part-time public schools?

[srain]

My son isn't ready for school yet, but the ideal situation for us would be to have him in public school 2 or 3 days a week and homeschool the rest of the time. Has anyone ever heard of anyone finding a school willing to do this? Or are we crazy to even think about the possibility?

[lauren]

I have heard some folks talking about options like this, but it depends on the community. I think it sounds like a wonderful idea. My sense is that most public schools want all or nothing, and they would question your criteria for evaluating that he's not ready, as opposed to their criteria which may be more broad. If you are in a fairly progressive region (politically and/or educationally) it may be good to ask at least. Where I live it is rarely done. Let us know what happens!

[erika]

You might find the answer in the homeschooling laws for your state. Iowa, where I live, has very liberal homeschooling laws, so the district is required to let you put your child in part-time if that is what you want. The district may not like it, but they don't have a choice, and it is up to you whether you do it two hours a day/two days a week or whatever. The downside is that some teachers may be irritated by it and take it out on the child in subtle ways. Find out what the state law is (and your school district may or may not be informed about the law, but your local homeschooling organization can probably help you) and take it from there.

Alternatively, have you considered homeschooling for the first year or two and then moving into public school when your child is ready?

[sleepies]

that might be a nice way.

good luck

let us know how it goes.

best of both worlds,? maybe?

[dfoy]

I used to be an Assistant Principal

and in the district I worked in, we had a policy which allowed homeschooled children to attend part time. Since I was in a middle school, the students would come for certain classes, say Orchestra or Biology or PE. The only problem came when students wanted to participate in athletic or curriculum-based competitions (mathletics, music contests, football, cross country meets, etc.). Each state has its own set of rules for competitions and in this state a student must be present in school for 3/4 of the school day that day (or the previous day if it is Saturday) to compete. I'd ask the principal at the school or call the district office. I would think you could work something out.

[rsps]

There is a public charter school in our area that has something like that. I think it has options for all home learning or part-time on campus.

edited to add:

here's their website

www.tcacharter.org

maybe they would know of a school with a similar approach in your area.

[Zelda]

Originally posted by erika
You might find the answer in the homeschooling laws for your state. Iowa, where I live, has very liberal homeschooling laws, so the district is required to let you put your child in part-time if that is what you want. The district may not like it, but they don't have a choice, and it is up to you whether you do it two hours a day/two days a week or whatever.

I live in Dubuque Iowa, and the public schools in this city changed from half-day to mandatory full-day kindergarten this school year. My youngest son happened to be the right age for kindergarten this year, and we were torn about whether or not to homeschool him, and in many ways still are undecided.

I talked to several people working in the school system and they unanimously said that we as parents had NO CHOICE about full days. If I wanted to send my child to Kindergarten, FULL DAY was the only option. If this was not the law, I wish I would have known what to say to make them comply, because I wished very much to have the option to send him half-days.

In my opinion, the full-day Kindergarten is being used by working parents as a state daycare. Not only that, but the school's mentality is to pretend that Stay-at-Home parents don't exist. My guess is that they must take this stance in order to assume more importance in the lives of our children. If a little education is good, more is better, right..? With the result being that "school" grows and grows until it swallows up the child's whole waking life.

I myself am unhappy with the idea of raising a child until age 5 or 6 and then being forced by law into handing him into someone else's unsupervised care for 6-7 hours per day. The schools here are hostile to parent input. I suppose it is because school administrators must be convinced that "educating" children so young is a worthy cause. They have to strip them from the arms of their parents in order to take full control. I resent it.

I've sat in on my son's classroom several times, and I believe that he is receiving a so-so educational experience. Some moments are good, others are negative. He is reluctant to go to school and it is a chore to get him out of bed in the morning. Every day he asks me to homeschool him.

I've been thinking about taking him out of school until he's six years old (that is the start of mandatory education in Iowa) but probably what will happen is that we just stumble along for the rest of the school year. I'm so glad I didn't send him to preschool. There are many things I dislike about this school district, and the primary thing I dislike is how strongly they devalue parenting.

[erika]

Zelda, I completely agree that school is being used as free daycare. Can't say I blame folks who have to work, particularly single parents. But I don't like the idea of other people being forced into it, particularly in kindergarten.

I would like to reiterate that part-time options are the law in Iowa, even if your school is ignorant of the law. Check out http://eho.org/support/ for the text of the law, or ask your librarian where to find the laws in your library. Get in touch with an Iowa homeschooling group. Take a copy of the law to the local principal or whomever. If you really want the part-time option, go for it. Or go for homeschooling, if that's what you want to do. If your son wants out of school, you can remove him midyear. You can always send him back to school if it isn't working at home.

good luck!!!!

[sleepies]

srain

that sounds like a great alternative!!!!!

the child would get the benefits from your homeschooling and also the benefits from school (which i think are MANY)

great idea and GOOOOOOOOOOOOD LUCK

I have no idea if you can pull it of, but do try if that is your goal

sounds like a VERY GOOD plan.

[SagMom]

You can go here: http://www.nhen.org/leginfo/state_list.html and click on the state you're in to see the homeschooling laws and to get a list of some homeschooling organizations in your area. As was pointed out, some states allow part time homeschooling and others don't.

[lauren]

Zelda-

I was wondering--if by law your child isn't required to go to school until age 6, then how could they force you to do full day in k-garten? By virtue of the law, you could bring your child to k-garten for one hour per day if you so chose.

When my son's school chose to implement full day k-garten, many of us parents (those who were SAHM and working parents) were vocal to the school board, in person and by letter. We DID succeed in getting them to consider a compromise in which the full day was phased in, rather than starting the first day of school. This allowed some children who needed more time to adjust to do so. They weren't full day until late October. While I am still philosophically opposed to full day k-garten, my son did do o.k. and has learned a lot and we've found ways to connect through school. (his k-garten teacher was terrific!) If it came up again, though, I would fight it again, and I am very glad we won the compromises.

[bestjob]

I have been thinking about this situation for some time, and I've come up with a few things to think about. The first is that the classroom situation and the teacher will be the real link to success. Our school runs on a 5-day cycle, not according to the days of the week. That means that library day, phys-ed day, and computer class day all change whenever there is a long weekend, PA day, etc. Also, some teachers like to cover the 3 R's in the morning, then have other things on in the afternoon. If you want particular parts of the program, you will find yourself having to accomodate the schedule of the teacher and the other children.

The second thing to think about is whether your son will think it is a great situation to go home when all his friends get to stay at school.

A third thing is to consider what will be happening when your son isn't at the school and whether he will be uncomfortable or hampered by the missing that part of the program. Our children go to a French Immersion school, and in the first few years, they spend a lot of time doing the same things at school as they would at home, but the important thing from the immersion perspective is that they have a chance to do those familiar things in French. I don't know if the same thing is true for children who are in school in their mother tongue.

For what it's worth, there are my thoughts.