Fees for Homeschool Co-ops?

[Pen]

What sort of fees (registration, membership, class etc.), costs, volunteer requirements, and so on, are there at Co-ops in your area?

 

 

Would something around $100 per class be normal?

[My3girls]

The coop we looked into was $35 per child or $100 per family for registration fees. The class fees were additional and ranged from $60-$105 per 9 week session. Classes varied in length. For my dd13 to take Physical Science it was $400 for the year plus $100 for lab fees. Volunteering was minimal. We chose GaVS instead which is free.

[lanabug]

Our co-op is parent-led, which means parents are either teaching or assisting several times during the year, so we don't have to pay teachers.  We have a yearly membership fee of $12.  Co-op fees are based on the class, and generally just cover supplies.  PE is $5 for the whole year.  Most of the classes are in the $10-20 range for 12 weeks.  The preschool classes are slightly more expensive due to the sheer amount of consumable supplies they go through, including the snack.  High school classes are also a little more expensive because they typically use books that each student needs.

 

I haven't found any co-ops local to me that are cheaper!

 

Lana

[MeaganS]

Ours costs like $25 to join and classes for elementary are $45/semester/class. (I think high school is more, but I don't know as it isn't on my radar). Sometimes they have added materials fees. The same teacher teaches individual classes and it is very well-organized with about 25 or more classes offered during each of the 4 class periods. Parents have to do "monitor duty" once a semester or can pay $40 to get out of it. Right now, all 3 of my girls are taking classes for 2 hours. Pretty reasonable for the quality, although my expectations are just that my girls have fun with some peers, nothing academic. Academic is just bonus. And it is the only time during the week that I don't have them with me. I can drop them off, I don't have to stay. Older dd is taking a FIAR class and a story and art class. Younger dds are just in a preschool class that is 2 hours long.

[Farrar]

The new one near us is $150 per semester per family and flat $25 fee per kid per class, but most have an additional materials fee. We're in a high col area so that seems really cheap in many ways - cheap enough that I'm guessing they're operating on a tight margin.

[Dmmetler]

$10/kid, but parents also provide supplies for classes through the semester and for a party at the end(so you post what you need and parents sign up). It usually ends up costing me around $100 per semester. For example, this fall we're doing a comics and cosplay theme, so a lot of the weeks have craft supplies, ranging from "we'll have basic crayons, pencils, and markets, but if your DC want to bring their Prismacolors and thicker paper, please do" to "each child needs two yards of x kind of fabric, a yard of ribbon, and a spool of thread". The $10 goes to the U.U. church that hosts us, and really is cheap for the area-the DRE at the church has been able to convince them that hosting us is an important outreach to an underserved community (secular homeschoolers).

 

For the groups I lead (not precisely a co-op) for CML math and the NME, parents pay about $30/yr, which covers testing fees and basic supplies that we keep here. Kids/families provide whatever is needed for the activities they lead (and we do a couple of group pot luck meals as well). If we end up with extra money, I use it to order pizza or get a cake for the party where we give out medals :)

[Stratford]

Our parent-led co-op is $40 per year per family.  It meets every other week, each kid takes 3 classes.  Some classes have additional costs for equipment/books/lab fees, though I've never seen one above $25.  Our co-op requires each parent to teach a class and assist in a class.  It's an extremely well-organized co-op with great class offerings.  I was surprised at how low the costs were until I learned that we don't pay a rental fee for the facility.  Makes a big difference in the budget.  

[UCF612]

We will be paying $125 for the year for both kids ($50 per kid for elementary age plus a $25 family registration fee). We also have to supply basic things like pencils, notebook, colored pencils and scissor for our own children. Field trips are additional costs dependant on the specific activity. Co-op is 1 day a week 10 to 12, which includes science (first semester), history (second semester), elective (life skills, music or Bible) and a short PE.

[EKT]

Our co-op is completely volunteer; parents teach all the classes and each parent has to teach at least one class every semester. The fees cover our rent (we rent space from a church, even though our group happens to be secular) and very basic supplies--about $100.00 per family per semester. 

[Pen]

Thank you.  I thought it sounded expensive, but then thought maybe that is just the way coops are.  I am not sure what they are paying the place they rent rooms from or whether they are paying teachers and if so how much.

[tori729]

Our co-op is a drop off, elective one and it's $175/semester per kid, which I think is really cheap after looking into all the other ones in the area. They meet once a week for four hours and do two? field trips a semester, not meeting on those weeks, and all costs are included.

[IndigoGlitter]

Where we used to live it was $100 per class for grammar age and $200 per class for the rest. That was for the year. It really wasn't that bad considering but we could never attend because they needed the fees up front. It would have cost me $500 for ONE class for each of my kids. We can't do that all in one shot. If we could have made payments, even over the summer, it would have been more doable. Cost certainly is prohibitive for some homeschoolers.

