I want to enroll her in an online private school. I just don’t know what the process entails.
What worries me is that she and have both been really sick with a respiratory virus that she picked up at school, and I’m still sick from it, and yet they insisted that I send her back to school today. They have no way of knowing whether I have coronavirus, and I have no way of knowing that she won’t pick it up at school and give it to me in my already weakened condition. Since we have no idea how many actual cases of the disease is out there, it seems risky to me not to relax school attendance rules at this time.
It seems the only way I can keep my family safe is to take her out of the public school. I won’t homeschool since Virginia required advance notice of that by early August. I just want her to switch schools, from public to private online.
However, the school will let her stay home if you get a doctor's note saying she is still sick and needs to stay home. Often they will send homework home for her, and can advise her on where to learn on line. (Khan academy for example has good math courses).
That will give you a week or two to find other resources.
after a cold or influenza, the immune system is weak and the chances of getting another bad cold/bronchitis/pneumonia/ etc. is higher than normal. So there is a good argument to keep your child home for a month to let her recover.
As for corona virus: It's been over-hyped by the press. Part of it is because pushing hysteria is what the media does, and part of it is to bash Trump.
For healthy persons it is no worse than the flu.
One reason they are worried about corona virus is because it's a new germ, and if everyone doing caregiving catches it (including all the doctors and nurses), there won't be enough healthy people to care for the sick. That's what happened in China.
And you have to remember malnutrition (in the past people in China starved, so older people might have weakened immune systems), crowding in the slums, and air pollution in China make things worse.
This is the same problem for the influenza.
of course, I've seen old people die of the influenza, and back in the 1998 epidemic, we even had to send a few kids to specialty hospitals and one got put on a respirator.
If the corona virus hits your area, I suspect they will close schools and churches and stop visiting of nursing homes. This should have been done in Washington state, but of course they didn't do it.
I suspect when the corona virus hits the large homeless population of California (who often take drugs and are alcoholic so have poor immune systems), we'll see quite a few deaths too.
but you should be okay.
Disclaimer: My wife created an online HSLDA HS English class. My daughter graduated from Patrick Henry College. We live in Loudoun County, Virginia and homeschooled our kids through HS.
There is an incredible graduation experience at the homeschool annual conference in Richmond... where you hand out the diploma to your kids. Head down there in a couple months and check it out (but book hotel early... it is a huge conference).
Do not go by county guidelines. HSLDA is nationwide but HQ in VA. They are attorneys who know VA law better than the school districts themselves. To us, membership was not optional... even prior to our direct association with them.
Here was our path:
Calvert Education (curriculum/online): Extension of a private, traditional school in Baltimore. They did not have a HS program back then so we supplemented with local homeschool chapters (classroom teaching), Liberty online, HSLDA online, son took a few classes at NOVA community college for senior year and got into a very competitive major at a VA state university.
Today there are many online programs for HS, including universities. It is a road well traveled at this point and, for now at least, VA is a great state for it.
Enjoy the journey!