Monday, September 7

We have taken the home schooling plunge

We had considered home schooling for a long time but just didn't feel up to it. Then Christine found K12's South Carolina Virtual Charter School. It's public school. They pick the curriculum to match up with SC standards and send everything to you. Since they're getting the SC tax money for our kids, there's no cost to us that wouldn't be a normal school expense.

The clincher for us was when I said 'Well, if you want to try it, what do we have to lose? It's not forever, and if it doesn't work out, they can go back to their regular school.' So we're trying it.

How's it gone? Well, frankly, we've been surprised at home hard it has been and how much work. Elizabeth and Wil are both really smart, always at the top of their class, in the Academically Gifted Program at Leaphart and above 95th percentile on standardized tests. We frankly thought it would be a breeze.

Probably the biggest adjustment is just to a different way of learning. We are hopeful that all of us will get better at this. Wil, especially, has had trouble with simply reading and following directions, so that is a growing edge for him.

Elizabeth was dubious about the change at first, but we think she's leaning toward sticking with it. Though Wil has some hard days, he keeps saying he likes it better than regular school. And we're confident that both of them are getting a better education, with much more individual attention, than they were getting before.

What did I leave out? What questions do you have?

2 comments:

Shawn said...

Do both of you work outside the home?

Sean Meade said...

nope. i work at home and Christine works outside of the home half time. wouldn't be possible if we both worked full time outside of the home