Email of the Day:
I hear that k-12 is good but haven’t gotten a chance to look into it. I have several friends who homeschool have recommended it.
Answer:
Unless you buy it outright, K-12 is enrolling in public school and leaving homeschooling.
They’re doing public school at home, and using “homeschooling” as shorthand to explain that.
In WA, homechooling is narrowly defined as begin provided “by a parent, educating his or her child only.” The minute you enroll in a public school program (unless its merely on a part time basis for a class or two), you leave homeschooling and are public schooling. Even if your kids are in your home, on the computer, doing K-12 all day long. You give up homeschooling and become an unpaid public school employee.
There’s nothing wrong with that — K-12 is a great fit for lots of folks who don’t fit into the public schools and don’t want to take on the responsibility of homeschooling. Lots of people find their bearings by enrolling in a public school program, and then deciding, “Wait — I’m doing all this work any way — I could be doing it with stuff we really want to do,” and find their way to homeschooling.
It is important to note the difference, because sometimes people enroll in these programs, thinking that this is the only way to “homeschool” and then, when they’re miserable in the public school program, they think that it’s “homeschooling” that is making them miserable, because they don’t realize that homeschooling is a completely different thing, and that they could be doing all the things the want to without all the hoops and strings and focus on testing and reports.
Most of the remote public-school-at-home programs have severe restrictions of out-of-district students signing up for part time attendance (in many cases it’s virtually impossible). For most of those programs, you end up being a full time public school student and giving up homeschooling.
Warmly,
~Jen Garrison Stuber, WHO Board Advocacy Chair