What percentage of people who "homeschool" preschool aged kids stick with it?

[poppy]

I joined a large, well organized local co-op (several hundred families, paid board).

I'm starting to realize that about 40% of the group is 4-5 year olds... so a lot of events and attention are, of course, geared towards that age group.

 

I am wondering if these are families that will stick with it--- if we'll keep getting bigger.

Or is it more likely this coop is always going to be half schoolaged homeschoolers, half people with young kids looking for enrichment for little kids.

This is a secular co-op, if that makes a difference.

 

 

I love little kids.  I just left a position running a family coop for preschoolers. And I reallllllly don't want to have my homeschool world largely tilted towards "littles".

 

[Guest]

It's very common because there is less school day taken up by, well, school. The vast majority of women I know who have homeschooled from the getgo, myself included, are still doing it. But many tend to do less activities like co ops as the kids age.

[LisaKinVA]

IME, I haven't seen a huge percentage stay with it.  Of my son's friends who started homeschooling at the same time, less than half still are (juniors/seniors in high school).

 

Right now, of my now 2nd grade DD has 1/5 of her homeschool friends still homeschooling.  ETA:  I'm willing to believe many of the drop-outs simply are in love with being in Italy and want to have freedom to travel and leave their kids in school....not sure what this would be like back home.

Edited July 8, 2016 by LisaK in VA is in IT

[Petrichor]

I think, a lot of the time, people who are "homeschooling preschool" fully intend to send their kid to kindy or 1st grade. Not always, obviously. 

 

How long has this co-op been running?

[Hilltopmom]

Our groups have always had a lot of littles, because some of us keep having kids:).

 

So the big kids get older too, but there are always lots of babies, toddlers, & preschoolers.

 

And yes, lots of people join when their kids are young because they want to " find their tribe" & set up play dates with other families who plan to homeschool.

 

But, this is our last year, because the older kids need more time at home doing school daily & working on their hobbies/ pursuits, not time at co op. We still do social activities with the homeschool group, but do not need co op anymore. Most people drop off by high school, not necessarily to go to public school, but because teens get SO busy that a relaxed co op isn't good use of their time.

Edited July 8, 2016 by Hilltopmom

[Guest]

It has been my experience that the majority of people who "homeschool preschool" have no intention of taking it further than kindergarten.

Eta: I'm not counting younger siblings of homeschooled kids.

Edited July 8, 2016 by Kinsa

[poppy]

I think, a lot of the time, people who are "homeschooling preschool" fully intend to send their kid to kindy or 1st grade. Not always, obviously. 

 

How long has this co-op been running?

 

About six years. 

It's OK to "homeschool" preschool only, of course, but I was hoping to have everyone invested in the long-term coop, know what I mean?

[SparklyUnicorn]

I have no idea.  I started then and am still with it 10 years later and I personally know a few who have done the same.  I'm not even sure what has happened with those I haven't had contact with for years though.  And I have moved to another state since the beginning so I definitely have lost touch with the people I met from the very beginning. 

 

If my experiences regarding the life of homeschool groups is typical, those come and go quickly. 

[SparklyUnicorn]

About six years. 

It's OK to "homeschool" preschool only, of course, but I was hoping to have everyone invested in the long-term coop, know what I mean?

 

If it makes you feel any better (cough) I've been told worse than this.  A therapist I went to once told me she homeschooled.  It turned out she called homeschooling reading to her kid after school and taking him to museums "homeschooling".

 

So I'll take a preschool homeschooler any day after that dumb @$$ comment.

[redsquirrel]

Our secular co-op stopped offering lots of activities for such young kids. The reality is that once the kids get to age 6 many, many parents decide that they don't want to or can't homeschool. It was turning the co-op into a free preschool.  In fact, I personally had a friend who had no intention to homeschool take advantage of the coop activities for young children. She saw it as a great way to let her young kids hang with like minded peers etc. The fact that it was super cheap was a huge draw for her. She was essentially getting a three times a week Waldorf preschool, plus a story time, plus an arts and crafts time for 100$ a semester. That was all well and good, but that wasn't really the point of the coop.

