Our Virtual School experience

School choice seems to be a hot topic nowadays and a sensitive one at that. It seems that if any one comes out in favor of one method-like homeschooling- other parents take it as some sort of personal insult and might accuse you of looking down at them for sending their kid to school.
I homeschool my kids, sort of. Technically they are at home but I use a virtual public school program instead of just randomly throwing together a curriculum of my own making. We use the K12 program in Oregon and use iNsight Charter School. Here is a link to the K12 site itself and you can search through and find what is available in your area. http://ww2.k12.com/mod/home/

Now, there are pros and cons to the choice that my husband and I made in going this route and I felt that perhaps I should share some of those with you.

So, lets look at the cons first shall we?

Time: It takes a decent amount of my time to educate my children. It means that I need to be available for reading and answering questions. At the very least I have to supervise to make sure they are doing what they are supposed to and often times I am sitting right there next to them reading through the lessons and helping them with their worksheets. Sometimes we get done by lunch time and sometimes I find myself barely finishing the school work by the time I have to start making dinner.This can get stressful when you have younger kids who need your attention. You can start to feel frustrated and stretched too thin to continue on. I have found myself making changes in my life to make sure that I can stay on track. We have had to institute menu planning so that dinner time is not as much of a hassle, and I have come increasingly aware of my need to schedule things more consistently. Lucky for me my kids wake up pretty much at the same time every day, we have snack, lunch and afternoon snack at the same time every day and I have even scheduled a shopping day every so often to keep our snacking and produce supply fresh and convenient. I have not however mastered making sure that the school schedule, cleaning schedule, shopping and activities for my non-school kids mesh.

Involvement: As I stated above, I have to be involved, so that means if I am sick or busy with my younger kids, have errands or appointments that means the kids can fall behind. It is possible to catch up however by adding lessons on to other school days, doing lessons on the weekends or scheduled days off (like Presidents Day etc.)Of course doing this means that other things might not get done whether they be chores, errands or weekend/holiday fun. It can be a real downer when your kids have to wait to play on a Saturday because they have to catch up.

Parent skill level: What I mean by this is that as your child gets older, the subjects get more complex and while your students does have access to teachers and online resources, it can get a little tough for the parent trying to help the student when they don't understand the subject material themselves. I personally haven't gotten to this point yet since my oldest is only in first grade but I have helped other kids who are older using a different program-I did well in Math so I was able to tutor them in that subject where their parents could not. Does this mean that our K12 program will give me the same trouble? I don't know yet but I foresee it as a possibility and figured I would mention this concern of mine for the parents out there who have older kids.

Internet dependent: This can get difficult when there is a power outage, slow internet or technical glitches. There are things that can be done offline which is why it is important to know where you are in the lesson guides-this way if a situation arises that you are unable to get online, you can do some of the work. Now, you can't enter test answers without the internet and there are some tests that the student can't even take without the internet-there is no paper copy for them to work on. Also your student would miss out on the in lesson games and explanations that are available online. Noodleverse-a cool resource for practicing some subjects- is also something they would miss out on without internet access.
I also would like to take this opportunity to mention that not all tablets will run the K12 program. My husbands Windows Surface tablet will run it but our Samsung Galaxy tab will not. Keep this in mind if you plan on using a tablet instead of a desktop or laptop computer.

On to the pros now!

Flexibility:
Now this actually is a two-part pro.
Part 1: Flexibility of learning and scheduling: What I mean by this is that we have the ability to skip through lessons that my kids don't need. For example, my kindergarten student knew a lot of math before school started and we had to jump ahead quite a bit to get to stuff he didn't know or understand completely. I can't imagine how bored he would have been if he would have been forced to go through weeks of information that he already knew. It also means that if there is a subject that my kids struggle with we can spend extra time on it. We can also spend extra time on subjects they are really interested in. A lot of the history and science lessons have "optional" and "beyond the lesson" additions just for that purpose!
I have not played around with the scheduling as it appears on my Daily plan page, but I hear that you can set it up in different ways-perhaps like a block scheduling as opposed to the default layout. I really like how if you miss a lesson it automatically moves it over to the next day that subject is scheduled. That means that it won't get forgotten and remain undone!

Part 2: Flexibility within your family life, i.e. errands, appointments and illnesses: This part is REALLY important to me and my family. When you have 5 kids illnesses are bound to happen and when they do it can take a while before the illness has run its course through the household. It would be terrible to have to keep my school-age kids home while the 3 kids not in school are at home vomiting or what-have-you and I couldn't in good conscience send the school age kids to school to spread those stomach bug germs around just because they themselves aren't actively sick. That is how you end up with half the student population out with the flu-kids who shouldn't be at school are there spreading it around with each high-five and sneeze.
It also allows us to schedule regular check ups for our kids. The annual well-child visits for the older kids, the more frequent visits for the younger ones and of course those twice a year dental visits. That can mean a lot of missed school and it can be really tough to schedule. When you homeschool though, you have more availability to get to appointments and don't have to worry about your child missing tests, important information or falling behind in a subject they struggle with. Because I know what is coming and have control over the school schedule, we can plan ahead to do more work before the appointment and/or plan on doing more after. My kids don't miss out on information nor do they fall behind. I also like the fact that we can plan day trips or full on vacations. Take for example Spring Break. That time of year can be a nightmare to go anywhere fun. Its crowded and usually more expensive to stay anywhere overnight. Instead, my family is taking Easter Break. We will work through spring break and take our week long vacation during Easter week. My kids won't fall behind and we get to avoid the crazy rush of spring break and the overpriced lodging costs.

