Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments public school, homestudy with classroom option

I've found a school that seems too good to be true. It's a Public school :Homestudy with classroom option. So it's free.

It's called CV Learning Academy (www.cvlearning.org)
I talked to the the school over the phone and from my understanding they provide the curriculum for your child based on his testing scores. After testing the lady says they meet with you and decide what grade and where the testing results show your child should start. So then I would be home schooling my son and we have the option of coming to the school 1-2 times a week for small group enrichment (for socialization) with a group of up to ten kids in his grade. Each month they test your child to make sure he is learning, and where he needs to be according to what I should have taught him.
So I"m going over there for an orientation with my son on the 13th.
It's 20-30 min away but i figure thats fine if i'd only be going over 1-2 times a week.

so...I'm wondering if any of you have found a school like this and have any advice or comments, or can tell me how your child did in such a school.
OR just any comments would be fun, I'm just really excited and had to tell someone about it! I'd love any feedback.

Sounds interesting! Please report back after your visit.

Nice concept. I'd also like to hear how it works in practice.

I am going to enroll ds7 in a public charter homeschool also. They provide any curriculum that I request within allowance and they provide academic classes one day a week and fun classes another day. History and Social Science that they provide as academic classes replaces homeschool curriculum so that I can focus on LA and math. They also have music, art, math enrichment, writing circle etc on academic days. They do MAPs testing twice a year. They also give a small amount of money per month to go to vendor classes. The school is big, around 1000 kids.

I haven't heard anywhere else has this kind of school. Maybe just California?

I've found 2 more schools like this in 2 other nearby towns.
All of the ones I've found are not very well advertised and not many people know about them. It is also very hard to find any info. about them unless you go to the school to receive information. I'm not sure why, but maybe it's because they have small classrooms and don't need a whole lot of kids to be successful.

Anyway, I did go to the orientation in April. They said they can make him an accelerated curriculum, and the woman I met with said "If he needs 2nd grade English, 1st grade math, 3rd grade science,...wherever he's at, we can adjust his curriculum to that."

So I hope it's true, turns out to be as great as it seems!
She wouldn't say that if they can't really do that right?

Sounds like a great option and I'm DOK!
Hope it's as good as it sounds.

It's new to me.

The monthly testing could be kind of a pain. I guess it depends upon how extensively they test. A two-minute "how's it going" quiz sort of thing would be fine. A big ol' TEST could be too much, especially for young kids.

But that's the only potential problem I spot. I hope it's a great solution for you!

They don't test kindergarteners, I now learned, they just have the parents rate from 1-5 how well their child is understanding concepts, and also have them turn in their work every month.

We're starting newt week, Yay! I just got all his books and stuff yesterday.
I hadn't asked for any acceleration directly yet, because I hadn't seen what he'd be doing.
but when she showed me the math book, I said something about the math looking really easy for him and she called me up later and asked if I'd like him to just start 1st grade math. I said yes and she said " ok i'll order the books for him, just don't have him write in any of the kinder math books you have".
Anyway, I've been a little afraid about asking for grade skipping, so I was like whew, that was easy.
So then I e-mailed her to see, if we could work at 1st grade level Language arts too, since the books are already included in the language arts kindergarten kit. Problem is his they did test him in that and he tested good, but not nearly at the level i know he's at. So I don't know what she'll say, I did explain that to her though, so we'll see what she says.
I'm a nervouse about accelerating at this age though. I know DR. Ruff doesn't recommend that in kinder right? I do believe he's a level 4 though, I don't know if that matters.
Do any of you have experience with kindergarten acceleration.
I'M also concerned about his writing ability not matchng the work, depending on how much he's accelerated.