Always homeschooled, then making decisions about high school

[Grantmom]

Hello all,

I started asking a question about this the other day, but I don't think that I really worded my question correctly.  I would love to hear from others about making the decision whether to homeschool for high school or to go to a b&m school.  We have always homeschooled, and as we were approaching the high school years, I started doing a lot of reading, and I was really getting excited about all of the possibilities and experiences that one can have homeschooling for high school.  Now we are here at that juncture, and my child is interested in trying school, but hasn't decided one way or the other just yet.  I just would like to hear about others' experiences of how you and your child came to the decision to either continue homeschooling or to go to school.  I was so confident about homeschooling for high school, but now I am having some doubts.  We don't have very many people who homeschool in our area in general, and then a lot of people tend to just do it up until high school and then stop.  I have never been worried about this before, but now I am concerned about not having more people around.  Any advice or shared experience would be great.  Thanks!

[AngieW in Texas]

Where I live, hsing for high school is an all-or-nothing proposition, so many folks who have hsed all the way up to that point will at least try out ps for 9th grade because they can always pull out to hs again, but if they want to go to ps after starting high school, none of their hsed credits will transfer.

 

My oldest had actually tried ps for 6th and 7th grades and it was a disaster, so there was no decision to be made. We knew she was going to hs through high school.

 

My middle has never wanted anything to do with ps. We knew she was going to hs through high school as well.

 

I really thought my youngest would want to try it out for 9th grade, but she didn't. She seriously considered ps for 8th grade because so many of her friends were switching to ps (nearly all of her friends are one year older than she is). But then she decided that she really just wanted to hs.

 

I would have been okay with my youngest going to ps. She would have been fine there. My two older girls are Aspies and would NOT have fit in socially, although my middle dd would have done much better than my oldest.

[snowbeltmom]

We don't have very many people who homeschool in our area in general, and then a lot of people tend to just do it up until high school and then stop.  I have never been worried about this before, but now I am concerned about not having more people around.  Any advice or shared experience would be great.  Thanks!

I can't offer any advice on which route to take: my kids had attended public school when they were younger and based on their experiences then, they have no desire to go back.  I do, however, have some experience with your statement above.

 

Homeschooling is not very popular in my area, and we don't have anything in common with the area homeschoolers we have met.  As a result, my kids have never had any homeschooling friends. They do, however, have a great group of friends. Their circle of friends is comprised of kids they meet in their extracurricular activities and other kids in our neighborhood.

 

My kids are very busy with their academic classes during school hours, and I am happy that there are not more people around during the day to distract them.  They get together with their friends after school and on the weekends.  My kids are very happy and don't feel like they are missing out on the high school experience.

 

Good luck with your decision.

[AngelaNYC]

My 2 girls chose to go to high school.  Oldest dd only homeschooled for a year (8th grade) and had every intention of going to high school.  She picked a small school for journalism.  It was ok, not really worth the time or effort, imo, and I do wish she had stayed home.  Youngest dd also chose to go to high school.  She got into a fantastic performing arts school (she's a dancer).  She is a senior this year and she loves it.  Ds is only going into 7th grade, but he has already decided he would like to continue homeschooling for high school.  Here in NYC, the quest for high school starts in 7th grade.  All the open houses, tours, applications, testing, and auditions are done by December of 8th grade.  Many of the schools here are excellent, but I really believe homeschooling surpasses them all.  I'm looking forward to ds's homeschooling teen years.  There are a lot of things my city has to offer.  A lot of his friends are homeschooling high school as well.  

 

See what your ds ultimately decides.  Nothing has to be permanent - he can always come home again.  

[regentrude]

We were thinking about whether to homeschool high school or whether to send extroverted, people loving DD to public high school. We knew that it would most likely be an all-or-nothing decision for 9th grade, because of the difficulties in getting public schools to accept homeschool credits. We only have one single high school in our town, no private or magnet schools that would provide more choices.

We ended up choosing to homeschool high school when DD excelled in her first college class in 8th grade. At that point it was obvious that the public high school would not provide her with an appropriate academic challenge. ( I would like to add that we started homeschooling solely for academic reasons.) Had she attended high school, she would have applied for a residential early college program for 11th grade and would have had to move five hours away, giving up her horse; homeschooling allowed her to stay at home. We have been using dual enrollment at a four year university for subjects we can not teach (French) and to provide her with a classroom experience.

