online curriculum for 12th grade

[ricemom3]

Here is the story...
I hs'ed ds#1 2nd thru 7th grades. Then we had serious personality problems. He has been in public school ever since. Currently he's in 12th grade. He just got a report card and failed 3 of 6 classess. He has been saying for the last yr or so that he finds it to be worthless. He thinks he learned more in 7th grade than the last couple yrs of high school. Anyway, now we have a 16 mo old, and our babysitter has gotten another job. DS #1 volunteered to quit and hs so he can watch his little brother. It sounds great to me. He is great with him and want to go into social work to work with children. DH thinks the he need to continue at the public school so he feels good about achieving something. I look at the situation and think, if he keeps failing he isn't feeling so good is he? I do not know how to convince dh. But, here is what I am looking for (it might work on him) to find some sort of online classes where he is accountable. Something that ds has to either email or go to a site to submit work or mail it in and get feedback and/or grades. Is there something like that out there that he could start now and still finish senior year to start community college in the fall?

Thank you for the help!!!

[elizawill]

personally...i would use connectionsacademy.com or k12.com and if it was not available in my state, i would pay for the international private school portion at k12. i know many mothers here don't mind the ged - but i would prefer a hs diploma for my kids, therefore, that is the route i would go in your shoes. hth.

[mom2ponygirl]

My first question would be whether he would be responsible for babysitting full-time. It is difficult for adults to balance school and looking after a toddler, so while he could do a lot of babysitting he would need sufficient time for his studies as well. My next question would be - can he take some community college classes now as dual enrollment (college classes taken for high school credit)? He would have to take something like the ACT or SAT or the community college placement test (maybe the Compass) but then he could take a class or two there. It would show that he left the brick and mortar school because he was ready to move on not because it was too difficult.

There are many online high school options - Keystone, K12, APEX come to mind right off the bat. I would also consider googling Wes Beach's high school in CA. He specializes in helping people make plans when they want to avoid the traditional high school approach. He would talk to your son about what he wants to do - social work, then help him discover what he needs to do to get there. He would then write a high school transcript for him. He would find ways to include things like the child care he would do for you, as possitive experience for his chosen field. Now, you can do all this yourself as well, but if you want the reassurance of outside help it might help ease dh's mind.

I think he could do a mix and match of some online classes, some self-study, maybe a community college class or two, and be perfectly fine with going on to college as long as it was not a highly selective ivy-league type school.

Hope this helps!

[ricemom3]

Thank you for the advice.
I should say that I get home at 1pm four days a week, Friday is until 6pm so that is the only long day. So, yes, he would have time to work on school. I love the idea of him doing community college classes right away. He could at least do one in the spring term. When I get home I will google Wes Beach and see if that would be an option.

Thank you again for the help. This might just work.

[Satori]

Check out k12.com lots of people like it