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For those of you that put your dc into public schools


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Hello everyone,

 

My ds is in 9th grade and is a tennis player. He really wants to play on the high school team, but our district will not allow him to play as a homeschooler. He would need to be a full-time student in the high school. My ds is not so sure he wants to go to school, but he would really love to play for the team. We are both conflicted about this and have begun to pray about what we should do for next year. We have tried to find resources for him to play tennis, but they are limited.

 

My son is an average student, and we have come to realize academics may not be his gift. He is passionate about tennis, and I am wondering if putting him into school will allow him to pursue what he loves. He is very social, and we don't see having problems adjusting to school.

 

If you have put your dc into ps, could you share the pros/cons?

 

TIA

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I only removed my last child last year, so right now I only have cons. But I would encourage you to do some research to present to the school district about homeschooled athletes who compete on public school teams. Like this year's heisman trophy winner who was homeschooled K-12. He even has a law named after him. Just a thought.

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Can your son play for a club team? (not sure what these are called for tennis:) Maybe he does already? Is there anyway he could play for a private school in the area? In some places there are more options.

 

Since you say he is not academically oriented I would make sure that you know what grades he needs to be able to play. Also I know that at some of the high schools here, there are real tryouts for athletic teams and if you are not good enough you don't make the team. Others are so small that everybody plays. This might be something to think about before enrolling.

 

My 12yo would totally love to be able to swim for a high school team when the time comes. However, our state high school athletic rules make that impossible. So she will have to continue swimming for private teams until college because our goals for her education and her other interests just do not mesh w/ the local PS; it isn't really an option for her at this point. We'll see how it looks in a few years though.

 

hth,

georgia

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My older son, who had been homeschooled all his life, went to PS for high school. He really wanted instruction in art, and I couldn't give it to him at home, so he went to school. It was a mixed bag. In his artistic endeavors he excelled. He learned a lot and won a lot of contests. Eventually, he was able to get into our state's residential high school for artists and that's where he is now.

 

My son is very average academically. His SAT total of CR and Math is just over 1000. He has a less-than-3.0 average. In 9th and 10th grade, he took all the "Honors" courses he could and he discovered that in his school, Honors classes meant students could read. He thought they were "normal" classes. Sometimes he had to take "regular" classes because there weren't Honors alternatives. In those classes, he said the students couldn't read or write. He was appalled. Yes, he could've made straight A's, but the funny thing is, having easy classes demotivated him. An A wasn't worth anything. And, being highly social, he didn't care about grades.

 

He enjoyed the social aspects of HS so much, that there would be no getting him back to homeschool, ever. He learned some things that I wish he hadn't and he became more cynical.

 

Here's something he said in 9th grade....I wrote it down after he said it.

 

"When I was was homeschooled, I used to look around and think people were the most creative, inventive creatures. Now that I’ve been to ScoolName, I’m amazed at how primitive people really are. They are selfish and inconsiderate. They need to teach morals at SchoolName."

 

Overall, I'd say it's a mixed bag. My younger son is still homeschooled and my older son thinks it's awful. He thinks I'm ruining him for life by doing so and that his brother needs to get out in the real world and toughen up.

 

Well, I don't know. But there are some things about my older son that are worse now that he's been to PS....there are some things that are better.

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Overall it was a positive experience. He took all honors and 1 AP class and his teachers were excellent. They were enthusiastic and committed. Most had masters or doctorates. His school work was strenous and he worked hard. He made good friends who were mostly positive influences.

 

The negatives: He stopped reading unless it was assigned so he's probably read about 8 books in the last 4 years. I was used to assigning him 15 books a year which he would read without complaint. There wasn't time or the interest for him to do this in public school. He is a senior this year and is through with all the drama and confinement of high school. He is taking all his courses at a community college for duel enrollment. That isn't a bad thing but if he had to stay in the high school classroom this whole year it would've driven him crazy.

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In our school system if my children wanted to enter after 9th grade they would have lost all of their homeschool credits so you'll need to find our your local policy regarding entering after 9th grade.

 

Our area does have a decent tennis program but the outside recreation and private teams are just as good or better so it might be worthwhile to look into alternatives.

 

Regarding academics and social, my dss went into 8th grade public school last year and is this year in a private school and the transition has been very good. He is doing very well academically and has some really good friends. Most of his friends are from church but he does have a good group at school.

 

Good luck with your decision.

