I have a question. Has it happened that homeschoolers pool their resources and create schools with students of their choosing, using that group of parents to each contribute a specialty? It would seem to be a nice way around all of the restrictions and government interference of setting up a private school.
I think it’s better to just homeschool. Starting a private school costs a lot of money and then u usually have to turn to the gov. to get grants.
There are homeschooling groups who share teaching skills, like science, math, English and history.
It does happen some, but not that often. We have a co-op in our area that meets every other week for unit studies, but I have heard of full co-op schools (including sports).
One of the big advantages of homeschooling is not being tied to the public school schedule, but the full co-op school would just lock us into their schedule.
I don't know about the homeschool laws in other states, but here in New Mexico, you can only teach other people's children if you have a teaching certificate. You may teach your own children with a high school diploma or GED. I have a GED and some community college so can I can legally teach my own kids, but not someone else's. There is a program here in Albuquerque called Rio Grande Enrichment Studies which offers core classes of literature, science and history/geography for one full day a week, then several hours of homework to be done the rest of the week. These classes are taught by other homeschool parents who are licensed to teach in the state. The students' own parents then teach math, grammar and any additional elective courses during the rest of the week. This works out well for many families here, but you pay a monthly tuition and we could no longer afford it after the first year.
My wife and her late husband did just that when their children were of school age. They ran the school for over 20 years. When her husband died, and her youngest child entered college, she sold the school.
The parents took a lot of responsibility for the funding and operation of the school. It's not easy, but it can be done.
Yes! In my state, there are many different “cooperatives” set up by parents. Everyone contributes in some way. It usually works out that each parent will teach his or her own specialty - a subject in which the parent has knowledge because it’s his or her occupation or area of interest.
For example: Choir/music taught by someone who is a musician who studied music in college. Anatomy taught by a parent who is a medical doctor. A college professor teaching a high school level course. Sewing taught by a mother who is very knowledgeable about it. And so on and on. Those are some of the real-life examples from the co-ops where we live.
However, the classes are not accredited as they would be at an “official” school. We enroll our children so that they will learn, with or without accreditation.
I don’t know how common this is in other areas, but in ours it is extremely popular. Here, within a commutable distance, I know of at least 5 similar co-ops. The children take courses from parents who are knowledgeable in those areas. Additionally, there are at least 6 accredited hybrid schools in our area. These are schools where the children are enrolled 1-3 days (depending on the school and the ages and whether or not they take electives there), take their core courses over 1 or 2 days, and do the rest of their coursework from home. We have been homeschooling for 11 years (kids are 16 and 13), and they attend one of these hybrids. I really love our school, and feel secure in knowing that they are receiving a wonderful education. For us it the best of both worlds, though I must say I do sometimes feel wistful over my friends who homeschool completely, and wonder what that might have been like! (I did do that for my daughter’s 1st grade, but I was very insecure in thinking that I would accidentally leave out something she was supposed to know).
My daughter (the oldest) did attend Catholic HS for her freshman year (she is a junior now) and was very disappointed that it was something vastly different from what she expected. The school was very lenient about student behavior (foul language, sexting in class, alcohol abuse at football games, openly misogynistic behavior of males towards females, etc.), and she found this all to be very distracting when she was supposed to be learning. There was also a preponderance of children with way too much money and not nearly enough adult supervision. She begged to go back to her old school (where there is absolutely none of that behavior either attempted or accepted) after a few months there. There are plenty of her friends who are doing well at the Catholic school though, I guess it just depends on the individual and what each kid can tolerate or ignore (or in some cases, enjoy, lol!).
I never liked the idea of the 'school' for groups of homeschoolers, because it's almost the same dynamics as being in a regular school. The only school our high schoolers attended was a few classes they took at the local Community College. These were quite different, because there was a mix of ages in the classes.