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Showing posts with label home school programs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home school programs. Show all posts

Jan 19, 2010

Online Home School Programs

    I wanted to post more about home school options this time focusing on online home school programs. There are many choices for home education and some of it may depend on the state you live in. I wanted to give you some information so you can know a little more about what is available to you and your children, and help you get started in finding the right program for you and your family.

Many of these online home school programs offer free curriculum, one on one support with a teacher, online classes the children can attend as well as online testing, I have also seen some that offer free lap top computers for each child enrolled. Many of these programs are Internet based and do require kids to be on the computer a certain amount of the time but even this is dependent on the age of your child and learning skills. I would assume that the average child spends a good amount of time with online activities but that is the world we live in and children need to acquire those skills as well.

Some of these online schools are private which you would be responsible to pay for their services and curriculum, but many online home school do offer the online public school option and these are free to families who live in states that acknowledge these programs.

One option is a online home school program that I have heard good things about in the forums among home school moms. Some said it is way to structured and others say that is what they like about it. It is called K-12 and this online home school is offered to families in every grade K-12. Established in 1999, the K-12 mission "To provide any child access to exceptional curriculum and tools that enable him or her to maximize his or her success in life, regardless of geographic, financial, or demographic circumstance."

"K¹² offers outstanding, highly effective curriculum that enables mastery of core concepts and skills for all kinds of minds"


K-12 does offer the online public school program for elementary to Jr high and high school, in many states, check into it for your state by requesting info from K-12.

Another online home school program that I have heard good things about is Connections Academy. They also offer the free online home school programs and is available in many states as well. 

"Connections Academy schools are growing throughout the United States. Working with state education officials, leading education publishers, and curriculum experts, Connections Academy ensures that our program meets the highest accreditation standards in every state we serve as well as our own standards for excellence. To learn more about our free, quality public education offered in your home state, simply select your local school below."

Connection Academy began operations of its first schools in two states in the Fall of 2002. In September of 2004, Connections Academy was sold. The company now operates schools under management contracts from charter schools or school districts in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin. Connections Academy provides a new form of free public school that students attend from home.

This is a unique program that combines:

Strong parental involvement of homeschooling
Expertise and accountability of public funded education
Flexibility of online classes


I will post more about these types of programs later but these are two of the best in my opinion from what I have heard and read about on their sites. There is a wide range of online home school programs with many different curriculum and methods to choose from you just have to pick what will be best for you family.

We use a home based public school program much like the online options only located in our town and without having to use the computer. I did look into the K-12 and the Connections Academy programs for my kids but chose to go with our local program but I am still open to these programs and may be using one in the future. It is nice to know we could pretty much move any ware without changing schools.

You can visit these sites and request more information if you would like to learn more about what these programs can do for you and your family!

Dec 2, 2009

Home Based Charter Schools

      A home based Charter is a public Charter school that offers a home based schooling program available to us in our town. They do use state curriculum and all rules apply the same as any public school. The difference is the parents not teachers or schools are in control. 

We get several curriculum choices and can use the curriculum as we see best for our child. We have an advisory teacher for support and to help us use and choose curriculum if we need it. We keep attendance and have to turn that in as well as 3 work page samples once a month, which is very easy and the requirements are very reasonable. 

Not unlike what we would have to do anyway if homeschooling privately. They also offer extra curricular classes and events which are not required but an added bonus. Our advisory teacher who is a certified teacher also home schooled her own 3 children so she knows the game! 

California is a low regulation state for home schooling see Home School Regulations.
We have chosen to use the Charter program so I wanted to give you an update on how it's all going. What are your Home School Options ?

With this program we have a advisory teacher who is available during the week and we see about once a month. She was a home school mom to her three children, they are now grown. She assist us in curriculum selection and all curriculum is provided for free from the school, as well as any other workbooks we may need. The also give us vouchers to buy school supplies at the school stores, we love this!

They offer classes for my children to attend and we love the science class at the local nature museum. At the school there is other resources, and materials for us to use as well.

I am thankful to have this program right in our town, there are many home based charter schools to choose from and you would have to check with you state to find programs like this for your family. You may also be able to use a online charter program depending on were you live but I think this is pretty widely available.

The problems with a program like this in my opinion is, we do have to use state standard curriculum for now this is fine but in the future I may not want to use a state run curriculum.

We do however get to use any curriculum we choose but we do not have the option of the state paying for it, for example a religious curriculum etc.

Starting in 2nd grade children have to participate in state testing and we do have to turn in attendance and progress records, ideally I do not like it but I understand why it is done, and it helps me to have a record of our hard work.

If you are just starting out like we were last year, then a program like this may be right for you. If you home school already I want to know about your school, do you go threw a program like ours or do something else?

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