Spin Off: What makes you decide for or against ps for high school?

[Alenee]

With the thread about sending the dd to middle school it got me thinking about the reasons we've chosen to homeschool through high school. So why do you choose for or against middle/high school privately/publicly?

 

I hope that makes sense!:001_smile:

[GSMP]

I am sure this won't be a good enough answer.....But.

 

First is that my daughter is all ready testing out of high school. She was doing this in the 6th grade. I could technically start her on college level work in everything but math.

 

She has not learned enough responsibility in regard to her work ethic. Soooo...this wouldn't be good. She is technically supposed to be in the 10th grade. She will be doing 9th and 10th together. Again....her lack of focus and willingness to do her work. She doesn't have a bad attitude. She is just Her. I know that last sentence makes no sense to anyone but me....

 

Secondly....we had issues in private Christian School. I all ready have one junior teen wanting out of that particular youth group and he isn't even close to high school yet.

 

If we were having to deprogram from Christian school, I couldn't imagine Public school.

 

I'm not sure those reasons are what you are looking for.....but that was the best I could do right now.......:001_huh:

[Chris in VA]

We started homeschooling our ds in his first year of high school. And, we started that same year with dd in K! Both ends of the spectrum.

 

Ds wanted to homeschool for several reasons, which he clearly and articulately laid out for us--I was so proud of him. The main reasons were that he did not like middle school, felt better about asking us questions rather than teachers, and, in his words, wanted "everything in one place." (It's pretty common in Aspies and near-Aspies to have difficulty/discomfort with transitions.) He also, in his words again, wanted to "read things that matter." He had had to read a book called Tears of a Tiger, one of those rather lame realistic fiction, "issue" books--kid goes to party, gets drunk, drives in car with other drunk kid, other kid dies, first kid considers suicide...blech. Ds has been very proud of his Great Books-style curriculum.

 

When dd's turn comes for middle school, I will hopefully be able to pull her out of ps and homeschool again. (We've homeschooled for K-2nd, but she's going to ps for 3rd b/c I need to earn some $ to pay debt and save for ds18's college.) I have seen our middle school--I credit it for helping to screw up our middle son. I don't want her ANYWHERE NEAR it. I think most middle schools are awful, allow terrible, destructive behavior, and most middle school kids are a mess. Most--not all. I'm not willing to risk her. I would like her to attend some classes at a co-op with other homeschoolers, and perhaps go back to ps for her 11th and 12 gr years, but maybe not. I will hopefully be able to work full time when she graduates, and can then help her with tuition for college.

[Stacy in NJ]

It's my intention to send both my dss to either our local public high school or a private school. At ages 9 and 11, it's a ways off yet.

 

I think of hs as college prep and think it's the perfect time to engage with the larger world, not that homeschooled students can't "engage with the larger world". High school will just provides a structured and tried and true method of doing so. I really think the older kids get the more they desire feedback and interaction from sources outside the home. As long as I have a big say in who/what those sources are, I'm fine with that.

 

Our plans may change. My oldest is very outgoing and social. I can see him enjoying high school a great deal. My little guy has ready told me he has no intention of ever going to any school. Although, he's looking forward to college because dorm life appeals to him. What he thinks dorm life is all about, I'm not sure.:tongue_smilie:

 

We'll see.

[Peela]

Intending to homeschool, and the truth is I think its mainly for social reasons, even though academic reasons are also important. We do have a good local public highschool. My son has learning difficulties- that is a strong reason and also a stand alone reason- but perhaps some time in the next couple of years he will also outgrow them.

But for us, the social and"wholistic" benefits of keeping the kids at home have always seemed the strongest reason to plan to keep going. They both have awesome social lives with other great kids through both homeschooling circles and Scouts. Scouts in particular is becoming very central to the kids' lives. Yes, it involves lots of running around - rather, driving around- and money, on my behalf. But it's so worth it.