 

With DS, I asked him repeatedly. He chooses to homeschool high school. He is introverted and does not like to spend his entire day surrounded by people, and he, too, is an accelerated learner.

[Matryoshka]

I had always thought I'd homeschool all the way through.  My kids had never been to school.

 

There were a lot of little things that led them to end up in school.  A biggie I think was the fact that I had twins - so the frequent recommendation to outsource doubles in cost.  Also, cc classes would be more difficult since they have very different interests, so I was worried I'd be a shuttle service.  And my younger was starting middle school - I was thinking it would all end up being very hard on me to coordinate all that plus give her the rigorous prep for high school I'd given my older two.  All of this would have been moot if I didn't happen to live in a town with an excellent high school - if we lived in most of the surrounding towns, I probably wouldn't have even considered high school.

 

It did go very well this year. Both girls took virtually all honors classes and did well in them. One dd, my introvert, still feels like she hasn't made any 'real' friends, but she felt the exact same way homeschooling.  It was even one of the reasons I thought it would be a good idea to try school - larger pool, differentiated classes and clubs make it easier to find people with similar interests.  She had a great year academically, and she does in fact have lots of acquaintances, but as usual, they're virtually all friends her sister made that include her.  We're going to have her apply to a very small science/math school that is only 11th/12th grade, as I think she might find the smaller size and the kids who all share her interests a better atmosphere.  After this year, depending on if she's made more friends and wants to stay, or if she gets into the other school, or if she really does just want to try homeschooling again, we'll re-evaluate. 

 

Her twin sister really is thriving.  She's made lots of good friends, she's motivated to study much more with outside teachers and honestly positive peer pressure. The kids in the honors classes are are really driven.  She also had (still has!) lots of great homeschooling friends who we saw regularly, but it wasn't often enough for her.  Every day in 8th grade she'd ask "when are we seeing my friends?" even if we'd just seen them the day before!  We still try to get together with the old hsing friends at least a couple of times a month.

 

Youngest (going into 7th) is a whole different kid.  I honestly can't say whether home or school will be better for her for high school.  We're going to have to weigh all these factors all over again!

[Kareni]

We began homeschooling in 7th grade when my daughter asked not to return to her 6th grade school. (This was no reflection on the school but rather the hour long commute each way.) We gave her the choice of attending the local middle school or of homeschooling and taking some classes at a homeschooling resource center. We had her shadow a middle school student for a full day, and she also visited the resource center. She elected to homeschool.

In subsequent years, she had free choice. Prior to ninth grade, she visited the local high school and sat in on a couple of classes, took a tour, etc. Prior to 10th grade, she attended an information session for a newly opening charter arts academy. In each case, she continued to choose homeschooling. I will admit that the resource center played a large part in her decision -- initially due to fun offerings such as fencing and ice skating but ultimately due to the fact that she fell in love with Latin which she took there for five years.

Here's a thread that might be of interest: Do you let your child decide whether to go to high school?

Regards,
Kareni

[Catwoman]

My ds13 has no interest in going to public or private school, so homeschooling through high school is what we plan to do.

[Miss Marple]

We homeschooled all the way through.  For us, though, there was no other really good option.  Our public schools stink and the private schools are in another town and would require too much driving.  My youngest expressed some interest in going to the public school so that he could play football.  However, dh (a physician) wasn't too interested in his son playing football.  And now that ds has a job working with public schoolers, he thinks that he has had a much better education than his peers and is finding that he is much better equipped for college than his co-workers.  And his college options are much better than theirs.  We really don't have good schools here.

 

FWIW, schooling high school was the icing on the cake; it was the reward for slogging through the other years :)  I truly enjoyed it more than the early years.  The boys were involved in lots of outside activities as well as working.  That helped with the "socialization" thing.  

[Guest EagleCreek]

We just made that decision a couple of months ago. I let dd14 decide if she wanted to go to high school or not, and she decided to stay home. I thought that she might decide to go to school because, while we had a great group of homeschooling friends during elementary and early middle school, they've all made their way back to B&M schools and she hasn't found any other homeschoolers that she connects with. The main reason that she decided to stay home was that she does ballet five nights a week and she sees many of her ballet friends having time only for school and ballet with some kids missing ballet class when they have too much homework. She also thought that there was too much "drama" at school and she didn't want it to distract her from focusing on her schoolwork and her dance. Not that she jumps for joy at the thought of doing school work, but more from the standpoint of worrying about being ready for college and a career. She felt that she would be much better prepared if she stayed home.

