HS: the charter school version

well we have discovered that the homeschooling realm is a bit different here in california. in jersey you're left completely alone to make your own decisions about what your kids need and how they will get it. the law requires the state to stay out of your way and they would have to provide proof if they were going to claim you were being negligent. california provides options. one option is going it alone. another is working with the public school and all their curriculum, but just not on their campus. the third is a mix. it goes by the name of charter school. not all charter schools are created equal. they all have their own rules and regulations and they all have different curriculum. most require attendance to classes a couple days a week, and then you fill in the rest at home. some provide enrichment, some only core subjects. but they all have something in common, and that is the cost. FREE. yes FREE! i was shocked when i called and asked what the fees were to enroll, and she said there were none! i couldn't believe it. really?? they're going to teach my children and not charge me anything? i didn't want to enroll them in core subjects. i want to keep consistency and continue with the books i've chosen and the system they're used to. but i wanted to find a place they could get some extracurricular things that i just don't take the time to provide. and wait! it gets better! (how could it get any better than free?) they pay up to $400 per school year PER CHILD for curriculum of my choosing!! WOW! not only are they going to educate my child for free, but now they're going to pay for my books on top of it?!? the shock is growing!

here's the catch. of course you already knew there was a catch, right? well, we all had to sign a paper (contract) saying that we understand what homeschooling is and that we commit to doing our work. every 5 weeks we have to meet with an 'educational specialist' and show the work we've done and give some of it to her so she can keep it on file if the state ever asks for it. technically they are considered a public school, therefore we don't have to pay any sort of tuition. which is also the reason we get credit towards curriculum. sure they keep it at the end of the year, but who cares at this point.

so the kids are thus far enrolled in PE, computers, geography, and art. next month is when all the fun stuff begins. luigi will be taking fencing and a couple other things. there are choices from gardening to interior decorating, karate to videography, leadership to chess club. the kids are so excited they can hardly contain themselves. in jersey there wasn't even such a thing as a rec center. but even through a rec center here, the classes would cost at least $50 a kid. i would never be able to expose them to these kinds of subjects on my own.

when i left jersey i was so very sad to be leaving behind the homeschool co-op that we had fallen in love with. it was a place where religion was NOT a taboo subject and where kids of all ages befriended each other. it was run very efficiently by all of the moms involved and we always felt so welcome. we were so disappointed to not be able to find anything similar when we researched resources in california. but now that we have discovered the charter school, we are so very excited to utilize all the new types of resources in store for us!