S/) is homeschooling the "in" thing for ps parents to threaten?

[Meriwether]

A few posters in the "parents threatening to homeschool" thread mentioned parents threatening the school admintrators by saying they would homeschool their kids if their demands weren't met. That got me thinking about schools wanting kids to attend because of the money attached to them.

 

My sister and I have always homeschooled in relative anonymity. Relative because I am currently in a smallish town now but we aren't from here and aren't super involved in the community.

 

My sister recently moved back to our hometown. There are about 3,000 people in the entire county and the school is getting smaller every year. My sister has 5 kids but only 3 will be school age this year. When they moved back, the town was all excited about having a big family move into town. The town, collectively, is really irate now that she is still planning on homeschooling. People have complained to her, her BIL, and my parents. She was accosted in the grocery store and informed that by keeping her kids out of the school the school would not get any money for them.

 

We are hoping that the attention dies down as the townsfolk get used to the idea, but is this kind of reaction typical in a small town where everyone knows everyone else's business?

 

ETA: The title should be S/O. I hit the wrong key. I can't even blame it on the baby since she is off my lap for once!

[Night Elf]

Wow, that's awful. :(

[twoforjoy]

I've never heard of that happening. It seems silly. There are so many overcrowded schools with very poor facilities. More kids enrolled does not equal better schools due to more funding.

 

I'm pretty sure, though, that a lot of the reason why DS's charter school was so reluctant to have me pull him was because he was scoring really, really high on the standardized tests they gave. He was in the advanced kindy class, and his scores were like 40 points higher than the next highest-scoring student. They were willing to make all kinds of concessions they wouldn't have normally made--like letting me enroll him only half time--to get him to stay, and I'm cynical enough to be pretty sure that it was simply because he was bringing up the test scores. I have a friend who had a cousin who the same thing happened to in high school. He was going to leave school to be homeschooled, but he performed very, very well on standardized tests, and the school resorted to everything short of bribery to try to get him to stay.

[....]

When we pulled our kids out of ps in MO, people were pretty belligerent about it, too. Then, we move to TX and no one notices (or cares). Lol.

 

I don't know what it is. My kids scored really high on standardized testing also. Maybe it has something to do with that...maybe it's a money issue...maybe they take it as a personal insult or something... I have no idea. I don't know what their problem was.

 

Edited to say: I was really nice about it, too. I wrote a personal letter to the superintendent complimenting our teacher and the principal. I tried to make it clear that it wasn't personal.

[Jean in Newcastle]

I would be tempted to ask them if they are willing to back up their concern for the school's coffers by having tons of children to fill the school halls. It's easy to express concern for the school when it doesn't actually mean changing their own family's dynamics or practices.

[Alphabetika]

I've never heard of that happening. It seems silly. There are so many overcrowded schools with very poor facilities. More kids enrolled does not equal better schools due to more funding.

 

I'm pretty sure, though, that a lot of the reason why DS's charter school was so reluctant to have me pull him was because he was scoring really, really high on the standardized tests they gave. He was in the advanced kindy class, and his scores were like 40 points higher than the next highest-scoring student. They were willing to make all kinds of concessions they wouldn't have normally made--like letting me enroll him only half time--to get him to stay, and I'm cynical enough to be pretty sure that it was simply because he was bringing up the test scores. I have a friend who had a cousin who the same thing happened to in high school. He was going to leave school to be homeschooled, but he performed very, very well on standardized tests, and the school resorted to everything short of bribery to try to get him to stay.

 

A friend of mine who homeschooled through a public charter opted not to have her kids do standardized testing because of the time commitment in driving back and forth for the few days in a row the testing was being held (school was a few hours away). The administrator begged her to reconsider, saying, "We need the homeschool students' test scores to bring up the curve!"

[rocketgirl]

I heard a very similiar story from a homeschool mom I know and she only had one school age child when she moved into a small town.

[Joy at Home]

I'm pretty sure our public school still gets tax dollars for hs kids. Does this vary by state (we're in PA)? One year we cyber chartered oldest dd and I know the district was upset because funds were diverted there that year as opposed to th prior years homeschooling.

 

Lisa

[Alphabetika]

I'm pretty sure our public school still gets tax dollars for hs kids. Does this vary by state (we're in PA)? One year we cyber chartered oldest dd and I know the district was upset because funds were diverted there that year as opposed to th prior years homeschooling.

 

Lisa

 

Here the p.s. still gets some tax money but there is also a "per student" cost that the school doesn't get unless a student is physically there or homeschools through the public system. So indies like me are - according to some - a drain on the system. This makes no sense to me because, after all, if my children aren't there, no one at the p.s. has to educate them, so just take the taxes we're forced to pay to the system and be thankful. But I digress... :tongue_smilie:

[Molly]

We live rurally and our eldest daughter went to the local school which had a bit under 60 students. When we pulled her out, they were quite determined to change my mind, only because they knew they were at the time losing three students as my next two were due to start school over the next two years. Would have been a bit hit really. Even now out and about in the community we are asked when we are going to put the children into school.