 

We've been discussing her high school options since 7th grade. We attended many open houses and information sessions and we talked about what options she would have if she stayed home. While I gave her the final decision, I did narrow the choice of schools to three that I was comfortable with.

 

I would have totally supported her decision to attend a B&M school if she chose to go that route. I also have a one-year old so I'm a bit worried about doing high school at home, but I do think that she made a good decision. I'm a bit worried about her not having friends to socialize with during the day, but she'll still see her ballet friends every evening, and she'll likely be working on school work most of the day anyway.

 

We'll be starting ninth grade in a few weeks so I can't tell you yet how it all works out, just how we made our decision.

[swimmermom3]

My youngest began homeschooling in fourth grade. He was a serious competitive swimmer and homeschooling worked well as the practice schedule evolved to six days a week. All his friends were at the pool and he was happy. He injured his shoulder at the end of seventh grade and began transitioning to sailing. Eighth grade was a hard year at home as an older sibling required a significant portion of my time academically and that left less time for the things that my youngest considers to be the best parts of homeschooling. He felt he was ready for public high school in ninth grade. His first semester was a mixed experience. He is shy and it took a while to make friends and many of his classes were quite large and not necessarily conducive to any significant learning. The funny thing was that my son, who is a non-reader outside of school, complained bitterly about his English class and that they read two books for the first semester.

 

Like Angie's state, ours is also an all or nothing and our family did some heavy soul-searching about allowing ds to homeschool part-time and to attend the ps for a couple of classes. We made the commitment and he excelled academically that second semester.

 

This year he will take Spanish II, Health 2, Weight Training, and Advanced Algebra II (3 credits total) at his high school. They alternate A and B day schedules, so all of his classes will be on one day and he will be there for lunch. He will come home early those days for a final class with me and then will be home the whole next day. We have a back-up plan for Algebra II if the teacher isn't solid. He will take AP English Language with PA Homeschoolers and Chemistry, European History (I am working on that AP audit), and a Medieval Great Books credit with me.

 

Ds sails on a high school sailing team in the fall and spring with swimming for the ps occurring during the winter season. During the summer he volunteers as an assistant sailing coach and participates in race camp. This is how he stays socially connected.

 

I was really wanting to teach all of high school to this child, but now that I have some experience I am happy to share the load. His classes take a lot of time to prepare for and outsourcing eases some of the stress.

 

 

[Sunshine State Sue]

As we approached 9th grade, ds wanted to continue hs'ing.  As 10th grade approached, he wanted to try school.  Our local PS stinks.  We compromised on 2 classes at PS, 2 classes at CC, and 2 classes online.  It was the first year I did not teach any classes.

 

Here are some threads I started back then.  Jane in NC's response in the first thread really helped me.

As we approach high school, we get more feedback that ds should be in school...

 

The decision has been made: We are going to homeschool for high school...

 

Our journey has come with pros and cons.  Academically, ds has done well.  Certainly much better than anything PS could have offered him.  Possibly better than any of the approx $15,000 private schools could have offered him.  Another pro is that ds follows his own guidance and is not generally influenced much by his peers.  Socially, it has been a dessert.  The hs'ers we have encountered have been mostly artsy folks that do not interest my athletic guy.  Few of the athletes at PS, where he plays on the basketball team, have much intelligence.  At the same time, puberty seems to have morphed the extroverted boy into an introverted man.  This seems to bother me more than him though.   

 

HTH!

[Grantmom]

Thank you all for these great replies last year.  I am sorry I never returned here to respond.  I read them all, and the links, and then I guess I just got sidetracked from returning here to thank you.  I feel good about deciding to continue to homeschool, although there are still some things we want to figure out, like sports for example, as you mentioned above, Sue.  The schools here don't allow homeschooled students to play, and neither do the private schools.  We even tried to see about joining a club at the high school and were denied access.  It is very frustrating to be surrounded by all of this closed-mindedness today.  I know that in some parts of the country, it is not like this.  And I want to move there.