Jumping off a cliff (with a parachute)...

After nearly 4 years, and lots and lots of discussion, it is official. M and I are not registering the kids with a charter school next fall. We will instead file as a private school for the first time! I admit, I am really excited about this. I have a great friend who is helping me navigate the paperwork side of things, so I'm not worried about any of it anymore. The kids, M and I discussed this last night. I explained to them what it meant, and they said "fine". Then I told them that for our own school, we would use the name Elf came up with 4 years ago, and they could even choose "school" colors and a mascot. They loved that idea. So, as of fall, we will officially be OakLeaf Academy; an owl mascot; the colors red, green and gold; and even a school motto, part of my blog title - "Learning from the roots up".

Why the change? Well, this year has really been a disappointing one with the charter school. Until now, the benefits have always outweighed the problems, but not so anymore. I don't know exactly why it has changed, except that it has about doubled in size in the last couple of years, but the classes for younger kids (like mine) are not as good - one of Fairy's has simply become a playtime for K-2nd. The prep work for testing is starting a month earlier this year, and one of the reasons I wanted homeschooling for my kids was to avoid teaching to the test. I also don't think that Fairy has a learning disability, and I don't want her labeled with one. Finally, as they are getting older, I am expected to follow state standards more and more in what I teach, which doesn't align well with educational plans I have for them. In essence, it is becoming more school-at-home than homeschool.

I was a bit nervous about telling my mom. She is currently one of my staunchest supporters in homeschooling (she loves the extra time with my kids), so I didn't want to lose that. However, I decided to just be completely honest with her, and I told her how I feel, and what we plan to do. Instantly, she told me she had been having many of the same feelings about the charter school! So, she's all for us becoming a private school instead.

Now I just have to clear the hurdle of telling the kids' resource teacher, who has been fantastic, but has to maintain her school's standards. Iwould just avoid telling her and then not register next year, but really she has been such a great help the last few years that I don't want to do that. I think one of the problems right now is that her load is full, and that puts stress on her. So, maybe in a twisted way it would be good for her for us to leave? I have asked the kids not to say anything until I have figured out how I want to approach it, so we'll see.

Anyhow, I now feel free to just do Medieval history next year, to study history across the flow of time, to study sciences in whatever order we please, to rewrite our school calendar, to let Fairy take a little longer to learn to read and Elf a little longer to love writing. And that makes me smile!