Homeschooling questions

Parent Cafe
1

<p>I am seriously considering homeschooling my 14-year-old son for at least his freshman year in HS. Our public school system is not serving him well, and it is clear to me that, although things might be marginally better in HS, they will not be significantly better. He was not admitted to the independent day schools he applied to (two waitlists which will almost certainly not become offers of admission). I am looking into independent day schools that are still taking applications, but the ones that I’ve identified seem absolutely wrong for him. I’m also looking into nearby larger public HS, and he may apply to EPGY’s online HS (although they do not usually take students before 10th grade). My plan would be to homeschool him for one year, and hope to get a place in an independent day school (not likely for 10th grade; no openings except for attrition) or a good BS.</p>

<p>I have some serious reservations about this. First, my son is social and, although he does not really have an intellectual peer group at our very small public school, he does have friends and I am afraid that if he is not at school these friendships will not survive. I am also wondering how to replace ECs, such as sports teams and clubs. There are very few community-based sports teams at this age, since most kids are playing for school teams. It’s hard for me to imagine at the moment how he will get enough exercise, let alone the other advantages of playing on teams.</p>

<p>It is clear to me how to manage some areas; he has taken quite a few EPGY and other online math courses to compensate for the shortcomings of the school-based math courses. I might be able to manage labs for science courses through CTY. He is already scheduled to take HS Honors Physics through CTY this year, and they offer other science courses, as well. I am less clear about how to do history and English classes. There are plenty of language courses available on- and off-line. I’m worried about him doing most of his schooling online. This is my concern about the EPGY online HS; it seems sterile. </p>

<p>I’m wondering how an application to a good independent day or boarding school would look coming from a homeschooling situation. I’m also wondering about opportunities such as the US Physics Team and the Saturday science program at Columbia. I went to their websites and learned that kids are nominated by their teachers/schools. </p>

<p>I know there are homeschooling communities. Can anyone tell me how to find one around here that is not religious in orientation?</p>

<p>I’m also worried about how much of my time this would take. I work full-time, and have another child.</p>

2

<p>Our situation is a little different, but I thought I’d write to give encouragement. Both our kids homeschooled from the beginning until 9th grade when each entered local small public high school. Since we were used to patching together curriculum for them from various sources, we continued to do that to some extent in high school, by adding on courses to what they were getting in school, if needed. We used a lot from the University of Missouri distance learning program, which I recommend. Community colleges are a good resource. Most of our kids’ music (violin & voice) came from local university community division as our school had no orchestra and due to scheduling, limited voice stuff. My wife did a good job gradually persuading the high school administration to buy in to some of these programs (adding the U of M stuff to their transcript for language classes, etc.) It has actually worked out well and the kids have done fine. School does not have all the AP courses and extras that a lot of schools have, but it has/had its benefits. Son is now freshman at Cornell and daughter sophmore in the high school and doing very well. We weren’t religious homeschooler’s, but most of the organized groups are religious based. We would associate with a number of these groups and then just cherry pick from what each offered that fit what we were doing. There are some good people in these groups, beyond the religious bent, who can help. So, I suggest, just start to make contact with the groups, regardless, instead of waiting for the perfect one. They are good resources if you go for the full homeschool option. My sister in CO had a similar situation to yours and her son did, I think, 10, 11th grade formally enrolled in local high school (with half course load at comm college), and 9th and 12th homeschooled with strong comm college courses. Anyway, he is going to Tufts next year. I think these kids end up standing out in a lot of ways. I don’t know the whole private school/day school world. Good luck.</p>

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<p>Thank you, cantg, for the information and encouragement. The private school world has become very competitive, at least around here, as more and more people try to bail out of the public schools. There is are quite a few desperate people in my neighborhood.</p>

<p>I did not mean to imply any antagonism toward religious people, only to point out that our reasons for considering homeschooling have to do only with the lack of challenging courses in our public HS. But you make a good point that even a group of people with different motivations could be helpful.</p>