 

So, now there are one or two large 'free play time' mornings for kids under the age of 6. Those are easy for the coop to organize. They are inside or outside depending on the weather, and only need a couple volunteers (parents) to agree to take responsibility for the time. It meets the requirement that our coop has that every parent must contribute something.  But, the coop stopped offering actual programming for kids under the age of 6. 

 

That age was chosen because that is the age that enrollment or a declaring yourself a homeschooler is mandatory. It's a coop for homeschoolers, so that is what we went with.

 

BTW, a free preschool is fine, and if people want to work on that that, they are welcome to organize one. I think it's great! But it was taking up space and time and energy from the mission of the coop.

 

FWIW, when my older kid was a toddler I knew I wanted to homeschool. There was a VERY large group of like minded parents.  In the end, I was the only person in that group who actually did it. When pre-school rolled around everyone started enrolling their kids. From there, they just went on to kindergarten.  It was weird. But, I found another group so it was ok, lol 

 

ETA: when the programming for young kids was dropped, the number of parents of young kids when down as well. Turns out lots of them were really only interested in the 'cheap preschool' option. Now the 'free play for young kids' is mostly made up of siblings of homeschool kids, and the occasional parent of young children interested in homeschooling. 

Edited July 8, 2016 by redsquirrel

[Crimson Wife]

I don't consider it "homeschooling" if the intention is to enroll the child in a brick-and-mortar school for K or 1. Now I do consider my kids as having started HSing in their pre-k year because we did not send them to a B&M school.

 

I'm not in charge of any co-op, but if I were, I would try to discourage non-HSers by including in the agreement a line saying that the family plans to continue educating the child at home for elementary school. That wouldn't prevent liars from signing, but it would hopefully make non-HSers think twice.

[SparklyUnicorn]

I did seek out homeschool groups when my kid was preschool age.  The "dream" was to find some group we could stick with for years and years.  That didn't happen.  No group I ever joined lasted very long.  The typical reasons are many people just change their mind, people don't mesh, or we can't find anywhere to hold meetings that is affordable and convenient enough for all the members (homeschoolers can be very spread out).  So I do get why these people seek these things out.

 

That said, there are tons and tons and tons of activities for that age set all over the place.  This is unlike what is out there for school aged kids who don't go to school.  Especially during the day. 

If there is a good size group of people with preschoolers and enough to maintain an older group, maybe you could have 2 different groups? 

[KungFuPanda]

Homeschooling in general is bottom heavy. There are just a lot more younger kids. Once it gets harder, more expensive, and more time consuming people began to explore other options. I know it was MUCH cheaper and easier to send my daughter to a high school she could walk to than it was to drive her to everything and pay for CC classes. My son is homeschooling high school and the numbers are definitely smaller than the middle school classes.

 

I think most people are out to meet the needs of their individual child rather than commit to the homeschooling lifestyle. When those needs change people seek other options. Some kids who needed the intensive one on one instruction outgrow that need or catch up to their peers and are able to thrive in a regular classroom. I never planned to homeschool all the way through. I just took it a year at a time and homeschooled one kid K-8 and the current kid K-9 and counting.

 

Personally, I don't consider preschool educational activities homeschooling. ALL educated parents do that, so calling it homeschooling before the kid is school-aged never seemed quite accurate to me. I'm also a little unsettled by parents who treat a homeschooling co-op as a cheap preschool option but have no intention of homeschooling past the age of six.

[Dmmetler]

I would go even farther-only about 25% of those who homeschooled K/1 are still homeschooling 3 years later. By 9th grade, it's more like 10%, if that. That's been for a pretty big secular homeschool group.

