Homeschool Charter

[Deleted]

Hi everyone, I hope you don't mind me chiming in. Is anyone here taking a "homeschool charter" approach? Our charter school is giving us the option to enroll in their "virtual academy" this year instead of their regular distance learning/in-person learning, and we'd rather have the continuity than dealing with school closing down and opening back up and all that. Someone said "Oh this is like a homeschool charter", and I am like "um, what is that?"

It's on the Edgenuity platform and our school will be hiring dedicated teachers that are supposed to be closely aligned with the on-campus teachers. This is all entirely new to our school. The time requirement is 240 minutes/day which seems like a lot to me. One hour of that is "office hour" with the teacher but I think the rest is videos and online work. They've said it will require "significant" parent involvement but not really what that will entail. DS is 8yo and entering 3rd grade. We are in California for reference.

Can anyone give me some idea of what we might be in for? I just have no idea. DS hated distance learning in the spring so I'm hoping this is very different. I'm a little worried 4 hours/day will be tedious (he finished the spring assignments in like 10 minutes), but also H and I both have to work (I'm part-time, working at home), but also I want DS to enjoy learning because he has been a good student since K, and ahhhhh.... I just want to be able to plan a bit to help this work for us.

Any insight is appreciated!!

[hawkward]

Okay, so I’m not really familiar with charters and I know that CA does things differently for homeschool rules, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt.

To me, that seems like a lot. For reference, we finished most of DS1’s third grade school work in two hours a day (with him doing independent catch up in the afternoons for up to an hour). That two hours was mostly me setting him to a task and then him working nearby asking questions as necessary. Anything he didn’t finish during that time was his catch-up in the afternoon.

I would consider not doing school online unless you really need to, especially if he found it tedious. An all-in-one curriculum like Evan Moor might serve you better, especially if he is a strong reader. AIO curricula will come with answer keys to make things easier on you.

[violajack]

I used a charter school to homeschool when I lived in CA - Ocean Grove. It was completely different than what you describe, so if people are asking if you're doing a homeschool charter, then the answer is probably no. You're attending a charter school with an online option.

With Ocean Grove, we were truly homeschooling. Curriculum was 100% my choice. Schedule was 100% what I wanted, when I wanted, no prescribed times or programs. The school's involvement consisted of meeting with an Education Specialist once every 20 school days (about once a month) to go over what we had done. As long as we showed progress in each subject area, we were good. If I didnt have enough written work from a specific subject to show (like history, because I mostly just read story of the world to my kids, we didn't do the activity book) she would just remind me to have them write a sentence or something for next month. It was very casual and I was 100% in control and in charge.