Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Partial Homeschool

Several years ago I really wanted my twice-exceptional son to have the opportunity to attend public school part time and I made the mistake of talking about this at a homeschool 4H meeting. I had no idea that other homeschoolers in my area were so against this. My son and I were shunned by several members of the homeschool group and we felt so uncomfortable around these people that we dropped out of the group for a few years.

Recently I rejoined the homeschool group. It had more than doubled in size since I left. I met a few other homeschool moms that also felt part time homeschooling might be good for their kids, but it still isn't allowed in our public schools and I don't think it will be any time soon.

After hearing stories about how things are in our public school, especially the bullying and the focus on sports, I now wish there were more homeschool classes available in our area so my son who is the only child at home could be around other kids while he learns. I think he misses being around other kids. He really enjoys his circuitry class and musical theater class, but most of the time it is just the two of us. At least he can go on facebook and keep in touch with the other musical theater kids.

Isn't it sad that no matter where you go people find it necessary to be judgmental and exclusionary? You would think that people who are enough off the mainstream to HS would understand and accept others different wants/needs etc.

I think if I hs DD she will miss the other kids. DS may but I think sports or classes would fulfill that need for him as he is a lot less social.

Thank you again for all the input and sharing of experiences from everyone!

Ds6 is having a tough time in K. I'm concerned he has sensory integration issues, possibly ADD and I think he is bored out of his mind at times. I decided today to just write a note to the teacher telling her we would do school at home this afternoon and I picked him up at 1. We had a great afternoon learning about food chains (his idea) and then we had recess and built a snowman. I found out he can stay focused and engaged for a whole hour if the topic interests and challenges him. We might need to start doing this on a regular basis now. Our school allows partial homeschooling which I am thankful for.

We go to a public school, that IS a homeschooling program. These schools are opening all over the country and are so awesome! We love it here is a link. http://www.cvchs.org/
On the website It all talks about Highschool for some reason but they also do elementry school.
So What happens is we homeschool through this public schools program. They provide us with all his books and work, free. They adapt it to him. For example my 5 year old DS is doing all first grade work. His head teacher says she'd like to test him again soon to see where he his now so we can continue to adapt is work to HIS needs. On top of his homeschool work, they also offer optional classes at the school on Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:00 to 12:00. He has 2 other kids in his class that he loves. and 3 different teachers for his different subjects there: Math, English, and Science on Tuesdays, PE, Art, and a Writing photography class on Thursdays. They also offer karate for 6-12th graders.

At the end of each section (month really) we have to turn in his work. And our head teacher asks him some questions to make sure he understands the material. They don't check for every assignment, but that it looks like the did a good amount of work. So if i think an assignment looks stupid or too easy. I can just do something else. Or do an assignment in a more fun way. I love that we can homeschool and he can go to school and have such a fun time with his friends. His classes are small. But they do get bigger, and the school is new. The teacher said the classees will never be bigger than 10 or so kids. I recommend looking into this in your area, they might be hard to find, they don't advertise so well in my opinion.

I was curious how many here were able to take advantage of partial homeschool through a private school....our county does not allow homeschoolers to take part in public school programs other than after school programs (so a child can do sports/clubs after school)...a lot of people here in Florida don't realize that many children are considered to have completed a full day by 11:30 so they can remove their child at 11:30 and they are counted as attending for the entire day....we attempted this plan with our local school at the beginning of the school year where I took DS7 out at 11:30 and then homeschooled in the afternoon but it was a disaster because the teacher refused to allow him to work at his level and the school refused to accelerate in any way, shape or form...so he was bored silly out of his mind all morning and then was able to explore everything as soon we got home...he got very angry and did not want to go to school anymore because he was allowed to work at his level all afternoon but at school he wasn't allowed to...so we went back to full homeschooling.

We were wondering if private schools would be more flexible allowing partial access but didn't even know if we should ask!

Belle,

We do p/t homeschooling through a private school (see my post on the previous page). It's worth asking. I suggest small private schools as they may be more interested in your money and also more flexible than a bigger school

Hi,

I'm refreshing this topic to see if anyone else has experiences with part traditional school and part homeschooling or alternative education.

