Home, Private, or Public School... no matter what it's a tough decision!

My daughter, C, who is a sixth grader this year, has been home schooled since third grade.  We are with a public homeschool charter which makes life a lot easier for our accountability. I have enjoyed having her at home and teaching her.  She has grown much closer to her older brother during this time and they have developed a very nice friendship with each other. This year has been such a struggle for me managing and implementing both of their educations.

My son has providers who work with  him here at home.  He is special education and needs direct services for physical therapy, speech, assistive technology, augmentative communication, and his curriculum.  He should use vision services and orientation and mobility, but right now we only have time and room in his schedule for those services and those are the ones he wanted most.

My daughter takes classes outside the home which has helped tremendously.  She and I are struggling with our curriculum and our schedule.  It's tough to get everything done that we need to.  I feel like her education has just been falling by the way side.  We know we need to make some changes.

We started discussing what our options were.  We are looking at online curriculum that may offer more structure and less planning on my part.  So far we are not having much success with the online curriculum and structure.  It's just not seamless enough and she likes the feel of books not staring at a screen.

Public schools in our area are in my least favorite school district.  I spent so long trying to get my son an education that I'm just not anxious to enroll C.  The other big problem with our local schools is class size.  There are just too many kids in these classes and on these campuses.  I don't like that they teach to children to be great test takers, not great learners. Administratively, public education seems to work very hard to preserve the entity of public education, not educate children and create life-long passionate learners.  Churn them in and churn them out seams to be the system.

Public charter schools seam to be more student and family driven, but they are still publicly funded and held to the same accountability as regular public schools.  We love our local public homeschool charter.  We love our supervising teacher.  We love the flexibility and the accountability provided.   There are onsite local charters that are a closed campus not independent or home study programs that we are considering.  The one we are most interested in hasn't even gotten approval to open and it's only through eighth grade which would require a school change... so much to think about.

Private schools can be expensive, but smaller in class size. Administratively private schools are smaller so you have a much bigger voice.  You choose the private school based on many factors.  Class sizes can be smaller, as well as campuses.  There can be many pluses.  They offer a bit more flexibility than the public or public charter school because they are privately funded.

C and I had a discussion one day about school.  During our talk I learned how much she loves the Bible and how she really thinks her friends are lucky to have a group Bible study and prayer included in their school day.  I took what she said very seriously.  We toured a private Christian school that we have many friends who's children attend and speak very highly of the school.  There are only 85 seventh graders and approximately 250 middle school students.  A huge difference from the 700 plus at the public home school that she would attend or the 1,000 or much more at some other middle schools with open enrollment.  C loved this school.  This is where her heart pulls her.

R and I are looking at all of our options to enroll her in this school.  It would be a sacrifice from the ENTIRE family.  A sacrifice financially... money is already tight.  It's not remotely close to the house it would be a commute.  F may be required to go with me to take her some mornings (it's a lot of work to get him up and out).  There is just so much to think about.