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For families who work remotely, online, or who have the freedom to travel much of the year, there are great options available to you in addition to homeschooling your child.
World School: Each session, your family moves to that particular country for an immersive experience. For as little as $300/month, your student gets a forest school learning experience in other countries. Travel expenses, room and board are not included, but they do a great job of helping to arrange cost effective options. This school is specific for families who can afford to travel like that, probably the best fit for families who are absentee business owners or work online.
Story Lines: While Storylines are not a school perse, they have a very interesting model. The cruise ship was reconfigured to be a residential ship whose all-inclusive included healthcare, 25 world-class restaurants, apartments with kitchens, gyms, and much more including onboard homeschooling pods. The pod leaders facilitate weekly meet-ups, group classes, tutoring time, and educational excursions at the dock points. Your family lives on the cruise ship and travels the world. You buy the apartment and pay the all inclusive monthly dues. Each family chooses their method of homeschooling and joins a pod for group learning experiences.
Fusion Global Academy: This school offers a 1:1 teacher student ratio! Live online "classroom" time with your child. Have you ever heard on a movie the line, "I had private tutors?" I think this is the updated version of that making it accessible anywhere in the world. For students on a rigorous path, such as an athlete on their way to the Olympics, traditional school is just too restrictive. Fusion could be the perfect solution. It is costly, about $6500/course.
--I saw an ad for a teacher to travel with a carnival and teach the students of the carnival families. They were offering room and board (a travel trailer in their nomadic camp) and $30/hr. --
CHARTER SCHOOLS
As I understand it, charter schools operate under the supervision of a public school district. That school district gets funds from the state public school system and portions the majority of it out to the charter school. Charter schools have the same mandates as any other public school. Their specific rules will be per the district they are under, not necessarily the district they are serving. For example, Baker Web Academy is under the direction of Baker school district in Eugene, Oregon, but students in any other county can sign up. They even have sites in Grants Pass and Medford for face-face meetings study groups. Logos is under North Medford school district, REACH is under Rogue River School District (even though their brick-and-mortar school is in Grants Pass), TEACH is from Mercola, Summit is a part of Estacada. See my blog on researching the public charter schools in southern Oregon.
Why do families choose charter schools?
Free Resources, Flexibility & Parent Choice. Every school is different, but the gist is that parents get to choose what works well for their student and the public school dollars pay for the bulk of it.
Free professional guidance - these schools hire teachers and other professionals to oversee your student's work, be a support to you and your student, help guide your homeschool planning, etc. There is quite a variety in the level of "oversight" that charter schools, and even different staff people within a charter school offers.
Free curriculum - public dollars are used to pay for materials including computers, books, science kits, etc.
Parent choice
Public school funds will not pay for faith based anything, but they will allow students to use faith based materials as long as they meet the public school standards and will be counted toward their credits.
Classes are offered, but optional
Parents may have a voice in what staff person (teacher, educational specialist, etc.) is assigned to their child and request changes as needed.
Online options - charter schools have the freedom to allow online courses, book based classes, and on-site classes or any mixture of the three. Families can mix and match and change when things aren't working.
Onsite classes - many charter schools have sites where they provide group learning. Some schools provide core curriculum in theses classes while others are more of the co-op style offerings.
Hybrid offerings - many schools offer a hybrid experience where students go onsite for 1-3 days a week, get classroom instruction, and do the remainder of their coursework at home.
Extracurriculars - often times, charter schools offer "allotments" that can be used by the family to pay for sports, music, art, etc.
Clubs, service opportunities, field trips, and other school opportunities like that are often offered by charter schools just like any other public school.
Online schools: Here is a link to the list of online schools (always growing)
There are more online schools that I can count now. Seems like every day I see an ad for a school I had never heard of before.
You may choose a literature book based program, but choose to add a live online math class or an online science class. Here is a list of resources that offer supplemental curriculum.
--I have a deep appreciation for travel, so if I ever choose to start my own learning center, there will be travel opportunities built in - maybe in the form of a club or maybe not - maybe we will travel as families throughout the year!--
I will continue to research and add to this list of quality resources to incorporate travel into your students' educational experience.
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