[kewb]

I find it to be bottom heavy in my area. Lots of people through age 10. Then the kids want to try school, or the parent wants to put them back in school for a myriad of reasons. The next wave is the high schoolers. Many go back to school for the sports, the social scene, it the parents feel highschool is more than they can handle.

 

 

I also found as my kids got older that we found our peeps and did not feel the need to be involved in groups. We made our own group. This makes it difficult to get a read on how many are homeschooling older grades because they don't go to the coops.

[Guest]

Yeah, there is a HUGE drop-off going from 8th to 9th grade.

[BarbecueMom]

In our secular group (and I use the term loosely, it's more like "nonreligious homeschoolers who have met each other and introduced new people over time"), I am the only one with a child under 5. No one else has a baby or toddler anymore, just older kids. The largest age group is 8-11, and there are many homeschooling teens.

 

I think our group is odd in that most people tried public school for at least K, 1st, 2nd, and it didn't work out. Less than half of us have never tried public or private schools. And we don't do many group things, it's mostly socializing and networking and park days and someone putting together a field trip here and there. Maybe that puts off some of the young, newer families who want or need structured activities.

[Wheres Toto]

That's pretty common around here - "homeschooling" preschool with no intention of homeschooling after that.  A few co-ops have made rules that your oldest child must be school age, which is 5 years old here.

 

We started homeschooling when my son was 4.  Around here 99% of kids go to preschool by 2 1/2 years old, including him.  It was a year in early intervention at 3 years old after an unsuccessful start in pre-school that led us to keep him home the year after he was declassified.  By 1/2 way though the year we had decided to continue homeschooling indefinitely.  My son says he wants to homeschool college.  My daughter seems less committed to homeschooling, but also has shown no desire to go to b&m school.

[Arcadia]

I don't know any secular homeschool co-ops because I am not a co-op kind of person. We do however have preschool co-op which is run by parent volunteers and very affordable and is for 3 to 5 years old. The volunteer requirement is a day per week in any role. My neighbor sent her child to that kind of co-op so that she could work four days a week as a self employed consultant while someone teach her child. Those I know do send their kids to school from K after that preschool co-op.

 

We tried a few homeschool group playdates but my kids didn't enjoy them so we stop going. So I am not surprise if you see less older kids in co-ops. There are many more online options as my kids get older. Library also has more free computing classes from 6th/7th grade onwards.

[catz]

This is really common where we are - for people to "home school" preschool and MAYBE K, maybe 1st, less likely 2nd and then end up in B&M schools.  We mix more with the secular homeschoolers, so maybe it's our community too.  And many of them have intentions of continuing, but don't for whatever reason.  By the time my oldest was in 2nd grade I was primarily looking for homeschooling communities where you had to have at least one elementary school aged child.  Our current co-op requires one child at least 12+ now, and I'm not sure what we'd do without that community now that my kids are older. 

Edited July 8, 2016 by WoolySocks

[happypamama]

We are bottom heavy as well, in our support group, partly because older kids simply don't have as much time for enrichment sorts of activities and partly because it's common around here to homeschool the younger grades and then do Christian school starting sometime after sixth grade, or public high school. We only have one family, I think, who only has preschoolers, and I'm pretty sure they're planning to homeschool for the long haul; we encouraged them to join and come to events that work for their little ones so they could get to know other homeschoolers and build a social network. I can imagine that it has to be hard if you do the young moms clubs and preschool swim time and story hour and whatnot and then your kid loses her friends because they all go off to kindergarten and she doesn't. So I'm very happy to have families with preschoolers join us. If they end up sending their children to school in kindergarten, well, we will miss them, but at least they'll have a better idea of what homeschooling can look like so they can make a better informed decision. And, of course, choosing just to homeschool for preschool or K is perfectly fine too (maybe K is full day, and a parent thinks that's ridiculous, or whatever), and that's a perfectly valid choice as well, no less valid than my choice to homeschool high school, but it is disappointing when you are trying to build a stable support group base.