[73349]

Our co-op is for one-off enrichment activities rather than academic courses. There's no fee to join. We pay $5 per family per day we attend, and our group pays the first $50 for the week as rent and saves the rest to bring in speakers, etc. The parent stays with the children.

We're asked to attend regularly once we decide the group is a good fit, and to help out with running things (bringing materials, etc.), but there's no formal contract or anything.

 

The other co-op that I know of in town does academics for grades 7+ and clubs for younger kids, held at a large church. This is formal, with registration, a handbook, dress code, etc. It's $115/semester per child per club and $450 for the classes. (You can pay in 8 monthly installments.) Each class is an hour and a quarter per week. I haven't looked at the quality, since we're not interested at this point.

[phathui5]

We just paid $87 to register our kids for the local homeschool co-op. That's a semester session for 3 kids at 3 classes/kid. It includes the registration fee and my background check.

[Pen]

Where we used to live it was $100 per class for grammar age and $200 per class for the rest. That was for the year. It really wasn't that bad considering but we could never attend because they needed the fees up front. It would have cost me $500 for ONE class for each of my kids. We can't do that all in one shot. If we could have made payments, even over the summer, it would have been more doable. Cost certainly is prohibitive for some homeschoolers.

 

 

Ah. This is $100 per trimester class.  So one class for one kid for a whole year would be $300--though they do not have different fees for different ages.

[mom2att]

Cost to join the co-op is $100 per family. 90% of this goes to the church where we meet for rent, 7% is for the website, 3% admin costs.

 

Class fees depend on the class. PE is $10 for the year--teachers use to to purchase equipment and supplies. Other classes that are more project-oriented will be more--there's an art and music class that's $35 for the semester, but they are purchasing lots of supplies and the kids will come home with completed projects. The academic-oriented high school classes meet twice a week instead of once, and are generally higher in cost due to the added commitment.

 

My family spent about $400 for the year, for one boy to take 3 classes meeting twice a week and one boy to take 2 classes meeting once a week. This did not include books. I guess that averages to around $80 per class.

 

Our co-op requires parents to stay on-site and volunteer in the classroom for one hour, either as a teacher or as an assistant.

[FO4UR]

Our co-op is free to join.  It's 100% volunteer, every family has to have an adult volunteer present.  There is a small fee for supplies.

[mom31257]

Our co-op asks for at least a $10 donation to the church each semester and some give more. The families are expected to help the teachers with the costs of supplies as they come up during the year. No other fees are charged. 

 

 

[Shellydon]

Our co-op has both parent led (free) classes and teacher (fee) classes.  The fee to join the co-op is $60 per family.  $35 of that goes to the church for letting us use their space, the rest is used towards things like graduation each year.  The for fee classes have a range prices.  Algebra 1,2 Precal and Geometry meet twice a week and is $70 per student per month.  Chemistry and other sciences are usually $50-60 per student per month.  Elementary fun classes are usually $20 per student per month.  Parents can choose to do all drop off/ fee classes or they can choose to do all free classes and help teach, or a combo of both.   If you have a high school kiddo taking Physics and Pre-cal along with Spanish 3, then you will be spending $170 a month on classes. 

 

The preferred class, by far, are the drop off fee based classes.  We often have a hard time filling the slots for parent led classes. 

[AimeeM]

It varies widely here.

There are co-ops that charge $200/semester class; there are co-ops that only have a small registration fee. MOST of the co-ops that charge $100 or more per class have minimal volunteer requirements; and in general the ones that have only a minimal registration fee (often to cover insurance) require more parent volunteer hours.

There are exceptions. There are co-ops here that not only charge $100+ per class, per semester, but also require a large number of volunteer hours from the parents (and they do not allow first year co-op members to "buy out"). <---- that's the co-op that, while we liked otherwise, we stayed away from. I'm willing to pay for the classes, but I'm not willing to pay $250 per semester for a class AND be required to volunteer every week (because then I either have to secure childcare for my two younger children OR enroll (and pay for) them in the preschool/elementary school program. 

[CAtoVA]

Our co-op is $145 for a family's annual registration. Most of this goes toward renting our facility ( a church) which has lots of classrooms and many equipped for art, science, drama, etc (water available or a very large space). We also have fields and a playground for P.E. and toddler preschool classes.

 

The class prices are per class—my DD is in primary aged classes (K-4) and the cost is $180.00 per "regular" class like science, music, geography or art, and $135.00 for a class like P.E. This fee can be paid all at once or spread out over 9 payments (once a month). As the students get older the prices increase. A science, literature or math class for middle school would be $225.00 and for high school it could be as high as $375.00 for an advanced math class. Classes  meet once a week for 33 weeks. There can be homework but that is more typical in the upper grades (5th grade on up).