Both of the kids are very, very social people, and suffer no lack in that area due to homeschooling. Why would I want to mess that up by sending them to school where they will be with a range of peers who I wont know, wont have much contact with, and may or may not support my kids in being themselves. They shine with homeschooling. They are themselves to a large extent. They are loving and open. Already my 14yo has 2 jobs, lots of contacts, various certificates- I just cant imagine school giving her more opportunities- although of course it might give her different ones.

Yes, both might also enjoy highschool too, socially. I doubt they would enjoy the work after a while. They don't realise how spoilt they are, of course. They would both do just fine if they had to go to school, on many levels (still not sure about my son in some academic areas). But wow, what a blessed life they are living- no isolation here! By the time they are ready to leave home, I just cant even conceive the possibilities that will be open to them, or what they may have already achieved.

[6packofun]

Rather than an argument to continue...LOL Or for God to tell me to do something different. ;) Really, that's the main reason.

 

I was actually ready to send ds to high school if he *really* wanted to, but he weighed and prayed and decided that there are more advantages (in general and for him specifically) to staying home. Dd13 is interested in going to high school, but I don't see that being better for her, either. That may cause some fireworks. LOL

[Ria]

We homeschooled our first two (twins) all the way through high school. They attended a co-op with other highschoolers for the first two years and then took classes at the local community college and university the last two years. They were happy, and it worked for us and them.

 

Our third child started at the public high school in Feb. of this year, in 10th grade. We were in a homeschool co-op, but he was not happy. He wanted to be in classes daily with other kids. I could see that the co-op was not a challenge at all for him, so we enrolled him (and his three younger brothers, grades 8, 6, and 5).

 

For us, this has been a good choice. All four of the boys did very well. The academics were great...I was very impressed (for example, the school didn't bat an eye when I told them my 8th grader was in Alg 2...they offer that in 8th grade!). The variety of classes available for my high schooler far exceeds what I (or any co-op) could ever hope to offer. He thrived. He made some wonderful friends - nice kids, not scary kids, lol. He's never been happier, and we are happy for him. He's been able to tailor his classes to his needs (he wants to major in business in college, and the school offers some great business courses; he is in several honors classes, etc) and he's excited about learning. That excitement was missing here at home for the past few years, and I'm glad to see it back.

 

So, all this said, I think the decision to send a child to ps or continue homeschooling through high school depends on the individual student's needs/desires. Another factor is the homeschooling parent's desire...I'll be honest and admit that after 16 years of homeschooling I was tired. :)

 

Ria

[Ottakee]

My kids all have special needs so it is a little different here.

 

We homeschooled 20ds from 2nd-5th grades (adopted him after his 1st grade year in foster care with us). He then went to public school in a special education program for 6-12th and is now in a young adult program. We started him in school as the 2 girls had extensive needs and I couldn't keep up. It though was a VERY good move for him. He had great teachers (all but 1 year), loved the school, etc. and we didn't have to deal with many social issues at all.

 

As of now 11dd and 12dd are home. We were thinking of sending 12dd to the same middle school program that ds went to but the teacher in that program moved up to the highschool and I didn't like what I heard about the new teacher. We might send her for highschool, not sure yet. Her medical and learning needs are complex so it would depend on how she is doing, what programs/teachers they have, etc.

 

11dd is likely the most difficult to decide on as she is delayed but likely not enough for a lot of special ed help but enough so that she would really struggle with reg. ed. She is also my one that is a big follower and loves the social stuff. With the RIGHT kids, she could do well and love it, with the wrong group of kids it could be very bad. Our plan is to keep her home for now.

 

We do evaluate each year what is best and go from there.

[jmgconner]

The plan right now is to send DS#1 to high school in two more years (he'll start high school at grade 9). This will work out quite nicely, because my little ones will be ready for more formal schooling at that time. I'll be able to give them plenty of attention at home and won't have the added stress of driving DS to co-op/classes.

[Chris in VA]

Ria! Nice to see you here!

I'm so glad for you and your kids, that you had a happy year. Good for you.

Every Blessing,

Chris

[Christi/NC]

After 14 years of homeschooling with one homeschool graduate in that time, for the first time, 2 of my kids will be going to a charter high school next year. It has been a difficult, 10 month long decision and it's is the right thing for the two that are going.