[Mommy22alyns]

Here the p.s. still gets some tax money but there is also a "per student" cost that the school doesn't get unless a student is physically there or homeschools through the public system. So indies like me are - according to some - a drain on the system. This makes no sense to me because, after all, if my children aren't there, no one at the p.s. has to educate them, so just take the taxes we're forced to pay to the system and be thankful. But I digress... :tongue_smilie:

 

 

Yes, this. These stories make me glad that my small town isn't that small. :glare:

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

If you'd never had children they (the schools) wouldn't have gotten money either. So what's the difference to them?

[GWOB]

When we moved to our small town, my oldest finished out the school year (ds wasn't school age yet) at the ps. The next fall the older two both started at the local school. They had tons of friends. I had tons of friends. I thought we had moved to the friendliest place in the world! We all would get tons of invites to play dates, parties, mom gatherings, etc. Then I pulled them out:glare:. People stopped talking to me. Teachers, who previously went out of their way to speak to me at school, would avoid me at the one grocery store in town. My phone was silenced. People really seemed angry that I took my kids out of school. They both were high-preforming kids, so I think that may have had a lot to do with it. Ds, who was only in K, was being sent to the 3rd grade title 1 teacher for reading (yep, I don't get the reasoning either) due to his high reading level. I'm sure there was some weird sort of funding going on there. I would guess that many locals do get angry when people move here and do not enroll their kids in school. The school is one of the biggest employers in town. They hire teachers depending on enrollment, so some people's jobs actually depend on enrollment. People have just been so mean and hateful that I just really don't give a flying fig anymore. We have a great homeschooling community here (rather large considering the size of the town) and that has made a world of difference.

[dangermom]

Yeah, if anything they are just glad to have a tax paying body in the town (who doesn't use half the services).

 

Again, I don't get the argument that they lose money because your child is not enrolled.

I've never gotten it either, but they really do care and really do consider it to be losing money. I just don't understand why.

 

Here in CA, you get money for every student, scaled to the daily attendance. If the kid misses a lot of school, the school doesn't get as much money.

[twoforjoy]

Yeah, if anything they are just glad to have a tax paying body in the town (who doesn't use half the services).

 

Again, I don't get the argument that they lose money because your child is not enrolled.

 

I don't get it, either. It's not like public schools are raking in profits. They're struggling to educate the kids they have with the money they have. If you bring in more kids, you're only going to bring in a proportional amount of money, you know?

 

Let's say the school received $10 for each student (I know that's wildly inaccurate, but this is a hypothetical). They have 20 students, so $200. And they're struggling to educate 20 students on $200. How would having 22 students to educate on $220 make the situation any better? It just doesn't make sense to me.

[GWOB]

Yeah, if anything they are just glad to have a tax paying body in the town (who doesn't use half the services).

 

Again, I don't get the argument that they lose money because your child is not enrolled.

 

I don't know all the intricacies of school funding vs. enrollment. I do know our small town school occasionally has to hire an extra teacher if a particular grade has a certain amount of students. For instance, the year we enrolled ds in kindy, there were 60 other Kers. The school had to hire an extra teacher to cover the increase in students. Most of the teachers here were born and raised here, so their jobs basically depend on enrollment. Now, out of those 61 Kers, only 55 went to first grade due to moving, tranfering to a different school, or in our case hsing. So, since the school already had 3 1st grade teachers, they had no need to hire another. The locals get ticked when you don't enroll your kids and provide jobs for other locals.

[Jayne J]

A recent hometown newpaper editorial ran a letter from the local school superintendant about the trend toward cyberschooling and homeschooling. Apart from it's outraged tone and condescending attitude, I noticed something--he wrote that "they" (cyberschools) take "our" (the school district's) money away. He had an attitude of entitlement, as if the money actually belonged to the district and these students were stealing it. Although the amounts of money are smaller when dealing with homeschoolers rather than cyberschoolers (it my vary in other states, I'm not sure) the school districts seem to feel that the money is theirs and does not belong to the taxpayer, nor the actual student for whom it is delegated. I bet this has alot to do with the grief peole get from their districts. You are stealing money that belongs to them (in their minds.) Ahhh public servants...

[pdalley]

A recent hometown newpaper editorial ran a letter from the local school superintendant about the trend toward cyberschooling and homeschooling. Apart from it's outraged tone and condescending attitude, I noticed something--he wrote that "they" (cyberschools) take "our" (the school district's) money away. He had an attitude of entitlement, as if the money actually belonged to the district and these students were stealing it. Although the amounts of money are smaller when dealing with homeschoolers rather than cyberschoolers (it my vary in other states, I'm not sure) the school districts seem to feel that the money is theirs and does not belong to the taxpayer, nor the actual student for whom it is delegated. I bet this has alot to do with the grief peole get from their districts. You are stealing money that belongs to them (in their minds.) Ahhh public servants...

