Can someone explain this to me?

[TCoppock]

I've looked into the 2 virtual public schools Florida offers and neither DS qualifies to attend. The stipulation in both programs is that the child was counted in Sept. and Jan. in the PUBLIC school system. How is it that a public school can discriminate against private and homeschooled children? Isn't it public tax dollars paying for this? I honestly don't understand why a child has to be in public school the year before to attend.

 

I most likely wouldn't have switched to virtual school but knowing I CAN'T is really upsetting me.

[johnandtinagilbert]

I *thought* I read something there that specifically spoke about home schooling. Did you dig a bit?

[TCoppock]

I looked around both sites for quite sometime. It appear that homeschoolers are allowed to take classes starting in middle school. Oh well, it just seemed odd to me.

[Melissa in FL]

I don't know how old your child is, but have you looked into FLVS (I'm sure you have). Even though they start at the middle school level, you can put younger kids in it if they are ready to start those classes.

 

Yes, it would make sense for the virtual schools to be open to everyone, but this might not be a bad thing. Some of them were set up to specifically teach kids that are failing in public school. My nephew failed a class in public school and retook it in one of the virtual schools (not FLVS). He and all the other friends of his that have taken classes this way see it as a joke. The classes are very simple, teaching the minimum to pass. I believe he got an A on the virtual class after failing it in school and he said he barely had anything to do.

 

So, my understanding is most of these virtual schools you wouldn't want teaching your kids anyway. FLVS has a very good curriculum and the kids don't really use it for that easy A after they have failed a class. FLVS is known to have a pretty tough curriculum. My son has taken classes with them and done really well, but they were tough! I don't think my nephew could have even passed the geography class ds took even though my nephew is 4 years older!

 

Melissa

[PiCO]

I've looked into the 2 virtual public schools Florida offers and neither DS qualifies to attend. The stipulation in both programs is that the child was counted in Sept. and Jan. in the PUBLIC school system. How is it that a public school can discriminate against private and homeschooled children? Isn't it public tax dollars paying for this? I honestly don't understand why a child has to be in public school the year before to attend.

 

I most likely wouldn't have switched to virtual school but knowing I CAN'T is really upsetting me.

 

We have the same situation in Colorado also. I'll tell you what happened here:

 

It was part political and part financial. During the approval process, legistlators were concerned that a whole bunch of homeschoolers would flood the virtual charter schools for the "free" curricula. Since the state and local school districts have to pay the virtual charter school per student, this would cause a financial hardship for the local districts. So they eliminated the homeschoolers to get the charter approved.

 

Politically, the teacher's unions are very much opposed to all charter schools. Anything they can do to throw a wrench in the works, they'll go for it.

 

The virtual charters in this area had a work-around. They set up a "school" that met once or twice a week, made it free to anyone who didn't qualify for their school. The following year, those kids were eligible because they had participated in a public school program the previous year.