 

My oldest is 18. She's the poster child for homeschooling through high school. She graduated at the end of her junior year so that she could apply to a highly competitive medical program at the local cc. She got one of the 20 coveted slots and spent what would have been her senior year, in that program. She's 3 classes away from her AA and will sit for her licensing in Oct. She's been offered a full time job in her field that will start next week. On top of that, the best part is that we have a wonderful relationship. She is kind, hard working, focused, well spoken, polite, responsible, friendly---homeschooling allowed us to focus her education in the direction she wanted to go (medical field) and allowed us the time and intertaction to build an incredible relationship.

 

The rising 9th grader asked us to pray about sending her to school. She wants a new experience--new people around her, new teachers, new conversations. She's not the same person as our oldest dd--she's herself. She's a really neat person!

 

A spot in the charter school was offered to our rising 11th grader. After a great deal of prayer and conversation, he's going. There is a lot going on with him---too much to spill here but I think this has the potential to be just what he needs to take the next step in his life.

 

The 10 and 12 yo's will be at home with me.

 

I believe in homeschooling through high school. It works. I've lived it. I know the incredible blessings and opportunities that came our way because of it. I also know that it can be different for each child and this is a new season in our lives. I'm both excited and stressed.

 

A side note. Funny thing is....I'm not stressed about education, goals, meeting expectations educationally....I'm stressed about uniforms (how many???), making lunches (how much?), commuting + being tardy to school, dentist appts (how does that work?) home work load and how many work hours the 16yo will be able to squeeze in this tight schedule! The logistics are making me sweat!

 

Homeschooling for 14 years with my loves---18yog, 16yob, 14yog, 12yob, and 10yog.

 

Christi

PS. I've edited this post to add. We did choose not to send our two to the local ps. It is big and although it has a good reputation in our community and we know LOTS of kids who go there, it did not meet the goals and expectations that we've set for our kids. They are going to a small public charter high school.

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

It's easy to decide against private school, we can't afford it and we wouldn't send our kids to the ones close enough.

 

I have asked each of my children after 8th grade if they wanted to go to public school for high school. They all turned me down.

Each one had his own reasons. I think my dd did not have enough confidence in her academic ability and she was not enamoured of the idea of sitting for hours in a classroom then doing hours of homework when she got home. Ds #1 and Ds #2 also have chosen to stay home, because of the hours and workload that doesn't seem to accomplish the same thing that their time doing school work at home does. They were actually very influenced in their decision by listening to all the stories about school from their peers. They didn't hear anything that appealed to them at all.

[Tracey in TX]

My DCs will go to public (or private) hs. They offer every class, sport, club imaginable. I want my children to experience the fun I had in hs! We homeschool purely for academic reasons, and want our children to be well rounded kids who can enjoy all that life has to offer. They can graduate hs with a full two years of college if they're accepted into the IB program. There is a small community college within the building for extra classes. Unless the DCs request homeschool for a valid reason, they will attend a public or private high school.

Middle school is up for discussion. I'm leaning toward homeschool, but DD is begging to attend in a year.

[JFSinIL]

If my teens did not have school to attend they might never leave the house. OK, I'd love to homeschool high school BUT my son (a Jr. now) is happier attending school - he comes home chatty about the teachers and a few students. He is a loner kid - w/o school he'd not talk to anyone outside the family. He also is in AP and Honors class for most (not all) subjects - I like that he is learning with a different "batch" of adults than just the two he lives with. We often have discussions when hubby or I want to present a conflicting view to what he learns about at school, too. I might add - his teachers know he homeschooled before high school and often compliment him or me about it! His math teacher has in particular stated that he wished all kids homeschooled middle school and did Videotext for algebra! His AP History teacher has been surprised that my son knows, for example, what modern country used to be referred to as Asia Minor. Honors English teachers enjoy that he knows, already, how to write an essay.