<p>I’m glad that your kids are doing so well.</p>

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<p>Since you specifically asked about the US physics team, you might find this autobiographical entry from a homeschooler on the 2007 physics team of interest:</p>

<p><a href=“Error Occurred While Processing Request”>Error Occurred While Processing Request;

<p>This student also won a $50,000 grand prize at ISEF last week, for his research on nanotubes. The article below describes a few more details of his homeschooling education.</p>

<p><a href=“http://pahomeschoolers.com/messages/21273.html[/url]”>http://pahomeschoolers.com/messages/21273.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>“Homeschooling” is something of a misnomer is the case of many high-school age “homeschoolers” such as this student. They don’t just sit around at home doing on-line classes. Doing nothing but on-line classes would indeed be sterile and stultifying.</p>

<p>They find a variety of opportunities to get involved in their communities, take part-time classes at local colleges, do research projects with local professors, use their schedule flexibility to do informal internships or apprenticeships or paid work, etc.</p>

5

<p>Another homeschooler here. I’m not sure if I can help you, but I wonder if the larger public high school you mention has a variety of higher level courses that might be suitable for your son, or teachers that might help him with independent study. It sounds like you’d prefer him to be in a school for social and athletic opportunities. (I have a 13yo S who has always been homeschooled, and an 18yo S who was homeschooled 3rd-12th grades who missed some of these opportunities–which is a concern). I think it would be hard to homeschool while working full-time–unless you are working from home and your hours are flexible. I would also encourage you to contact any established groups in your area–whatever their affiliation. Keep in mind that many people in religious homeschooling groups may be homeschooling for academic and not just religious reasons–you may have more in common with them than you think. Good luck–your son sounds like an excellent student who can succeed in any situation.</p>

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<p>I don’t know your situation in NY, but community colleges are a great resource if they make their classes available to h.s. students. It is usually best to enroll as a dual-credit student to preserve your son’s freshman classification for after he finishes h.s. </p>

<p>Our homeschooled son takes P.E. classes at the community college along with math and history. Though he is not in any team sports, at least he can stay in shape. Another option is a local cycling team if you think your son would enjoy that. Around here, the homeschooled kids get together once a week to play ultimate frisbee. Perhaps you can cobble together some different things your son can do. When our older son was in h.s., he swam for a USA swim team (a competitive league). Also, you could join a gym and he could just go work out every day.</p>

<p>We have had no trouble finding enough EC’s. You might look into Toastmasters groups for young people and community service activities as opportunities for some social interaction for your S. Our kids have all 3 enjoyed participating in Civil Air Patrol and in church youth activities.</p>

<p>The community college might also be a good place for your son to take history and English. I would suggest enrolling him in honors courses, as this would likely look better to the day schools.</p>

<p>A bigger concern might be the fact that you work and that your son isn’t old enough to drive. Even if activities or classes are available, would he have a way to get to them? If not, your only real options are online and self-study courses. Is leaving him home alone all day every day really going to be the best thing for him? Granted, he could sleep late (most kids love that) and do some work in the afternoon and some in the evening when you are home. He’ll be wanting some attention in the evenings though, and likely wanting to go places, so you’d need to think about how you would feel about that.</p>

<p>Is your son project oriented at all? If so, this year could be a fabulous time for him to explore a passion. We have friends whose homeschooled kids have qualified for the international science fair ( <a href=“http://www.sciserv.org/isef/[/url]”>http://www.sciserv.org/isef/&lt;/a&gt; ) . One of our sons started an exotic animal business (we live on some acreage) and our other son has taught himself to be an award-winning filmmaker. Our D just read tons of books and taught piano lessons. Homeschooling provides that precious commodity - time - in which to do something different.</p>

