Is Home Schooling really a viable option today?

[wrobert]

On another thread a friend is starting a home school discussion. I wanted to get thoughts from this group. Have any tried home schooling in Walton County? What issues or problems have you had with local officials while doing it, or have they been amicable to this situation?

 

[Matt J]

Some friends of ours home school, and they've never had any problems. What sort of problems would you think they would encounter? I would think the school board would love it as they still get the property tax, but don't have to spend it on said kids.

 

[wrobert]

Some friends of ours home school, and they've never had any problems. What sort of problems would you think they would encounter? I would think the school board would love it as they still get the property tax, but don't have to spend it on said kids.

Schools are funded on the operation side by the enrollment. The property taxes all go to the State and then are given back on a per student basis. This is an oversimplification of the total process, but enrollment means money, less enrollment, less money, so no, they usually do not care for it.

 

[Matt J]

Schools are funded on the operation side by the enrollment. The property taxes all go to the State and then are given back on a per student basis. This is an oversimplification of the total process, but enrollment means money, less enrollment, less money, so no, they usually do not care for it.

Sorry, I always thought the enrollment issue was for federal funding. After more reflection I was confusing this with something else.

 

[florida girl]

We use the Florida Virtual School, it's a really cool program with state certified teachers, etc, funded by the state. It's all online, and they get individual instruction via email or phone. There are also other programs available for elementary students. It's free for the residents of Florida, but available for other state by fee. I don't know how much they charge.

 

[Grayton Girl]

Regarding Home Schooling for high school students, I always wondered how parents (who are usually act as the "teachers" of their home-schooled kids) could cover all the different subjects necessary for a good high school education. But now we have Florida Virtual School, which is being used by most of the home-schooled high school students that I know. It is run through the state and is accredited; you can take classes online (including honors and AP classes), and students can even take an SAT prep class. A student receives grades for all classes taken. It's really pretty neat. It is not a cake-walk, and students need to be motivated and organized, but once you get the hang of it, you can get much more accomplished in a much shorter time span than the typical school day (no wasted time).

Both of my boys attend SWHS, and both took Life Management Skills online through Florida Virtual School. The class was a half credit requirement for graduation, but because SWHS is on the block schedule, they would have to "waste" a full credit to get this half credit requirement. I was extremely impressed with the Florida Virtual School. You have a lot of contact with the teachers (both by phone and by email) and it is extremely organized.

Florida Virtual School is a godsend for kids who have medical problems that cause them to miss chunks of school, as well as for families who travel a lot. It's also a neat option for taking classes that are not offered at your school. I don't know how those student fare on the SAT and ACT tests and what the statistics are for continuing on to college, but I'm sure those statistics are available.

So I would say that Home Schooling has been made pretty easy -- for parents who have high school students at least. Of course, my kids would kill me if I forced them to be home-schooled. They enjoy the social aspects of high school too much to want to stay home and do the work themselves on the computer (even it is means they could surf when the surf was up rather than wait until after school). By law, home-schooled students must be allowed to participate in activities (sports, and possibly band and other things) offered at the school the child would have attended, so that makes it nice for those kids who want to take advantage of those aspects of high school.

 

[jodiFL]

As far as the tax $$ aspect of it, if taking FLS classes, they do have a home "base" school and the funds go to that school.

 

[Grayton Girl]

Replying to jodiFL, the funds generated from students who take Florida Virtual School (FLVS) courses go to the the Virtual School. Funding is received when a student completes a course. This is probably why local schools do not advertise and promote FLVS - they lose out on $ when students go that route.

To be honest, my oldest son, who is now a senior at SWHS, took his 1st FLVS course when he was a sophomore (so.... 2 1/2 years ago). When I went to the school to sign him up (you DO have to get the local school to sign some paperwork), they knew NOTHING about FLVS. I had to completely educate them about the program. No one had ever used it at SWHS. I was pretty surprised. In fact, I was actually told by an administrator that if SWHS taught the course, it was not available to the student on FLVS. Of course, this is not true at all, and such a statement is, in fact, against the law. Quite frankly, because the school does not receive funding for courses taken by local students on FLVS, they really don't actively encourage it. However, by law, they must allow students to use the system. (I now know several kids who attend SWHS who take FLVS courses, so it is not so new anymore.) I don't know how it works (financially and for FTE counts) when a student takes a couple of classes online and a couple of classes at the local school. When my son took the class, he did it in addition to the full load he was taking at SWHS, so I know the school did not miss out on any funding.

Here is a really neat summary of Florida's Virtual School. This paper was put out by Florida Tax Watch and although I can't find a date on the report, it uses data from the inception of the program though the year 2007, so it must be very recent. Oh, just looking at the web address, it seems like the report must be dated 10/15/07.

http://www.nacol.org/docs/FLVS_Final_Final_Report(10-15-07).pdf

It was interesting to see that FLVS spends much less per student than traditional schools yet students in FLVS scored higher on FCAT and on AP exams. Hmmm.... they must be doing something right. I didn't see any statistics about SAT or ACT score comparisons.

All in all, FLVS sounds like something that really is "in the best interests of students." How refreshing!

 

[Jdarg]

We use Florida Virtual as a supplement for foreign language. Will is a freshman, and currently there is not a language option in the 9th grade. He is taking Latin through FLVS, and like Grayton Girl, we are impressed with the program and quality of the program. He has worked hard, and I have a lot of contact with his teacher.

Why are we supplementing? Two words- block schedule, which has cause him to have an easy workload this year. But that is a whole different subject!

 

[Rudyjohn]

We use Florida Virtual as a supplement for foreign language. Will is a freshman, and currently there is not a language option in the 9th grade. He is taking Latin through FLVS, and like Grayton Girl, we are impressed with the program and quality of the program. He has worked hard, and I have a lot of contact with his teacher.

Why are we supplementing? Two words- block schedule, which has cause him to have an easy workload this year. But that is a whole different subject!

My son has had block scheduling in HS. At first I was unsure about it, but now we (especially him) love it. However, it will be difficult to adjust once he's in college and returns to a regular schedule.