[poppy]

This is really common where we are - for people to "home school" preschool and MAYBE K, maybe 1st, less likely 2nd and then end up in B&M schools.  We mix more with the secular homeschoolers, so maybe it's our community too.  And many of them have intentions of continuing, but don't for whatever reason.  By the time my oldest was in 2nd grade I was primarily looking for homeschooling communities where you had to have at least one elementary school aged child.  Our current co-op requires one child at least 12+ now, and I'm not sure what we'd do without that community now that my kids are older. 

 

That sounds like something worth looking for.

I believe that homeschooling a 3-5 year old is basically just parenting.  Now, when I had a preschooler, I looked to so many different groups and resources for enrichment and activities - I'd have probably joined a coop if I'd have thought of it. I have zero problem with the little ones and their families.  I just don't want it to be the focus of the coop that's a big part of my life.

 

This was useful, thanks everyone.

[Crimson Wife]

Yeah, there is a HUGE drop-off going from 8th to 9th grade.

 

This is true, but there is a big difference between HSing through 8th grade with the intention of enrolling in a B&M school after that and "homeschooling" preschool with the intention of enrolling in a B&M kindergarten. Preschool isn't compulsory but elementary and middle school are.

Edited July 8, 2016 by Crimson Wife

[Ali in OR]

We started going to a little home school co-op when my two youngers were 4 and 2. I already knew I was going to home school, and everyone talked like they were too. But most of the moms, including a couple of close friends, ended up putting their kids in school for K or 1st. It had never occurred to me that some people wanted the awesome preschool opportunities but had no intention of being part of the community long term. Though my friends were at least open to the idea of home schooling and two ended up doing at least some home schooling for some of their kids at some point. From my experience here, less than half of the preschool crowd ended up being home schoolers for elementary.

 

In our area, almost all seem to put their kids in a B&M high school for at least part of the day. The only family I can think of who didn't has a strong religious conviction that they must home school, government schools are bad, etc.

[Janeway]

Most coops for home schoolers will not allow anyone under the age of 6 on Sept 1 unless they have older siblings. So the preschool sections are only for kids who have older siblings in the program. If they do not have these limitations, they get stuck with tons of tons of people who are really just looking for activities for their preschoolers but do not intend to home school in the long run. I have found that people who call their preschoolers "home schooled" usually do not stick with it. That is just my personal experience.

[rocassie]

In our co-op, nursery and pre-school are only open to those that have older siblings participating in the programs.  When it first started I believe it was just open, but to many parents wanting enrichment for their pre-schooler but not really commited to homeschooling when said child reached school age.  Also, the preschool classes ended up being so much larger than any other classes and wasn't really manageable.  Limiting it to younger siblings have improved things and kept the co-op growing and stable as the years have passed.

[Loowit]

I was sort of the opposite.  My children attended a private preschool, so while I took two of them to co-op the other went to preschool.  It was actually a bit awkward.  I didn't notice many families that only had preschoolers, most of the littles had older siblings.  Maybe the difference was that parents had to stay the whole time and help out.  We could not drop off and leave them there.  We stopped attending for a number of reasons as my kids got older even though we still homeschool.  Part of it was the time it took up.  When we first started it was half a day once a week, when we left they were moving to pretty much all day once a week and that just didn't work for older children to get all they needed done since the co-op classes were pretty much fun fluff.

[MeaganS]

That sounds like something worth looking for.

I believe that homeschooling a 3-5 year old is basically just parenting.  Now, when I had a preschooler, I looked to so many different groups and resources for enrichment and activities - I'd have probably joined a coop if I'd have thought of it. I have zero problem with the little ones and their families.  I just don't want it to be the focus of the coop that's a big part of my life.

 

This was useful, thanks everyone.

 

I do think that some parents do homeschool at 4 and 5 years old. I am one of those. We start math, reading, handwriting, etc. at 4 and are very deliberate. My five year old does a full load of school. She is advanced, but I'd still be doing school with her even if she wasn't (and did with my more scholastically normal 7yo when she was that age).

