What are your educational priorities?

[Not_a_Number]

On 6/20/2023 at 10:16 AM, Clemsondana said:

I know that we're at least 5 years into the 'new family contact' people at co-op saying that they'll do a tour and have families ask 'So if we do this once/week we're good for school?' and they  have to explain that an elementary schooler coming to a class where they learn about animals, a PE class, an art class, and a 'read a book and do a craft' class once/week is fun enrichment, not a week's worth of school.  Or they know that we offer enrichment for younger kids but ask where they go to get their curriculum for 7th grade (not asking about resources - asking about going to pick it up, like maybe the county hands it out in a bag).  There's nothing wrong with people who want 'school in a box' - it's not my preference, but it can be OK - but I can't imagine having done so little research that I thought I could just swing by the county school office and pick it up, rather than understanding that I needed to look for a resource to buy it from.  

Our long-time people at co-op have talked about different shifts over time.  In the beginning (before my time) it was mostly people homeschooling because schools were a bad fit, or religious homeschoolers, or philosophical homeschoolers.  As I was starting they got a wave of academic homeschoolers, which changed the co-op offerings a bit because they were fine with fun classes for youngers, but if they were going to have their older kid take an outsourced class they wanted it to be rigorous.  At this point, I would say that most of our middle/high academic classes are at or well above the level of local schools, and several of the private school umbrellas automatically grant honors credit to them. But, now we are having a different group.  Some of our new families are still wanting solid academics, but a lot are just looking for easy classes.  We're having a bit of a struggle, because having worked hard to get good teachers and having gotten positive feedback from our college kids who say that they felt very well prepared, we don't want to back off.  Many of us already grade differently - I know which kids are struggling 'C for graduation' kids and which are looking for honors/AP level, and I interact with their work accordingly to give them what they need.  But, we don't know what to do with 'we just don't want to work' families.  

Any idea what’s motivating these folks to homeschool?

[Clarita]

There are people who are motivated to homeschool for reasons other than providing the best education for their kids. This forum is a bit self selecting for people who homeschool for education purposes. Other reasons I know are scheduling flexibility, safety concerns, issues with PS and can't afford private school, spending time with their kids, concern about views schools may expose their kids to, etc.

[Momto6inIN]

Our priorities are strong family bonds/relationships, instilling a Biblical worldview, preparing for adulthood/career, and becoming a self motivated learner.

We are not the most rigorous hs family I know, but we're probably in the top quarter. We work hard to keep a healthy life/work/school balance.

[Gil]

At the early elementary level priority is streamlining and accelerating their mastery of the 3Rs and basics. My goal was for The Boys to be so far ahead of the public school schedule that they couldn't be academically harmed by anything that the PS did or did not do as I had not planned to homeschool.

But beyond the 3Rs I prioritize a specialized education over "well-rounded".

My personal gift is mathematics, my professional skills are in technology and my desire for my grandkids is bilingualism so I make those our educational priorities.

By the time that they "finish" highschool my priorities for them are
Balanced Bilingualism--able to read, write and converse fluently in two languages at the level of an educated adult.
Highly competent and capable of applied mathematics up to the undergraduate level as taught in our state university system.
Highly competent and capable of professional level computer programming and networking skills.
Capable of working with hardware and small electronics repair.
Financially literate and prepared.