<p>There are ways of documenting time spent pursuing passions so that you can credit them properly on their transcript. For instance, if your son is interested in Samurai warriors, you could assign him to read several books (some directly related to Samurais, others about other aspects of Eastern history), take a class on Samurai swordsmanship (is there such a thing?!), write a research paper on their training, find movies or documentaries on the subject to watch, you get the idea. Be creative and get the child to come up with ideas for pursuing this passion. If it’s big and involved enough, this could be a credit in English and a credit in Eastern Civilization.</p>

<p>Here is a link to a yahoo group for New York homeschoolers. Perhaps someone there can let you know what’s available in your area. <a href=“Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos”>Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos;

<p>Best of luck finding a good solution for your son’s next year!</p>

7

<p>NYMomof2,</p>

<p>there is some good information at the Duke Talent Indentification Program (TIP) website. </p>

<p>info. is there on their distance learning, independent study and e-studies program. additional programs like University of Nebraska - Lincoln Independent Study High School, EPGY, etc. are mentioned as well.</p>

<p>You might also consider checking with your State’s Board of Education to see if they have a listing of state accredited virtual schools.</p>

8

<p>I thought about homeschooling a lot when my kids were younger. There’s a big homeschooling group in Westchester. I don’t believe it’s religious in nature. I think it’s the last one on this list: <a href=“http://www.home-school.com/groups/NY.html[/url]”>http://www.home-school.com/groups/NY.html&lt;/a&gt; They used to offer outings and activities. There are local track clubs and hockey teams for possible sports. There are lots of local colleges of course, I don’t know if they are open to having high schoolers take courses. I looked into them for computer science at one point, but at least the extension schools had no computer science worth exploring. And if you are going into this, you might want to look into some less traditional forms of homeschooling. Read John Holt.</p>

9

<p>Thank you, everyone, for all the information! Lots to think over. </p>

<p>The kid from WI is truly astounding! </p>

<p>atommom, I would like him to be in school, preferably. Unfortunately, our local district takes a very hard line on homeschooling, and will not allow partial enrollment or participation in ECs. I am looking into larger HS in our area. I know of two that I believe would be good for him, but neither accepts out-of-district students.</p>

<p>I will look into local colleges, local homeschooling groups. I do work at home, and my hours are flexible, but I do need to work and my son would have to be responsible. I could do some driving during the day but, again, there are limits.</p>

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<p>We seriously considered homeschooling around middle school level but decided not to. We considered it because of the lack of challenging classes in middle school. Once they were at the HS level however, they had more options since the HS had many AP classes and both kids took advantage of them to stay reasonably challenged. We would also supplement areas we felt the public schools were weak by presenting the material ourselves and in some cases, using different books. Although we had other frustrations with the public schools it worked out okay in the end. </p>

<p>The key point is that it’s at the HS level that there tend to be more courses available for the high-achievers versus those on a low-achieving track when compared to grade school or middle school. If your public offers these classes you might want to reconsider it and supplement as needed. Local community colleges can sometimes be used to supplement as well. This way your S can still be with friends, have typical HS ECs/sports, and still be challenged.</p>

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<p>I agree with UCSD dad. We found middle school a bit lackluster, except for math (which was compacted), but high school has been terrific. No problem at all finding other high ability learners, and the leveling in high school assures that your son will be with academic peers.</p>

<p>I can’t exude enough about my own son’s curricular and extra-curricular experiences (mostly in music) though, since these have really “made” high school for my own son. I simply cannot imagine homeschooling him and having had him miss out on so many wonderful experiences. There is no way we could have provided even a fraction of what he has gotten, and I would have actually chosen to have him bored in a few classes, so as to still have some of these experiences.</p>

<p>It’s a trade-off, and I sure understand why people homeschool. However, I think that it is possible to balance high achievement, and social, ECs, etc. at the high school level (contrary to elem/MS).</p>