 

That's not to say there aren't tons of people who only plan to do that for a bit until the kids go to elementary, but I do think you can call some of what people do with their 4 and 5 year olds school.

 

Also, I do a co-op now, but I don't plan on using one unless it is amazing when the girls are older, even though I don't forsee us stopping homeschooling any time soon. Right now we do it as an inexpensive chance to get the girls out of the house and around another group of people on a regular basis. There are more opportunities for that as they get older. So that is probably a big reason for the drop as well. I just really doubt it will be worth our time. I had monitor duty last semester and could hear the teaching in the algebra class. I was very unimpressed and could do the academics better myself. For a fun little story and craft class though? Who cares so long as they are having fun?

[Guest]

In our co-op, nursery and pre-school are only open to those that have older siblings participating in the programs. When it first started I believe it was just open, but to many parents wanting enrichment for their pre-schooler but not really commited to homeschooling when said child reached school age. Also, the preschool classes ended up being so much larger than any other classes and wasn't really manageable. Limiting it to younger siblings have improved things and kept the co-op growing and stable as the years have passed.

Yes, that is the basic policy of our secular coop too. It prevents the worst of the issues. First kid in needs to be kindergarten or older.

[LMD]

I find here that people who intend to home school start looking for their tribe when the oldest is 3-4-5 ish, because all the other kids are heading off to preschool/kinder. But then, homeschooling is still far from mainstream here so I can't imagine people seeking out our community for preschool - we don't generally have co-ops.

I also find that around 3rd grade most people have found people they connect with, and the focus on academics takes more time. So the community splits into small groups of friends and occasional big events/excursions.

Most homeschoolers that I know are very independent and prefer to do their own thing so most groups don't last too long.

[Guest]

Of the parents of preschoolers who have been in my co-op, only a tiny sliver had no intention of homeschooling. Like, I can think of TWO kids in the 13 years I've been a member who were kind of just using it as a one day a week preschool type of thing. The co-op is MOST attractive to people who either currently or expect to havechildren in multiple age groups, which is where the co-op obviously shines.

[Closeacademy]

Mine are in high school now.  When I think back to our first co-op which was preschool to 3rd grade, I think 75% are still with us.  Some of those families did try out public school and came back.  But most of those families are still homeschooling.  

[Guest]

Most coops for home schoolers will not allow anyone under the age of 6 on Sept 1 unless they have older siblings. So the preschool sections are only for kids who have older siblings in the program. If they do not have these limitations, they get stuck with tons of tons of people who are really just looking for activities for their preschoolers but do not intend to home school in the long run. I have found that people who call their preschoolers "home schooled" usually do not stick with it. That is just my personal experience.

Interesting; I have had the opposite experience. Where I live, the folks who expect to have their kids in the local public schools are VERY keen to get their preschoolers into a preschool that will largely funnel into the school of their district. They want their kids to have the same "friends" (do you really have friends when you're 3?) when they start Kindy.

 

The whole reason I started looking for a co-op was that all my mommy-friends' kids were going off to preschool and I no longer had a community of mommy-friends. When I joined co-op, I only knew ONE person who homeschooled, but she lived 50 minutes away from me. So it was a blind stab in the dark for me to find a community of people for myself and my kids.

[3 ladybugs]

This thread is interesting. I am on a message board for the curriculum I am using with YDS. There are a few on there that don't want to go beyond this program, but there a couple that intend to do this the long haul. Then there are a few that say that if Mother Goose Time were to go into early Elementary (they stop at K) then they would continue further. 

 

Having said that, I think I am the only one with older children that are defined by most of the people on here as homeschooled. My ODS is going to be 8 in September. 

[Epicurean]

I have the feeling that unless you already have older kids in the coop, if you homeschool preschool with the intent of homeschooling into later grades, you're not as likely to be in a coop at all.