 

There are also material fees for classes that range from $5.00 (P.E. class) to $50.00 (art class). Most are around $25.00-$35.00.

 

All of our co-op teachers are experienced practioners in their fields. Many are homeschool parents themselves but not all.  Class tuition checks are made out directly to the teachers whereas registration fees are payable to the co-op. Parents are also expected to complete volunteer shifts. Currently the commitment is about 25-30 hours a year per family (shifts range from 1 1/2 hours for cleaning to 3 hours for other types of duty like watching the parking lot). You can pay another parent to take your volunteer service shift for $30.00 per shift.

 

In reading the other posts it looks like my co-op is a tad bit on the expensive side........

[...................]

Ours isn't quite a co-op. We pay the full time teachers a very little salary. Like 20.00 per day that they teach.

 

But, our fees are 340.00 for the year for a 2.5 hour history, oral reports, PE class. The history includes enrichment and Art, mapping and much more.

[cintinative]

Ours is a $75 registration fee, $100 per semester fee per family (reduced by $50 if you teach) and then the class fees which generally are in the $10-$15 range per semester. For the paid teachers, their fees are much higher--maybe $75/week?? I haven't taken advantage of the paid teachers (we have art and guitar/music) yet.

 

ETA; I noticed the others provided this info. We meet 1x/week and all classes except from paid teachers are taught by moms.  The fees vary based on the class so some classes like Bio Lab will be more expensive due to more expensive supplies.  We are supposed to teach one class, assist in one class and have one free period.  The semester fee goes toward paying for the facility and co-op supplies.  $5 of supplies per semester is provided for each class--anything additional must be requested by the teacher.  

[Julie of KY]

It varies widely here.

 

Anywhere from free to expensive.

 

There exist free co-ops. I find these better than a pure social group, but I also find I get what I pay for - not much.

 

Most of the elementary co-ops are in the range of $10-20 per child for registration and then $30-$75 for teacher fees per class per semester. They still require some volunteer commitment. These are usually supplementary classes.

 

Our high school group, charges $50 registration per child plus $300-$500 per class per year for core classes - teaching, homework, grades, etc.

[Squawky Acres]

Our small co-op is sort of free, as we meet in each other's homes on a rotating basis.  We also rotate teaching responsibilities, provide snacks when we host, and provide the materials for the lessons we teach.  This probably costs me $25-$75 per month in total, depending on how expensive my materials are.  I have 3-5 kids in the co-op (3 who fully participate, and 2 who do some of the projects but certainly eat the snacks).

[SkateLeft]

Our co-op is primarily geared towards high school age students. We're a non-profit and our teachers are professionals in their fields, not just parents. We have about 65 families this year.

 

We charge a $70 per year membership fee. That covers our rent and insurance. Our teachers charge between $120 - $300 for the semester, depending on the class.

[Entropymama]

I am part of the leadership for a co-op here. We don't have any kind of registration fee. Classes are $100 per student for the semester with an additional supply fee depending on the class, around $30. Parents don't need to be involved at all, just drop off and go. The teachers aren't parent volunteers, they're hand-chosen for their experience and ability. If you were to do a full set of classes you'd pay around $400 per student including class fees and you'd get a full day (9-2) to yourself and three subjects you don't need to teach or plan for. There are a few other co-ops that are similar to ours - their prices are also similar. We do pay for our facility.

 

OTOH, there are co-ops here that are parent-led. Fees are much lower.. I think both the ones I'm familiar with charge around $500 per year per family. For that price you get twice per week art, PE and science, plus nursery for the littles and presentations for the parents during class time. Teachers are parent volunteers and the classes are considered enrichment rather than primary. 

 

I think it really varies from place to place. 

[Pen]

I am part of the leadership for a co-op here. We don't have any kind of registration fee. Classes are $100 per student for the semester with an additional supply fee depending on the class, around $30. Parents don't need to be involved at all, just drop off and go. The teachers aren't parent volunteers, they're hand-chosen for their experience and ability. If you were to do a full set of classes you'd pay around $400 per student including class fees and you'd get a full day (9-2) to yourself and three subjects you don't need to teach or plan for. There are a few other co-ops that are similar to ours - their prices are also similar. We do pay for our facility.

 

OTOH, there are co-ops here that are parent-led. Fees are much lower.. I think both the ones I'm familiar with charge around $500 per year per family. For that price you get twice per week art, PE and science, plus nursery for the littles and presentations for the parents during class time. Teachers are parent volunteers and the classes are considered enrichment rather than primary. 

 

I think it really varies from place to place. 

 

 

For how many minutes per class, for how many days per week, for how many weeks?