 

Oldest DD is more social - she is going into one of the school-within-a-school gifted"academies" at one of the area high schools which includes six years of foreign language in four years in addition to honors and AP classes. This kid is also LAZY and needs to be held to account by more adults than mere moi. She glided through middle school and got easy "A"s - I think she is in for a rude awakening!!!!! (evil cackle!) by the demands of the Honors teachers in high school.

 

If I had little SWBs who would be studious and loved to do school I'd homeschool high school. I still may, depending on what youngest dd needs.

 

Me - I HATED school and would have LOVED to homeschool (with a tutor, NOT my mom!!!) as a teen. Sigh.

 

 

Added later - I might add - I am ok with public high school as long as I can get my kids mostly into Honors or AP classes, as that is where some of the best teachers can be found, and the more dedicated students. balances out the jerks encountered in the "regular" classes - not to say all teachers/kids in the regualr classes are jerks, but you get a wider slice of teen humanity in non-Honors classes and some of those kids can be a "treat' with which to attend class. As is a tentured-protected teacher with a chip on his or her shoulder!

[lynn]

Our local highschool offers so much I could not offer my ds. It has it's issues like any others but it's better than most.

[Ellie]

Gangs, violence in general, drug usage. And we lived in a "good" neighborhood when my dc were high school age. I talked to a family whose ds had gone to a private school through 8th and then enrolled in high school, the one my dds would have attended. That year over 200 weapons were confiscated. White kids were warned to walk with their eyes down, never making eye contact with anyone; otherwise they'd be beaten up. Yeah, I want to send my dc there.

 

Public high schools all across the country have had a bad reputation as far as the quality of education for over 30 years. I didn't want to take a chance on my dc's education. I know there are dc who manage to graduate with a higher-than-functional-illiteracy-level, but I didn't want to take that chance.

 

Also, I had planned since my dc were little to do junior college instead of high school (easy to do in California). For me, sending the dc to high school didn't make sense at all.

[TravelingChris]

I have homeschooled one through high school , one is starting 10th grade in homeschool and won't go to a institutional high school exept maybe part-time. We are a military family and it has been easiest for us to continue homeschooling. Both of the older two were adamant that they didn't want to go to school. The oldest was two years ahead and when he was going into ninth grade, the local high school was not okay safety wise. We would have had to drive him to another school and that would have been very difficult for me to do twice a day with two younger children I was homeschooling, a husband who was TDY every week, and a chronic illness. He didn't want to go anyway since he enjoyed his co-op activities and freedom he had homeschooling. When we moved overseas, we offered to have him take some classes at the school on the base but again that would have involved traveling twice a day and he wasn't interested. He also noticed that he had more opportunuties to pursue outside interestes because I didn't load him down with as much work as the school did. Oh and I don't mean they did more rigorous work- just more work. For example, they were doing college applications in AP English. Anyway, we come to child number 2. She could easily go either part-time or full-time to school here. She didn't want to and it turned out for the best. She became sick and is still working to finish ninth grade. She will probably start community college this year along with doing homeschooled high school. She will have most of her classes run by others but she will only meet with others once or twice a week and do the work at home.

 

What about number three- We will see. She is now talking about maybe becoming an engineer. If she continues to think that is her choice and we live where there is a special high school, she may go to that. Otherwise, she is the one child I can see being poorly influenced by others. I don't know where we will be living so we will see.

[WTMindy]

We always said we'd take it year by year and every year we like homeschooling more. I would not put my kids in in middle school and in our state we have early college entrance, so I'm not sure it makes sense to put them in for 2 years of high school. I suppose if we felt like it was best we would put them it, but I don't really see it happening.

[Sandy in Indy]

Our local school system graduates something like 50% of its students. The average SAT score for the high school in our disctrict is around 1,000 (new SAT). Neither of those is a rousing recommendation for the school. Frankly, I thought that even if we did a mediocre job of hsing, we'd do better than that. I've graduated one and will graduate the second next spring...and yes, we've done better than that.