Fun: A lot of the lessons have some really fun and interactive ways of teaching and engaging the students. I remember one game in particular that my 1st grader really liked playing. I had to pull him away for dinner! When a school lesson can do that to a kid you know its a great tool that will teach and help them learn and remember the information!

Communications with the teacher:My kids teacher is great. She is helpful and energetic and the boys don't feel weird asking questions. Several times a week there are live sessions where the kids can sign into a video conference and join up with the teacher and other students for Math, Language Arts help or general homeroom stuff. One time my 1st grader logged in and was the only student there and instead of cancelling the session, the teacher helped my son work on his Study Island assignments. (Study Island is a required activity separate from the daily lessons. Students are given a month to complete math and language arts assignments which so far have been pretty simple. They usually consist of 10 questions and if the student gets them all right, he is given a blue ribbon for that assignment.)The teachers have their own email system called K-Mail where you are CC'd all the communications between the student and teacher as well as any newsletters or pertinent info. You are required by the State we live in to have 2 communications a week-they can be live session participation, phone calls or K-mails.

Involvement: I love the fact that I get to see the light bulb go off above my kids head when he learns something new. The light in their eyes is so amazing and it gives me great joy to be there to see it the moment it happens. It also reminds me of how exciting learning can be, which is something that I think we adults can forget. I also like that I can be there to identify problems when they arise as opposed to finding out after they are getting poor grades on tests and assignments or acting out in class because they are either bored or lost. I have noticed certain areas that each of my boys struggle with a bit and because I can catch it right away neither of them have to suffer through days of not understanding something or being too embarrassed to ask for help. Most public school classrooms are not places that the one child having a tough time will get the attention that they need because the teacher has so many other students to take care of.

Individual Learning Plan: So far this particular aspect of the program has not been monumentally helpful in too many ways but I do really like seeing the progress that they make from the beginning of the year in an apples to apples kind of way. For example, my boys were asked at the beginning of the year to do certain things, my younger son was asked to simply read out letter names (as many as he could in 1 minute) and letter sounds (again, as many as he could in 1 minute). My older son was asked to read individual words in a minute and then to read a paragraph and get as far as he could in 1 minute. At the mid-year point they both repeated these tests, with the task of reading as many individual words in a minute added to my younger son's assessment. It is awesome to see the progress they made in half a school year! The ILP also asks about goals that each student has for both school related things as well as social things and gives us a very holistic approach to learning and experiences that might not be school related but are still things that are learned-such as riding a bike or making new friends.

Advanced Learner Program: I have not done a lot with this yet as we are a pretty busy family but my boys have attended or watched the recordings of a couple of these sessions. It is an opportunity for students to learn about something outside of the usual math, science and LA stuff. One session was about Choose your own adventure stories and it asked students to create a game or story of their own following that format. The projects are optional and have no bearing on grades. Another session was about ghost towns and the students were asked to either write a story, create a brochure or draw a picture related to ghost towns. There are a lot of options for projects and if you are unsure if what your child wants to do will work, all you have to do is ask! I see my kids doing more of these as they get older, especially if the subject really interests them. I think it is a great way to get kids to think of learning in new and different ways and realize that learning is everywhere if you are willing to look and listen.

Spotting strengths and weaknesses early:I sort of mentioned this earlier but I think it is really important. Being able to tell the difference between a child not doing well focusing due to lack of a challenge, lack of interest, distractions or because they are not understanding the information the way it is presented is very important. It is so nice being able to figure out if your child doesn't like a subject because he finds it boring or too difficult. It can be very damaging in my opinion, for a young child to find a subject difficult and then fall behind. It can affect his desire to learn anything, even subjects he was once interested in. When my kids find a subject or a lesson difficult I remind them that they are learning this stuff for the first time and it is supposed to be harder. I also remind them that there are other subjects that they are really good at. It helps them realize that they still have talent and knowledge even when one subject or lesson is really challenging. I would not be able to do this as quickly if my child was in school, I would have to wait until a teacher brought in class behavior to my attention. Of course I would hope that I would be able to keep a close enough eye on his school work that I would notice poor grades however, but then I would have to try and figure out after the fact that caused the grades as opposed to noticing the behavior while in the midst of a lesson.

All in all there are quite a few things to consider when it comes to your child's education. Public or private? Homeschool? Which program? Supplements? Outside of school activities? All of these things come into play along with family dynamic and the strengths and weakness of the child and the parent. My husband and I chose a program that was set up in such a way that we are accountable to an outside institution. If we used some of the other programs out there, or no structured program at all, it is very easy to fall behind and find yourself doing school work well into the summer months. Because of the accountability I have to do certain things by a certain time and that keeps ME on track. I hope that the above information is helpful to someone out there trying to figure out what might work best for them and their kids.