IRT the pensions in IL, teachers don't pay into, nor will they ever get, Social Secority benefits. It depends on the district whether teachers actually pay for their contribution to eir pensions (mandatory 9.3%) or if it's paid by the district. You might have heard, but we've had a long run of corrupt politicians from both sides of the aisle here in IL. :lol: The state has been borrowing (essentially stealing) from the teachers, police and fire pensions for decades. Suddenly the economy crashes and IL is facing ginormous pension obligations, along with a massive budget shortfall. As far as $71K being a huge salary, it's not in Chicago. The cost of living is amongst the highest in the country.

I'm currently president of our Home and School Association, which is a parent organization but we don't have to pay the PTA dues. We do one big fundraiser in the fall and a small one in the spring. We sell Market Day and have community nights at restaurants twice a month where they pay us 10-20% of our sales. 95% of the money raised goes right back to student programs and teachers. I recommend being involved because it's a good way to learn about school news from the principal, not the grapevine. I've also gotten to know all of the teachers in the building, which is nice. My older son has Asperger's so having a relationship with them before the start of school HS been very helpful.

School boards choose textbooks. Typically administration makes recommendations, but ultimately the board has the final say on the text.

Yes, definitely sturdier. And they don't look as cheap, IMHO.

In my house, that "Mom" is usually multi-syllabic. Mmmm-ooooo-oommmmmm. Ugh :lol: We have locks, but don't use them much. I grew up in an old farmhouse, so we didn't have locks. Well, we did, but you needed a skeleton key to use them so we never did. DH is English and he locks the bathroom door every.single.time. His entire family does too, here or there. It was very disconcerting for him to use the bathroom at the farmhouse. LOL

I'm in a suburb of Chicago and most of my friends don't work. I'd say of my larger circle of acquaintances through school/neighborhood, it's probably 70% don't. Most of the men are white collar middle or upper management, so we're able to stay home. I've always felt blessed that I have the option. I gave up my career to do it and I don't regret it.

I think that really is a British English (vs. American English) use and doesn't imply that anything else is improper. DH is English and we often joke that we speak entirely different languages. LOL After almost 13 years of marriage, I recognize most of the context differences, but it sure led to some interesting (and heated) "discussions" until I did. :lol:

All of the History Odyssey Level 2 books are up to $44.50! I ordered Ancients two weeks ago for $28.95. Yikes!

We're just starting to plan it all out, today, in fact, so I don't have answers for you yet. DH loves science so he's going to do the investigations with DD and I'll do the lessons during the week. I'll be happy to share what we figure out. It's our first year HSing, so we're probably a lot slower with our planning than all you pros. :001_smile:

I did the opposite. I bought C-rods first. All three kids (6, 10, 12) loved them, but I quickly realized that we needed a base-10 set too. Thank goodness for Amazon Prime! :)

Hi, I'm Robyn and this is my first post. :) I've been lurking for about 6 months. DD had a rough first year of jr. high in PS (6th grade) and begged all year to be homeschooled. I started researching, found WTM and have read religiously since. DH and I just decided that we're going to try HSing for 7th grade and see how it goes. I've grown really excited about it (after saying for years that I could never do it) and can't wait to get started. We're going to start light and add in a subject every few weeks so that we both can adjust to our new roles. DD is an honors student and one of her big complaints about PS was the slow pace in science and history so we're going to try to accelerate to a pace that pushes her. She excelled in honors math, so we'll keep up the rigorous pace there. She got good grades in honors language arts, but it took hours upon hours of work. She's a very literal girl and really struggled with literary analysis. We're going to slow down with that and do some serious socratic discussions so I can help her start to see beyond the actual words. We'll work on grammar and vocabulary as well since neither was a big focus of the elementary curriculum here. Nice to officially "meet" everyone!