 

My kids don't want to go to public school...have never wanted to go to public school. And I don't think they've missed anything....except peer pressure and social interactions that we're not interested in. There's a local homeschool prom here. Athletics, band, debate club. All the things that so many people are afraid their kids will miss....but even if they weren't available, I'd still homeschool through high school. I think kids need us MORE at that time than any other. That's the time I've had the most wonderful conversations with my kids--about so many life-changing things. Besides, I LIKE my kids and want to be around them. Better yet, my kids LIKE me and want to be around the family.

 

Dr. Jay Wile has a wonderful talk on homeschooling through high school. If I hadn't been convinced before, I certainly would have been after hearing him speak.

[Heather in the Kootenays]

She really wanted to go and her homeschool friends were going. She's a solid kid and a great student so we said OK. She's made good choices and done very well academically so we're pleased. We have no private schools nearby and the local school is merely OK. The teachers are thrilled to have a good student so she's treated very well there.

 

My 13 yo son is staying home until at least Grade 10. I missed the middle school discussion but it isn't a option for him for lots of reasons. We'll make a choice when he's 15.

[Diana in OR]

I had planned on homeschooling through high school but ended sending ds to ps in 9th grade last fall. (We were both kicking and screaming the whole way!). There were a couple of deciding factors. One of the main reasons is that he was already on the football team and in the choir, and I was spending way too much time driving him back and forth to the school. Also, a few weeks into 9th grade, I realized that he really needed to be in school. As someone else mentioned, there were so many more opportunities for him at the ps.

 

It was definitely the best choice for ds. However, I would hasten to say that it is such an individual decision. I would not say that it would be the best choice for every child, but for us it has been.

[Laura K (NC)]

In the summer before my son's freshman year we evaluated -- in person -- a public and a private school that were options. The private school was new and beautiful and had great big science labs. The public school was where a lot of his friends went. In the end my son chose to stay home.

 

Why did he choose to stay home? Freedom, for one thing. Not only does he have the varsity sports opportunities with our homeschool group, but he has the freedom to do as many sports as he likes. He has time for it. He also has time for scouts and music and video games. He chooses what he will waste time on, and he can begin his learning whenever he likes during the day. He can choose whatever foreign language he likes, he can pause at interesting historical periods (one of his passions is history) whenever he feels the need. He has the freedom to take a class in the summer so his regular school year will be lighter and he has more time for the sports he loves. He doesn't have to rely on a school schedule for his class availability.

 

Why was I happy with his choice? Faith, for one thing. The private school is a large Christian school but I was not happy with the religion department. I would have had to undo a lot of what they were doing, and if he went there there really would be no time for that. But I do think a Christian worldview is important, and there is so much richness in our faith that he was not able to grasp before the high school years. I am able to work with other families in our area who share the same faith, and our kids can see how Christian families really do act. They're not just getting a youth group experience, which, imo, is superficial and doesn't prepare them for adulthood and parenting their own children.

 

History was another thing, and education in general. I know I can give a superior education in most subjects, but especially history, literature, and composition. The private high school was not going to even offer history in 9th grade. How can you not offer history! That's like not offering lunch! It's essential! There is no great books program. The literature in even the private school involves books that I would rather my son not read at his age, and does not involve books that I desperately want my kids to experience. There is no history like the WTM, 4-year history cycle, imo, and I can't walk away from it, especially since all three of my sons have such a passion for it (in large part because of WTM).

 

Lastly, the public schools around here love homeschoolers. They let them in easily based on the parents' word that the work got done. That tells me that our education means something, that it's valuable, and that it is comparable when we do it diligently (as I do). The public schools and some of the private schools work with homeschoolers and allow them to take classes every now and then. With this support, and the knowledge that community college classes and online courses are also at our disposal, I really do think that my high schooler has an optimal situation here.

 

I will reassess with each subsequent child. I think family dynamics will allow all of them to thrive at home, but we'll see. My sons are happy. They're educated. They have great social lives. They have tremendous hobbies. I can't see fixing what isn't broken.

[Pink Fairy]

My dh is a public hs teacher. The stories he brings home from work had me convinced before we even had kids that we'd hs from kindergarten all the way to the bitter, bitter end.

[Heather in Neverland]

12 years of teaching in one.