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My dd was very similar in terms of tennis and academics. One thing I would advise is checking out the quality of the tennis team. Ours is a small rural team that was used to losing all its matches. It has not been a good fit because the other team members are more interested in the social aspects of being on the team than tennis itself. Also, the quality of the coaching is very bad. Having said that, public high school has benefited my dd in a number of ways. She is not academically gifted, but she is very social. Being in public school has motivated her to work harder than she did for us in order to keep up with her peers. Also, she has finally developed some time management skills. If I had to weigh all of the pluses and minuses, overall the experience has been a plus one. It's not perfect, but homeschooling high school would not have been perfect either.

 

Have you had your son join USTA? Membership cost for juniors is under $20 for a year, I think, and they offer tournament play year-round. This is how our dd has been able to play a lot of tennis. You can sign up for a tournament online (cost varies, but usually around $35 for singles play) and they post the ladder online a few days beforehand. Each player is guaranteed a minimum of 2 matches. A player who wins keeps playing. Typically these tournies start late Friday afternoon, go through Saturday, and have semifinals and finals matches on Sunday. They do tend to eat up a whole weekend, but this is actually less of a strain when you homeschool. The USTA website can be difficult to figure out until you have played with it for awhile. Click on "Tournaments & Leagues" and under that on "Juniors". If you don't know what your region is, you may want to telephone (look for contact info). After you know your region, you can look up all the tournies scheduled for boys in your son's age group (and older, if he's a great player. You can play up in age, but not down.) Send me a private message if you get stuck and I'll try to help you through the website. USTA also has junior teams that you can join.

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Well, I did not go the public school route, as all ours here are 2000 strong and I thought that was just too, too big. My son entered a private school of almost 900 this past fall, as a sophomore. He is also extremely social and this is the reason he wanted to go back to school. He has loved it and has acclimated well.

 

I think if your son is good at organizing his notebooks, work schedule, etc. Or if you think you can help him to be proficient at this, then he shouldn't have too difficult a time getting into the routine of the classes and homework, etc.

 

Will he be able to play tennis year round through the school? If it's only for a short time during the school year, then he might not feel the trade-offs are worth it....

 

Regena

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Hi there,

 

We put our oldest daughter into ps in 10th grade. It was an agonizing decision for us! But it's been an interesting journey, and as she's about to graduate at the end of this year, we're not sorry we did it.

 

In the process of making this decision and watching how well she's done in school, I've gradually come to the amazing realization that, aha! homeschooling is not for everyone! Ack, did I just say that? She is a wonderful girl, and has a very strong faith. Her father and I absolutely trusted her and knew that if faced with any choices that teenagers are typically faced with these days out in the "world", we could count on her to choose what we would want her to each time. (Hope I worded that correctly...) But knowing that was absolutely essential to our decision.

 

But as wonderful as she is, she is an "arguer" at home. I had struggled to teach her for the better part of 10 years. We had done our best together, but she is not naturally a "pleaser", nor is she necessarily an independent learner, and I think I realized that maybe this kind of kid doesn't necessarily make a great homeschooler. Once we put her in school, in 9 different classes with teachers that she couldn't argue with, her ability to learn jumped dramatically! And our relationship, hers and mine, also improved dramatically.

 

Since being in school, she's realized how incredibly immature her peers who have been in ps their whole lives are. Score a point for homeschoolers - she's also realized how much socially mature her homeschooling friends are!

 

We definitely had a "learning curve". During her first marking period she was EXHAUSTED. She had to get used to getting up at 6:45 am every morning, and being away from home 7 hours every day. She was stressed out and anxious, and didn't get what the big deal was about grades. But when that first report card came in, she decided that maybe she would rather have As on it, and spent more time studying, thus bringing in the As. The anxiety and stress resolved itself as she got used to "the world", and overall it's been a good thing. She's had access to photography and fine arts classes that we wouldn't have been able to give her otherwise. She's shocked at the prevalence of bad language and the ease with which her peers use it. But the whole experience has made her stronger as a person. And we laugh because she used to HATE Rush Limbaugh when her dad listened to him every day....now she really likes to listen to him because she gets "ammunition" to use when her classes digress onto liberal political tangents!

 

We would rather have been able to put her in a private Christian school, more in tune with our beliefs, but that wasn't possible. And something else good has come out of this in my opinion: she's now determined to go to a Christian college, looking forward to it, in fact, after her three years in ps.

 

Our other two are more "pleasers" at home, and easier homeschoolers, so I'm not sure yet whether we'll do the same thing with them. My philosophy ever since we started homeschooling has always been "one year at a time!"

 

I hope you are able to find the best solution for your son! I thought the USTA suggestion was great. Either way, I think it's wonderful that you've found something he loves to do, and I wish you all the best.