Our state says public schools allow homeschoolers to partially attend... but in practice the public school we would like DS to attend from K-5 is usually full, he likely needs to start in K in order to have a place, I don't believe they've ever had homeschoolers at this particular public school.

Looking at the homeschool resources in our area I found a one-day-a-week program that looks wonderful. Interesting subjects, flexible age ranges allowed, etc. Seems like it might be a nice antidote to the K-2 classes at our local public school, where real enrichment opportunities don't start until 3rd grade. Our jobs could manage a one day a week plan too.

Has anyone been successful having a early elementary child go to public school 4 days a week and also have them spend a day at some alternative educational facility? (other than a child going to a MS or HS if the elementary's offerings were exhausted).

How did you approach this with the public school? Did you wait until your child was enrolled and then approach the teacher? the principal? a counselor or gifted coordinator?

Also if you are reading, LMom can you tell a little more detail about how you arranged with the private school to have your child attend some classes... did they adjust tuition significantly? What classes do your children go to? How is it socially for them to attend part of the time?

Belle that is really interesting about the 11:30 time... I wonder what other states rules are? That's definitely a fine print item, thank you for posting about it as I wouldn't have even thought to look into that.

Polly

Polly,

I would suggest that you examine closely the state board of ed's language concerning this issue to see if there are any requirements of you. For example, in Illinois, you must notify the school in writing the by April 30th of the preceding school year in which you wish to partial homeschool. And the child should be already enrolled, I believe.

We are on our second year of doing this and it's working okay now, but we had a few bumps along the way. We take out for an entire subject, which means taking the child out the same time every day and being responsible for that entire subject whether it be math or language arts.

Our best experience was when I met with the principal and explained what I was attempting to do and why and said: "I have a few ideas. I was thinking along the lines of...." then presented plan A, plan B and plan C. At that point, I asked him to see if he thought any of those plans would work out without being too disruptive to the teacher and class and set a meeting for 2 weeks later to have them weigh in on it.

I felt the approach I used engendered less of a feeling of attack and more of a feeling of a team approach. Plus, I had no idea what was realistic in terms of scheduling, the principal and teacher have that info.

They came back agreeing to the schedule I was happy with and the teacher has been amazing this year!

One objection I can already forsee with your proposal is that once per week the child will miss all the material for the day, yet at public school the teacher is going to feel on the hook for state and district testing requirements. You and I know there wouldn't be a problem, but I can see the teachers/admins maybe getting nervous about it.

Interestingly, in our case, my kids have told me that they get pulled to take all the district evals for the subject I take them out for!!! I think 2 years ago I would have been LIVID about this! But now I take it as part of the deal. Because my children are enrolled, they don't want to be on the hook if something goes wrong. To put it in perspective, my 7 y.o is currently doing what the district is testing for in 5th grade, so I'm not really concerned that the school will get concerned, KWIM? They just want to feel covered. Perhaps you can even take the lead and suggest this to them in the meeting as a fail safe for them. You can couch it as an assurance that child is on the right track and that you'd be appreciative of the evals so that you could also feel assured that the child is proficient in the area that they are missing at school.

Good luck with your meeting.

I just started homeschooling part-time TODAY! I pick him up at 1:30 so he misses the last 2 hours of K at school. I considered doing a few afternoons a week but I felt it would be too confusing to have him there some days and not others so I decided to do every afternoon for the sake of consistency. So I just need to cover math/science/social studies. But it is K which isn't even required in Iowa so we can really do whatever we want which is great - that means lots of science experiments, field trips and studying the human body, multiplication and whatever else he loves at the moment.

In hindsight, I really wish they had a half-day K program here because that's what we really needed from the beginning of the year and it's taken me this long to get the courage to do something about it. The school isn't very excited about what I am doing saying that they are worried he won't be ready socially for 1st grade. What is it about us needing to socialize our kids so they can handle school? It seems more about learning how to be in school than learning. I suppose that is necessary with the large number of kids in the classroom.

Polly - Good luck with your decision!

Ladysbugmom,

Interestingly, some of the *social issues* the schools are concerned about were actually much alleviated by having her(DD7) out of school part of the day.