Educational Choice/Philosophical Question

[SoCal_Bear]

ditto on many of the above reasons. I live in a top performing district. 10s for every school in our attendence district. That being said, there's really nothing for accelerated learners until 3rd. Even then, it is barely anything. 

 

I want my son to be a self-motivated learner....to be engaged and interested in what he is learning. We have the luxury of doing tons of science, history, multiple languages, logic, math outside traditional sequence, etc...whatever catches his interest. He doesn't have to wait until junior high to explore things at a deeper level. He is also a night owl...so no daily fights to get up and to school on time or bathed and in bed early enough. Evenings are spent enjoying time together as a family and not fighting about getting everything done before bed.

I also don't what "IS THIS ON THE TEST?" to come out of my kid's mouth. I don't want him to think if it's not on the test then it isn't worth learning. 

 

 

 

[908874]

Our assigned elementary school is one of the best in our area. They proudly show it with a banner outside the school and greatchools.com rates them at a 10/10. To top it off, we can use a walking trail to get to the school by simply crossing the street at a traffic light. At my DD4s pace, we would walk to the school in about 15 minutes.

 

Why not? Well, first we rent in this lovely area. We are likely to move next year around March when our contract is over. When we move, I'm sure it will not be to such a good school district. To add to that, my husband gets reassigned for work every few years.

 

When my son was a toddler DH brought up the idea of homeschooling when we were discussing his education and my worry that relatively frequent moves would result in an uncertain education. We are a happy family, we just happen to move often due to work. So the frequent moves are a primary reason.

 

Currently we live in CA and we are using a Charter. I'm glad the charter will allow us to move within reason and stay with them and their learning center. That way We will keep a certain level of stability as long as we are here. Eventually we will move elsewhere, but we hope to keep the kids pursuing the same sort of interests (music, sports).

 

Now that I am homeschooling I have other reasons. I'm glad that I found this way of educating my children early on. If we are ever somewhere for a long period of time, I'm not sure I'll put my kids in school. We will see.

 

 

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[Wheres Toto]

We live in a very good school district.  We never planned to homeschool until my son was in Early Intervention.  He was there from 3-4 for speech delays and behavior they didn't really know how to describe but knew it wasn't typical.  He started talking almost right away and the behavior didn't keep him qualified so he was declassified after one year.  They didn't tell us until May/June and ALL the decent preschools around here fill up in February.  Then they told us he shouldn't come back for kindergarten until he was 6 (late August birthday) given his social/behavior issues, despite being academically advanced.   After discussing and researching doing preschool at home (very uncommon around here) we kind of drifted into homeschooling. 

 

We've always said we would give the kids the option to go to high school since we are in an excellent district.  DS has no desire to go to high school and wants to do college at home, at least so far.  I could see DD going but she has pretty severe anxiety about new situations and, especially if her brother won't be there with her, I doubt she will.

[Butter]

We live in one of the best school districts and in the area with the best schools in the district.  My kids attended public school for 1/2-1 year (younger two 1/2 - K and 2; older two one full year - 6 and 9).  The education was excellent.

 

My youngest was in trouble constantly.  He has ADHD.  He was usually on red on the behavior chart by lunch and so had to sit on the curb during recess even though what he really needed was to be able to run.  He spent a lot of time in the principal's office.  She adored him, though, and would work on teaching him to read while he was in there with her.

 

My second youngest started talking less and less.  He was terrified of going down on the behavior chart.  He would tell us he was talking to people in his head, but wouldn't out loud.

 

We started taking taekwondo twice a week in November while they were in school.  Then we moved the youngest to a class on a different day so we were there four times a week.  It was too much.  Something had to give.  I decided that something should be public school.  It takes WAY too much time!  I was dreading the near daily phone calls from the principal about the little one.  We are walking distance to the school so getting them there and picking them up was stressful.  Honestly, if they had been riding the bus I might not have pulled them when I did.