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My older son, who had been homeschooled all his life, went to PS for high school. He really wanted instruction in art, and I couldn't give it to him at home, so he went to school. It was a mixed bag. In his artistic endeavors he excelled. He learned a lot and won a lot of contests. Eventually, he was able to get into our state's residential high school for artists and that's where he is now.

 

My son is very average academically. His SAT total of CR and Math is just over 1000. He has a less-than-3.0 average. In 9th and 10th grade, he took all the "Honors" courses he could and he discovered that in his school, Honors classes meant students could read. He thought they were "normal" classes. Sometimes he had to take "regular" classes because there weren't Honors alternatives. In those classes, he said the students couldn't read or write. He was appalled. Yes, he could've made straight A's, but the funny thing is, having easy classes demotivated him. An A wasn't worth anything. And, being highly social, he didn't care about grades.

 

He enjoyed the social aspects of HS so much, that there would be no getting him back to homeschool, ever. He learned some things that I wish he hadn't and he became more cynical.

 

Here's something he said in 9th grade....I wrote it down after he said it.

 

"When I was was homeschooled, I used to look around and think people were the most creative, inventive creatures. Now that I’ve been to ScoolName, I’m amazed at how primitive people really are. They are selfish and inconsiderate. They need to teach morals at SchoolName."

 

Overall, I'd say it's a mixed bag. My younger son is still homeschooled and my older son thinks it's awful. He thinks I'm ruining him for life by doing so and that his brother needs to get out in the real world and toughen up.

 

Well, I don't know. But there are some things about my older son that are worse now that he's been to PS....there are some things that are better.

 

 

Sandra, the last part of your post really resonates with me! My ds is very much like yours. He isn't talented in art, but he does have an appreciation for literature and music and creativity in general. He is fascinated with science topics--except when they are presented in PS.:rolleyes:

 

We also have a younger ds and our older one is always saying that he should never have been HSed and that younger ds should go to school and toughen up in the "real world." Ironically, I don't think older ds even loves his real world experience of PS. He generally thinks his peers are either stupid, boring, or stuck up (if not all of the above). He was well liked by most adults as a homeschooler, and still is by many teachers, but every now and then the clueless type or the ones with little ADHD knowledge find him hard to deal with. He is not well liked by peers, and the few that accept him are not the ones I'd prefer he be around so often. He is in low classes because of the troubles he had in middle school (also PS, and ADHD related rather than actual intelligence).

 

He thought he'd go to school for fun, better teachers than mom (we clashed over math!), and sports. But it is hard to make the sports teams and he barely has time for any extras when he takes so doggone long to do homework...

 

I'd think long and hard before putting any not very motivated student into PS. They can fall thru the cracks and there is no guarantee when it comes to playing sports.

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Thank you ladies for you thoughts and suggestions. As I have been praying about this, I have come to the realization that tennis is an issue, but I think the bigger issue is that a homeschool environment may not be the best place for my son.

 

My son needs outside motivation. His personality and learning style is so very different than mine that it is a constant struggle to teach him. He is very grounded, has great interpersonal skills, and we talk constantly, but we struggle to get school done each day. When he is motivated, he does get things done, but it's so hard for him to get motivated with me. When he does have outside pressuer, he seems to work a little better. I feel sometimes I am failing him by making too many accomodations. (If he is not prepared for a test, we will extend it, and extend it etc..) I do not have this problem with his younger siblings because they are similar to me--very task oriented, but with my oldest son, it's so hard.

 

We have been homeschooling for 3 years, and we really enjoy it. We had plans to homeschool all through high shool. I am realizing that maybe homeshool is not a good fit for all students, but I didn't want to admit this. (Thank you Amy from WT for giving me permission to admit this).

 

In terms of tennis, he plays through USTA. He plays in two tournaments a month, trains 4 times a week at the club and participates in every opportunity there is. In our area, most of the good players all play on the high school teams, so he is not very challenged through the trainings he receives at the tennis club. He really wants to be on a team.

 

I have learned that in our school district, they will not give us credits for the work he did in homeschool. He will have to take a test. Thank you to the moms that pointed this out (we are new to TX and didn't realize this). So, if we put him into school, we may have to move fast and do it this semester. We are meeting with the tennis coach tomorrow to get my son assessed and see how he will fit into the tennis program at school. Once we get him assessed, I think we will have a better idea of how to proceed. We are in a very good school district, and the school has a good tennis program. This is reassuring. BUT it's so hard to just let him go!

 

Thank you everyone for posting and helping me through this. I will post again to let you know how we decide.

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