You do have to go to the centers either once or twice per week with Kumon (at least that's how it works where we are). You don't spend much time at the center - your child just takes in the packets they've worked on at home to be graded, and picks up their new packet. Some kids work on their first page of their new packet at the center so they can ask questions and so the Kumon staff can be sure the child knows how to do the work, some kids just take the packet and go home.
One little downside to Kumon is that when you're home doing the packets every day you don't have anyone from Kumon to answer questions right there at your house. Aleks comes with fairly detailed explanations, so at the elementary math level even a non-geek could most likely help their child through a challenging topic if they had to. It's possible Kumon has some kind of tutoring # you can call and ask questions and I just don't know about it. You could look up a topic on Khan Academy too - or sometimes with my dd10, who gets stuck with math sometimes, I can just google "how to ___" and come up with a bunch of different ways to explain the math concept.
I'd forgotten about it when I responded the first time, but I do have a friend who was successful in advocating for acceleration in math for her ds after sending him through Kumon, so I'm sure they have some kind of documentation etc they can provide to the school as proof of what a child has accomplished at Kumon.
polarbear