[mom31257]

Our co-op asks for at least a $10 donation to the church each semester and some give more. The families are expected to help the teachers with the costs of supplies as they come up during the year. No other fees are charged. 

 

 

I realize I should have probably shared more info about the co-op. We meet every other week for 3 hours. The moms volunteer to teach and other moms help the entire time. Here is our class schedules. Families take turns cleaning up. We have 20 families and about 60 kids. 

 

1st Hour is Science:

Upper Middle/High School: Apologia Physical Science

Lower Middle and Elementary: Apologia Astronomy

PreS-PreK: Astronomy and various science topics

 

2nd Hour is Writing and/or Literature:  (4th grade teachers and up will be doing some writing evaluation and giving input but not actual grades)

High School: American Lit and Composition 

Middle School: Composition (no lit)

4th/5th: IEW All Things Fun and Fascinating

K-3rd: a literature unit study using Tall Tales

PreS-PreK: Learning about letters and themed with transportation

 

3rd Hour is GA History for all ages except PreS-PreK (it's play time and snack break)

[The Girls' Mom]

Our co-op is run almost like a private school.  Classes are taught by paid teachers (many of them are also homeschool parents, but they usually have education in the field they teach).  There is a $40 per semester reg. fee, and $5/student insurance fee.  Tuition is paid monthly directly to the teacher and ranges from $18/mo to $40/mo, depending on the class.  (I pay $40/mo for chemistry with lab for example.)

 

They meet once a week, and you can potentially have your kid there from 8AM-4PM.  It is a drop-off co-op.  The classes range from ballroom dance, to chemistry, to lit.  Classes are from K-12th grade.  There is a full range of high school classes, and even a few dual enrollment classes that have an agreement with our community college.

 

We also have to volunteer an hour per week. This usually involves cleaning, childcare, lunch/break room duties, or set-up.  You can also pay a fee to "buy" your volunteer hours if you cannot work the hours.

[LucyStoner]

I just paid $160 for one Sept-mid December nature science co-op for my 6 year old. It's 3 hrs a week. 1x parent volunteer committment.

[Kerileanne99]

Reading this I am sooo glad we didn't join the big local coop. I couldn't believe some of the prices. My kid is officially Kindy! $150 reg fee, each class (of a day-long block of 5 classes) was about $160, each had deposits and supply fees of between $20-$60. And I didn't even think many of the options were interesting:(. You end up signing them up for PE just to fill a block, and we have swimming, gymnastics, dance, etc., already.

 

I ended up joining the local homeschool support group for $35 for the year. They have playgroups, field trips, spelling bees, history fairs, and more. That is more than enough for now!

[EmseB]

What sort of fees (registration, membership, class etc.), costs, volunteer requirements, and so on, are there at Co-ops in your area?

 

 

Would something around $100 per class be normal?

 

Our co-op is $20 per family it is K-8, though, and classes are more "fun".  It's not like you can get an algebra class, or a physics class.  They are more like math games for kindy, drama, art, P.E., etc.  All are taught by the moms in the co-op.

 

Each parent is asked to do two "things", meaning, teach, work nursery, or aide in a class.

[Staceyshoe]

Varies here too.  Cheapest is $50 max per family with some volunteer requirements (that can easily be accomplished while kids are in class).  That co-op meets for 2 hours/week. Drop-off programs are pricier--about $150-200 per semester per child for 1 hour of class/week.  (Both of the above examples are within 2 miles of my house, so the same geographic area.)  Specialty programs can cost more.  For example, a group of homeschooling parents have pooled to pay a Ph.D. chemist with 20 yrs teaching experiencing to teach chemistry to our kids.  It's a drop-off program.  $300/semester for 1.5 hours/week.  I live in a big homeschooling hub, so there are a bazillion options with varying price tags and pros/cons.  Families are willing to drive longer and pay more if the co-op is just the perfect fit for their family.  If you are meeting a need, there is incentive.  "If you build it, they will come," so to speak.

[mschickie]

I belong to two co-ops and both are a la cart groups where you can choose your classes and how many periods you want to attend.  We have some folks who come in for 1 period and some who come for all 5.  To join the co-ops you need to be a member of the over all homeschool group (not everyone in the groups take part in the co-ops).  The yearly membership fee for one group is $27 and the other which is tied to the state group is $60 ($30 to state group/$30 local chapter).  The co-op classes range in cost from free - $85 or so depending on the class.  Art classes and science labs tend to be more expensive.  I usually spend between $50-$100 each session for dd at each co-op.  The co-ops run for around 10 weeks per session (2 sessions a year).  The co-ops are mainly parent run where the parent only charges their costs for the class.  There are occasionally professional teachers brought in for a specialized class (such as art or music) and those tend to be on the higher end of the prices.