 

Coop for prechool just seems like an awful lot of work. Driving, being on time, potentially teaching classes, etc. And for what, so the kids can glue cotton balls onto paper plates? I guess it might be a social outlet for the moms, but personally I'd rather have something like a Moms Morning Out. I can definitely see a lot of people putting their kids into coops to 'prepare' them for public K.

[kiwik]

That sounds like something worth looking for.

I believe that homeschooling a 3-5 year old is basically just parenting. Now, when I had a preschooler, I looked to so many different groups and resources for enrichment and activities - I'd have probably joined a coop if I'd have thought of it. I have zero problem with the little ones and their families. I just don't want it to be the focus of the coop that's a big part of my life.

 

This was useful, thanks everyone.

My kids went to preschool because I work but if they hadn't I would have been a SAHM not a homeschooler.

[Guest]

We discouraged folks who were using the group as a free preschool. It is a different mindset--we're in this for years, vs. this is a nice stopgap until "real" school. What the percentage of "homeschoolers" who really just waiting until ps K is I don't know. I can think of only a few families here still hsing into high school.

This is a petty aside, but one time, my SIL (who has never homeschooled a day in her life) gave me some materials she had (flashcards, days of the week cards, etc.) and said I could have her "homeschooling materials." I didn't correct her, but inside it bothered me that she was calling them her "homschooling materials" as if flipping a few flashcards over the summer constitutes homeschooling.

[lailasmum]

It's very bottom heavy where I am too. Many of the home education groups have looked more like toddler and pre school groups at times. Some of that was because there were no groups for families who were very child led, alternative, attachment parenting etc. so those families kind of just came because home ed was mostly similarly minded people. I also think a lot of people have had enough of the reality of doing it all themselves by the time their kids are actually school aged or the year or so after. I've known people where the parents have decided not to do it beyond preschool when they see all the other kids in their area going off to school or the reality of what the home educating parent so often gives up starts to hit them.

 

None of the families we started out with still home educate except one who already had a much older child alongside a younger one and had already been at it a long time. If I had other alternative school options I think one of my kids would be in a school but the nearest place I would consider is too far.

[My4arrows]

In my area many of the co-ops have really great preschool classes but the catch is you can't have your oldest be in prek. Many require to have at least a k or 1st grader also enrolled or some even a 3rd grader or above enrolled to take advantage of the younger classes. I think that this has helped it being more for homeschoolers vs a cheap prek. Many of thes co-ops also have a strong middle school and high school participating too and I wonder if it has to do somewhat with not catering to the younger grades and their standard for academics.

[importswim]

I "homeschooled" DS in preschool and then promptly sent him to school for Kindergarten. It was about money for me. We pulled him out to homeschool after 2nd grade and he just completed 5th. We're now in it for the long haul. I'm probably an anomaly though!

[heartlikealion]

I don't know, that was the last thing on my mind when we started. Prior to ds being 4-5 I did join a playgroup once, but I didn't actually start looking into a homeschooling group til he was entering K. And my state doesn't even require K (pretty much everyone sends their kids to school, but legally it is not required so no paperwork for homeschooling til your child is 6 unless you started school and then pulled them).

 

We just finished second and he's going to private next year, but it may be a temporary thing needed for our family at the moment. I'm sorta hoping we can go back to homeschooling after this year. I want to cry thinking about the money I could save keeping him home lol.

 

One of our FB groups has asked that only members currently homeschooling join, but I do know that originally they let anyone interested join and one of my friends in the group has a little that is not school age yet.

 

*edited: homeschooling was not even considered til ds was 4 I believe. I think he was 5 when we joined a group.

Edited July 9, 2016 by heartlikealion

[Hilltopmom]

I do admit though, that right now, my plan is to homeschool preschool for my littles, actual "teach them to read" homeschooling (because they need to know in K now here), then send them to public school K, while finishing up my last teen at home. So, I have littles in our homeschool group but may not wind up homeschooling them.

If I didn't have teens though, we would not be going to homeschool group stuff, just typical preschool age stuff like library story hour.

