Tell me about on-line charter schools...

[mama2cntrykids]

From what I've read, they pay for the curriculum, is that right? I'm kinda looking at more of a relaxed hs. Would a charter school and relaxed hsing coincide?

Thanks!

[Aurie]

We use a charter school curriculum, but we are not signed up through the school. Thus we had to pay for the materials. From what I understand, most charter schools are really part of the public school program. Though you children aren't in the physical building, they are required to do all the testing that the public kids do. Often, you are required to be teaching at the same time as well.

I really like our curriculum. But I do not think I would sign up for it under the charter school option, even though it is free that way.

[rsps]

Charters vary so much in how flexible they are. From what I've heard they often start out pretty relaxed in the early years and then get more strict about following the public school schedule/tests as time goes on.

If you can find people in your area who are using the specific charters you are interested in, they could give you the most insight.

[Lisashepp]

You need to see what your options are in your state.

We have three online charters in my state, the first two provide a curriculum that all of their students use. The third (which I am going to enroll my dd in) allows me to choose any curriculum of my choice as long as there is no religous content and they also allow me to use part of the allotment to pay for dance and ice skating lessons. Not all states have online charters that allow you to have this much freedom.

The downfalls are state testing, mandatory teacher contact and recording attendance. However, those are small prices to pay for what we are going to get out of this online charter, I couldn't have afforded my choice curriculum on my own, and we were struggling paying for ballet, and now she can take that and ice skating lessons. It's really a wonderful thing for our family.

[mamarhu]

Online charter school did not work at all in my family. I am strongly of the unschooling attitude, but DD,11, wants and needs more structure. We enrolled in the program, and were immediately overwhelmed with the excess of structure, although they talked about how flexible they were. For example, they wanted to schedule daily online hours. Although we were "allowed " to choose the hours, it was to be 3 hours/day, within 8AM to 5PM, M-F. Any changes to the schedule had to be reported in advance. It was set up for much direct parent involvement, specifically designed by them how I would be involved. DD is a very independent learner, and really doesn't need someone to be working with her as she writes a paper or reads a book. We felt there was no room for individual interests or pacing- when the science class was about the weather, one was to read the assigned text, even if the local science museum had a fantastic exhibit on meteorology, even if DD was reading a great archeology book.

For us, it just seemed like moving the public school into our home - way too intrusive! And they even required proof of immunizations, because it is a public school (even though DD would never meet her "classmates")! Does the logic in that make any sense?

[Alana]

We were in one this year. I am in the process of taking my ds out. I couldnt stand it. My ds just needed to learn enough to pass the assessments, if we wanted to spend extra time on something for the fun of it, we would fall behind. If we fell behind we were told we needed to catch up. I felt it was as if my ds was supposed to have a flip top head and I was to just cram the info in so he could pass the assessment, which is at the end of every lesson.

I nearly did just put him in school, it was very detrimental for our relationship.

We are now using Sonlight, and my kids are sad when our school work for the day is over. HUGE change.

I do know that the VA's do work for other families, but it sure didnt for ours.