 

Same objections to the lifting of the charter cap here in NC by some public school admins. :glare:

 

I have been told they do lose money on my three because they all had IEPS and therefore they could have gotten extra funding due to that. But I think on the balance they save money by not having my kids so it's a push. They still get our tax dollars.

[Birdwinglips]

We live on a military base. We found out that our school gets money for each kid living on the base, whether they attend or not. This hacked me off because I had to practically kiss up last year to get my older two to be allowed to attend Art and Music (only) with the other 3rd graders. I even had to wait a few weeks to see if the class sizes weren't going to be too big.

 

Since the two teachers for these classes were wonderful we were often invited to school wide presentations, etc. like Native American speakers, a special guest artist, the 3rd grade music program, etc. I always felt like I was not really wanted there by the principal. I found out late in the year about the money they were earning for my kids and I was ticked at having been made to feel like I was 'trespassing' at times. If I had known earlier I would have asked for Spanish class too. lol

 

I think the only reason she finally ok'd that they could attend specials was when she saw my son (he has a disability) and realized he would be getting services through his IEP (and thus getting them spec. ed. funding). I could be wrong on that though.

[Meriwether]

Yeah, if anything they are just glad to have a tax paying body in the town (who doesn't use half the services).

 

Again, I don't get the argument that they lose money because your child is not enrolled.

 

 

At least some of the $11,000 that particular district gets comes from the state level. The more kids you have in the school (and riding the bus, and getting free or reduced lunch, etc.) the bigger slice of the pie you get from the state. I know that when kids would move to town, they would keep them on my dad's bus route (on paper only) because they got extra money for each kid riding the bus.

 

I don't know how money from the federal level is divided up. The portion that comes from the county probably remains the same regardless of how many students are in the school.

[Aelwydd]

Whether it's ps or hs'ing used as the "threat," I think it's a bad idea to create an association in the child's mind between education and punishment.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Whether it's ps or hs'ing used as the "threat," I think it's a bad idea to create an association in the child's mind between education and punishment.

 

:iagree::iagree::iagree:

[Parrothead]

A few posters in the "parents threatening to homeschool" thread mentioned parents threatening the school admintrators by saying they would homeschool their kids if their demands weren't met. That got me thinking about schools wanting kids to attend because of the money attached to them.

 

My sister and I have always homeschooled in relative anonymity. Relative because I am currently in a smallish town now but we aren't from here and aren't super involved in the community.

 

My sister recently moved back to our hometown. There are about 3,000 people in the entire county and the school is getting smaller every year. My sister has 5 kids but only 3 will be school age this year. When they moved back, the town was all excited about having a big family move into town. The town, collectively, is really irate now that she is still planning on homeschooling. People have complained to her, her BIL, and my parents. She was accosted in the grocery store and informed that by keeping her kids out of the school the school would not get any money for them.

 

We are hoping that the attention dies down as the townsfolk get used to the idea, but is this kind of reaction typical in a small town where everyone knows everyone else's business?

 

ETA: The title should be S/O. I hit the wrong key. I can't even blame it on the baby since she is off my lap for once!

This happened to me when we moved to MT. Even down to being accosted in the grocery store. The lady wanted to know why I thought the school wasn't good enough for my child. Eventually it does die down. But we were always the "weird homeschooling family."

[celticmom]

I attended a magnet school in the late 80s in a nearby city and there was some of the same negative attitude from the locals about that.

[Photo Ninja]

The ps here generally holds the belief that any child not in the ps system - and this applies to hsers and those in charter schools - are taking money away from the school district. They don't seem to realize that since the school district never had the money from all these students, no money is being taken away. You can't lose what you never had. There is less money if a student is pulled from the ps, however the ps then doesn't have to provide any services for that child. The ps system complains that it costs more to educate a child than it gets in funding, so one could argue that by pulling a child out of the school the school should benefit financially because it won't be spending that money. But there is certainly a view that the ps deserves the money and families need to cooperate with them and enroll children so the school gets what it thinks it deserves. The fact that a child may benefit more from hsing or a charter school doesn't seem to enter their thought process.

[mom2scouts]

Yeah, if anything they are just glad to have a tax paying body in the town (who doesn't use half the services).

 

Again, I don't get the argument that they lose money because your child is not enrolled.

 

I think I've figured out why this is an issue. First of all, there's the issue of kids who perform well on standardized tests being removed from the school and bringing the scores down. The money issue is different. Our schools get money based on how many students are enrolled. My son was a very low cost student. He didn't cost the school nearly as much as they got for him. The school bus still comes by our house whether he's on it or not. The teacher for his class still taught despite his desk being empty. He didn't require any special services of any kind, so he wasn't using time (and money!) for tutors or special aides. If they spent $1,000 a year to educate my child, but they were getting $8,000 per year from the state, they were using that money for other things for more "high cost" students. When I removed him, they were essentially losing thousands of dollars that they were spending somewhere else.

[Impish]

The idea that somehow we owe our children to the government/school board boggles my mind.