argh, can't decide what to do about charter school enrollment

[Satori]

This probably one of those "your being an idiot" posts but humor me, this is really stressing me.

Were using a parent choice charter that I love BUT we meet with the teacher monthly and we have 4 more meetings with the teacher this year. You miss 2 for what ever reason during the year (even rescheduling for the next day, your given the schedule at the beginning of the year and there is no room to change dates period) and your dropped from the school as truant. We already got dinged once (marked truant) when we got the flu and had to reschedule for a week later. (they tried changing next months date that we worked our free vacation around then threatened us if we didn't show after they changed the date)

State testing is coming up, back when we enrolled $$$ wise we were doing ok and figured we could easily swing the 2-3 days at the test site which is 3 hours away (assuming no traffic) and just make it a mini vacation. Well, things have changed and I'm seriously worried we won't be able to even cover the cost of gas. There are no make ups, if we miss 1 day we will be dropped THAT DAY as that would be our 2nd missed day and we would have to return all materials within 5 days (and they mean it! Heard some real horror stories from families leaving). There are no other test site options.

That said were using 2 K12 courses (LA, Science, and planning on adding History) that I paid for out of pocket since we used up our charter school funds. I have another child in a K12 virtual school and I spoke with her teacher and she has no problem if we sub another math program instead of using K12 math if I enroll dd as long as she's learning the same stuff. So basically we would just be adding Art and Spanish (which dd wants to take anyway) if I enrolled her and I wouldn't have the monthly OLS fees. Bonus, we don't get dinged if we have to reschedule a meeting and state testing is 5 minutes from here, at worst an hours drive.

Down side: I would have to stick to their learning schedule and not one that works for us if we need more flexibility. Not sure how we would pull off school work without the Ipad the charter school gave us while on vacation for 3 weeks (I wanna go see my best friend darn it!) my friend doesn't have a computer or internet so we would have to provide our own mobile hot spot and computer (don't wanna haul a desktop computer). We would lose access to things we use like Brainpop and ReadingPlus which is $$$$$.

I'm terrified of us not making the testing and being kicked out for being truant, the school has a history of calling CPS and reporting you as a truancy case when they drop you for the 2 missed days. I know of 3 families they did this to last year. It would also impact our ability to enroll at another charter school if we were kicked out for "truancy". Without a charter I can't afford to HS in the way that works for us and I personally need that level of hand holding and accountability even after 6 years of HS'ing. My dd is on the extreme end of being a visual-spatial learner and the K12 material is highly modified by me to work since its mostly auditory so before we even start the lesson were watching all this stuff:

Science 5, Unit 1, Lesson 1. Fresh Water - Water Resources

http://www.brainpop.com/science/earthsystem/watersupply/

http://www.brainpop.com/science/earthsystem/groundwater/

http://www.brainpop.com/science/earthsystem/watercycle/

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/environment/environmental-threats-environment/state-of-the-earth/climate-change/

http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/

Bill Nye the science guy: water cycle http://www.gamequarium.org/cgi-bin/search/linfo.cgi?id=8362

To make sure she's got a good idea of what the heck the K12 lesson is talking about. Without this level of prep it goes over her head but she does very well with the lesson when we do the prep first. The charter school pays for the brainpop btw, we would lose that and I would have to pay out of pocket. I sorta feel like I would just be trading the OLS fee's to pay for the other supports we would lose and I just can't get over that fear of "what if". I have to make up my mind by Monday if I want to switch her to CAVA due to enrollment closing (turned in the paperwork but have her wait listed to the next approval cycle on Tuesday so I could have a few days to think) WWYD? Take the safer route of CAVA or stick with the charter we love and pray we have funds for testing come April? Were hoping to move out of state this summer (hence friend paying for us to come visit her trying to get us to move to her state) but if we don't move I want to stay with the current charter. If we ended up moving where my friend is we would end up in a K12 school since they don't have any other options for charters.

[pigpokey]

So don't miss the testing.  Is there no one who can add you to the minivan?  Focus on getting the support you need for that.  Or maybe a congregation of a local church can take up an offering for your testing expenses? 

[Satori]

Originally Posted by pigpokey 

So don't miss the testing.  Is there no one who can add you to the minivan?  Focus on getting the support you need for that.  Or maybe a congregation of a local church can take up an offering for your testing expenses? 

There is only one other family in my area using the charter and they already have 5 kids so their car is full, plus we picked a different test site months ago and your not allowed to change sites once you choose. We picked the one closer to family so we could stay at night with them.

I THOUGHT I had decided to go with the K12 school and last night as I was going though stuff I realized I can't do that right now. I want my dd to be able to move at our own pace with math and do Hands on Equations before we start Pre-algebra in the fall and we won't have time to do that at our pace with K12 because we will be racing to keep up with everything else, not to mention I want to teach her to speed read to see if it helps the comprehension issues she's been having (its a visual learner thing, they are natural speed readers once taught and comp goes way up) and if we need to slow down on other subjects to take a couple weeks to do it then so be it, we have that flexibility with our current charter. I also found out the 5th grade k12 history is using a text book that's geared more for 8th graders which is going to lead to struggles I think. I don't know how were going to do it but all I can do is pray we make it to the testing. If were still here next year then I want her in the current charter.  If I have to I will drop her from the program the day before testing if we absolutely can't make it. At least we wouldn't get a truancy that way and can still enroll in a charter the following year. Were not a member of a church up here (not christian) so no help to be found there.