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<p>Check out this link for independent schools which still have spots available:
<a href=“http://www.ssat.org/membersearch.nsf/SCCAFS!OpenFrameSet[/url]”>http://www.ssat.org/membersearch.nsf/SCCAFS!OpenFrameSet&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Also, I really worry when you say that your social son has friends at school but are concerned that these relationships might not transfer. I wouldn’t worry that they are not his intellectual equals. If they are good kids, with a son at age 14 you’ve got it all. I guess I am not completely sure why your school is not meeting his needs, but I suspect that he may not be getting challenged? FYI independent schools are not necessarily for the uber gifted. Usually they are for bright, well-rounded kids. I think the gifted kids do best where there are lots of AP and IB classes that they can take at a young age. Maybe another district in the area has a hs with room for your guy and will have the classes he needs? If he needs smaller class size, then an independant school would be better.</p>

<p>Check out Apex Learning and K12.com - two great online schools with advanced classes for high school (if you go the homeschool route). I do worry about your son’s social life. If that goes off track it can pull other things along with it. Boys need to feel included and connected to stay positive and focused in high school. I know girls do as well but I worry more about depression in boys when they are separated from their friendship group at that age. Unless he wants to change schools, of course. What does he want?</p>

<p>What if he were to take some classes at his school, nonacademic ones, and some with Apex or K12? Schools will say that such things can’t be done. In reality, from a legal standpoint, they certainly can! He could also then remain on the sports teams or in clubs. Kids do this where I live. I know there are homeschooling groups but a lot of that is parent-driven in terms of socializing. Also, if he is doing well in a typical social setting in high school I am not sure the homeschool crowd would suit him as much. Usually they are awesome kids, just not your typical high school crowd.</p>

<p>Hope my rambling helped, and that I didn’t repeat other posters (they were too long for me to read right now).</p>

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<p>I homeschooled one son in middle school, he decided to return to h.s. in 9 grade because of the opportunity to take university classes through h.s./university program. And my other son decided to start homeschooling in 11th grade because he developed some academic interests not covered by a traditional school program (and besides, his h.s. assumed that the “leveling” mentioned by Allmusic should be done on the basis of grades, i.e. “B+ is not enough to get into Honors or AP class next year”).</p>

<p>Homeschooling did not require too much time or parental participation in our case, but our kids did not want to do a lot of ECs or sports, and they could just walk to their former school or to a park in order to socialize with friends. We did what they call “unschooling”, so the kids decided for themselves what they wanted to learn and in which form (self-study, projects, EPGY, community college, video courses, competitions…). If you want to follow the traditional school curriculum, it may require more of parental time, but still doable if you work from home.</p>

<p>EPGY is pretty good for physics, particularly. I did not check for the couple of years, but before that there always were several kids in the list of Physics Olympiad semi-finalists who took AP Physics through EPGY. In fact, there are more of them (they are not listed as EPGY students, because they took the test at their schools)</p>

<p>You may want to subscribe to <a href=“Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos”>Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos; - they are discussing a lot of high school matters, and you can find lots of information about the homeschooling resources in the past messages if you use the search</p>

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<p>Thank you, everyone.</p>

<p>Spideygirl, my son is not an uber-genius, just a very bright and intellectual kid. His friends are nice kids and he enjoys them, but he is much happier in situation like CTY, where he is with similarly bright and curious kids. Our HS is just too small to provide anything approaching a peer group. There are fewer than 100 kids/grade. I’m sure he would be fine at a good independent school, or even a large, good public school. I have not been able to identify any good options in those two categories, yet. Or, rather, I have identified good options (great independent school; two great, large public schools) but they won’t take him (waitlisted at independent school; publics don’t accept out-of-district students).</p>

<p>I should not really say that he is “social”. He is not one of the popular kids, and he is not socially skilled or advanced,or interested in the social scene. But he likes being with people, and enjoys being in a gang of boys. I am very afraid that if he were to be homeschooled, his current friends would drop away.</p>

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<p>Are there any homeschool co-ops in your area? I homeschooled my son all the way thru, and he got wonderful social activities by attending a co-op twice weekly. The co-ops are often religious in nature, but in large cities you can usually find some that aren’t, if the religious ones don’t suit him.</p>