 

My older two chose to come home.  My oldest boy has dyslexia and the school was fabulous for him.  They did everything they could to help him succeed.  He really excelled in school.  But, by the time the school year ended he was really into taekwondo and one of the junior instructors was homeschooled and so could devote more time to taekwondo.  My son decided he wanted to do the same.  ETA: He was also sick of wasting so much time waiting for the rest of the class to finish work or for the teacher to explain things for the fourth or fifth time.  The 7+ hour school day is just way more time than he needs to get his work done.  My daughter says public school is a bad environment.  She doesn't say much about it even still, but she will say she quit talking much because no matter what you say someone will say something mean about it and she also says she learned absolutely nothing the entire year.  Being homeschooled again has been good for her since she also fell in love with taekwondo after coming back home and now works as a junior instructor and starts working two days a week before the high school even gets out.  That's her favorite class (3-6 year olds) and she'd totally miss it if she was not homeschooled.

 

So, even though the education is excellent and the schools are highly rated, they are still school and aren't the right choice for my kids.

Edited April 2, 2016 by Butter

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

1. Time together

2. More conversation about things

3. Avoiding the liberal agenda

4. Safety for peanut allergy for one of my kiddos

5. Sharing faith (goes with 1 and 2)

6. More stability in case, as renters we need to move. When you are tied to the school either you are stuck finding a rental in the same area or your kids have to make new friends :(

7. More time to pursue their own interests - like hours and hours more ! Every day!

8. Individual learning tailored for them. I thought this would fade as we got closer to high school and the "typical required courses" but even next year one of my sons subjects is specially tailored having received approval to take an AP course out of order.

9. Time with siblings

10. Since we al get so much time together it doesn't bother me too much that nowadays so many teen activities are in the evening

11. Health- the typical kids here get 5 hours of sleep and we literally have one of the highest suicide rates in the country which they are saying is linked very closely to sleep deprivation. My son takes all the same courses but somehow gets 9-10 Horus of sleep every night

12. Health- when my kids are sick they do the unthinkable --- they REST! (And lest we think that's not the real world my dh works for the second largest company in the world and their policy is that sick people should stay home and rest.)

[waa510]

I can tailor their education to their individual needs. I have really asynchronous and sensitive kids. I'm doing the schools a favor, especially with my crabby little one.

 

Academics are really important to Dh and I. I'm pretty hard to please in terms of academics. The schools here haven't really blown me away academically. I've been impressed in other places we've lived by a couple aspects of a school but no school has ever had the *full* picture of what I'd be looking for. 

 

Dh is able to really plow through his career path b/c we can move wherever and whenever we need to so we can focus on the best opportunity for him w/o having to consider school districts or school calendar stuff. Likewise, we can on-business travel with Dh if/when we want to. This allows him to take jobs that require more travel time b/c we have the flexibility to come along if he'll otherwise be away for 4-6 weeks without coming home (like in a couple weeks). 

 

 

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

Back when we lived in FL we were NOT in a good school district, or area full of amazing educated people that we have surrounding us now.

 

So the decision was much easier. But even if we lived here when my kids were in elementary school I would still homeschool them, if i had to do it over again. They had an amazing, fun healthy early childhood FULL of pretend, play, and time outdoors. They have amazing sweet memories that I think most kids nowadays do not posess.

 

The other kids didn't even get HOME till 4:00 pm, and then had homework. Playing outside at dusk means mosquito feeding, so the school kids generally stayed inside after dusk.

[abacus2]

None of our reasons for homeschooling have anything to do with the quality of local schools. We didn't even look into them, although our home is more valuable because we are in a "good" school district.

 

We want:

An individualized education for each kid

Family time not restricted by the school schedule

Freedom to get enough sleep despite evening activities

More field trips

 

[sassenach]

Our child raising and academic philosophies are almost the flip opposite of a public school atmosphere. Especially for the elementary years. We want to maximize free play and minimize peer dependence.

 

When we moved to this neighborhood, a neighborhood where people move to just so they can attend the schools, upon hearing that we homeschool, people would say, "Oh, but the schools here are great!" And I would respond, "I've heard that! How wonderful!" Smile, change the subject. If they pressed as to why we were rejecting their beloved schools, I would just say we loved homeschooling and were really settled into our community. I never get into my real reasons. People don't want to hear that.

[sassenach]

Double post

Edited April 3, 2016 by Sassenach