 2 years ago and was forced for reasons of immigration and the divorce to put the kids in school.  (they were unschooled before the divorce) It was definitely the right thing to do as the most important thing to me was not to lose custody.  Because my ex H was anti homeschool and the laws here are anti homeschool it was the right decision at that time.  (I got full legal and physical custody no questions asked!).  But now I'm ready to move forward and it's time to take the kids out of school.  I'm fed up and living a life that I don't really believe in and just feel ready to get back on track.

This will not be an overnight thing - but I'm hoping this will be their last year of school - possibly even finishing by January.  I will need to work the legal aspect of this and also try to get my ex H on board a bit because we do rely on him for money - and without his help I would have to go back to work - meaning kids remain in school.  He lives in Italy and I have no family here so it's really just me and the kids 365.  If I am at work the whole thing collapses - even if they're in school. 

So I need a free or very cheap correspondance school to comply with Dutch law

I could also use some excellent hs info in the Italian Language - or something extremely well written but short and to the point in easy to read English.  And any other creative solutions anyone may have relating to this argument.  Especially if anyone has experience dealing with hs in Holland I'd be very interested.  (It should probably be an American corr. school but I'm open to whatever's out there)

TIA

[moominmamma]

I wonder if what you're asking for is more of an umbrella school, one that creates the administrative trappings of school enrollment like credits and grades and a transcript and a designated teacher-supervisor, but without issuing you a curriculum that needs to be turned in. If so, a couple you might be interested in are Clonlara (in the US) and SelfDesign (in Canada). Both are quite unschooling friendly. They're not dirt cheap, but they're certainly not anything like the cost of enrolling in a full-curriculum correspondence school.

Miranda

[rocky]

Originally Posted by moominmamma 

administrative trappings of school enrollment

yes that's what I think I need - administrative trappings. I'll look into those two. thx

[rocky]

Intrigued that Clonlara is based in Ann Arbor and that is where I'm from and where I'll often be visiting if we are able to swing this.  My parents and brother and his family are there. 

Am going to seriously research this.  I think there could be something to this.

The thing is that being in Ann Arbor seriously adds legitimacy to my whole argument both for my ex and for the gov't here.  That it is irrelevant where a correspondance school is based is unimportant.  It could help build my case in a very concrete way because I am not actually trying to convince people who will ever try to understand the real agrument.  My ex only wants to disagree with me and the gov't here is just a stumbling block... this is sooooo good. thx.

But btw still looking for any and all other thoughts and creative solutions.  And since this school will mean shelling out a few thousand dollars per year I am of course interested in free and cheaper alternatives.