<p>It’s really easy to keep the kid social. My son was very involved with a Robotics team, and there were lots of social activities with his co-op friends. In fact, they have MORE time to socialize, since they don’t spend as much time doing schoolwork! And there’s more freedom at the co-op to talk and interact.</p>

<p>(I did not read all the posts in this thread yet, no time right now, so sorry if I repeat something that’s already been said.)</p>

<p>I invite you to do a search of homeschooling threads. There was a really good one about a month or so ago, with lots of ideas and resources.</p>

16

<p>My sons were homeschooled from the start, including part-time in high school. We were fortunate to be in a school district that was very open to part-time students, so they were able to take classes such as music and computer programming, and take part in ED’s, at the high school, as well as some classes at the community college. Most of my younger son’s friends lived in our neighborhood, and homeschooling did not interfere with friendships at all.</p>

<p>One thing that you should check into if you plan to put him back into high school is whether the school will accept his 9th grade credits from homeschooling. Schools in our area will not, so once you decide to homeschool high school, you are in it for the duration–or the kid has to repeat a bunch of classes that he did at home. Our sons were fine with homeschool diplomas, and the colleges were fine with them, so it was not a problem for us, but it might be for some kids.</p>

<p>There are many options for high school, and it can’t hurt to look into many different ones and find what works best for you family. Good luck with the decision!</p>

17

<p>I understand your frustration with the local public school but, quite frankly, it seems that you are contemplating dealing with a bad situation by creating a situation that is even worse, given the fact that you work full time and have not homeschooled before. I think a 14 year old needs more attention and stimulation than a fully employed parent can give, especially if your goal is an improved education. I respect homeschoolers – but I think it’s too important a job to fit around another full time job – you just won’t have the mental energy needed to really focus on your son’s needs every day. </p>

<p>It might be different if you had been homeschooling already and had a set routine. But this sounds to me like a rather risky experiment, hard to undo the damage if things don’t work out. I mean, it would be much easier the other way around: send him to school, and if that isn’t working out you can always pull him out and homeschool later on.</p>

<p>I don’t know your son, of course – if he is very independent and self-directed, it might work out. My daughter is the type who would have done very well “unschooled” – she has always kept herself busy, always coming up with new ideas and new things. But my son would have read for hours on end, slept a lot , and played videogames – he needed external structure and also the motivation and stimulation that comes from being with a peer group.</p>

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<p>Haven’t had time to read the whole thread, but I thought i’d pass along this info for what it is worth. One large NY homeschoolers’ organization is LEAH (tried to cut and paste the website, and it didn’t work…sorry), and while it is primarily a resource for Christian homeschoolers, they can provide a tremendous amount of information to you, since you are in NY. I’ve homeschooled our 3 kids for the last 6 years, after sveral years in private school. It has been a far better option for us for many surprising reason, not the least of which is that our college applications have been very well-received. The concern about school activities can be an issue, if they play sports, but we’ve had, for example, far better music opportunities, once we left school. For my son’s baseball, it’s been a bit harder, but he plays American Legion ball instead of high school. The academics are what you make them. We chose to approach teaching with the trivium approach: Grammar Stage, Dalectic Stage, Rhetoric Stage, and our “school” is a classical school. The advantage of our curiculum stood our D in good stead when she applied to colleges…accepted in 5 very selective LAC’s with Presidential scholarships offered by two of them. I was very nervous about all of this, as I had NEVER expected to homeschool my kids, but I will always be glad that I did it. No regrets! There are many, many options for you to look into…online rescources, co-op-style teaching, college courses, fabulous curricula that most schools don’t even know about! The biggest national resource is HSLDA (Home Scool Legal Defense) in Virginia. This is an organization which provides support, resources, and council, if necesary to any member, as well as most anyone else who asks. Look into that resource…again primarily a Christian organization, but VERY knowledgeable and helpful. As a New Yorker homeschooler, I hope to encourage you. Whatever your decision, I wish you all the best.</p>