 

But, that may change by the time the littles are school age. Burnt out right now, we'll see.

[sassenach]

We fixed this in our co-op by requiring that the oldest child be at least 1st grade. For the support group that I'm part of, there's no such requirement, but having a ton of littles doesn't really change the feel of the group. For the co-op, it was pretty important.

[shawthorne44]

About six years. 

It's OK to "homeschool" preschool only, of course, but I was hoping to have everyone invested in the long-term coop, know what I mean?

 

I know one very popular co-op I looked into before we moved did not allow any kid under 6 unless they were a younger sibling of someone in the co-op.   We were cut-out because of it, but it made a great deal of sense to me.  Maybe you suggest that to the co-op?   

[frogger]

I didn't mind the different mind set or whatever but I found that the pre-school heavy co-op I was in ended up tailored to the pre-schoolers. They need more adult involvement and they take all the volunteers. The classes could only be so long because of attention span and it really short changed the older kids. The frustrating thing was the parents who had established it and worked for it were doing it for their older kids. We did finally say that you had to have a school age child to join but it always did stay over run with younger children. I quit though I had a couple younger children too. The older kids weren't getting as much out of it and they are too busy to waste time.

[luuknam]

So, for parents with some hsed kids and some psed, are you welcomed at co-ops? I've seen co-op rules that require that families have all hsed kids, not some in and some out. The particular co-op I'm thinking of has the rule of no littles unless there are olders in the family too, also has the rule of all hsed kids in a family. I'm justt wondering. 

 

All the co-ops I've heard of around here are religious, and I have no idea what their rules are because I haven't looked into them.

 

We do homeschool swim&gym at the Y (which is a steal, costing less than putting the kids in swim lessons), and the first year we attended was the year my youngest turned 4 in November (they have a 3&4yo age group, 5&6, 7&8, etc) and my oldest was in 2nd grade in public school. I was the only one with a kid in the 3&4yo age group who didn't have an older homeschooled kid. FWIW, the next year (the school year that just ended) I homeschooled both of them and they both did swim&gym.

[poppy]

So, for parents with some hsed kids and some psed, are you welcomed at co-ops? I've seen co-op rules that require that families have all hsed kids, not some in and some out. The particular co-op I'm thinking of has the rule of no littles unless there are olders in the family too, also has the rule of all hsed kids in a family. I'm justt wondering. 

 

Not at all. Not in any of our half-dozen local coops.  But, I could see that being a thing in sub-communities that view public schools as evil tools of government control.

[sassenach]

So, for parents with some hsed kids and some psed, are you welcomed at co-ops? I've seen co-op rules that require that families have all hsed kids, not some in and some out. The particular co-op I'm thinking of has the rule of no littles unless there are olders in the family too, also has the rule of all hsed kids in a family. I'm justt wondering. 

Our co-op has a minimum age for the oldest enrolled child, but no rule about what you do with the rest of your  family. I hate co-op rules like that. It's an attempt to funnel out ideologies to the nth degree.

 

The minimum age rule directly effects how the co-op functions. It's not just about ideology. 

[poppy]

Funnel out what ideology?

[terrikuns]

We moved cross-country and I became a SAHM all at the same time when my kids were 4.5, 2.5, and 6wks old. We were contemplating homeschooling, but still considering other options, but we did not send anyone to preschool that year. We did a lot of community events - library groups, a military families group, etc. - but, without even intending to, most of the people we met were homeschoolers. Everyone else had their 4yos in 4-5d/wk preschool. Now that it's 2 years later, I'm realizing that even most of the "preschool" events are filled with 1 and 2 yos because everyone else is in preschool and a full summer of camp activities. 

 

We didn't look for or join a co-op until the following (K) year, but I can certainly understand the impulse in an area where intense preschool schedules are the norm. I will say that meeting so many homeschoolers really solidified our decision to pursue homeschooling - it made it seem really possible.