Every so often my husband brings up the idea homeschooling our kids. And each time I shoot the idea down. While I admire the many homeschool moms out there rocking it, I know that I am not the best person to teach my kids. While my husband and I both work remotely, he travels far more than I do. He also has a boss, works for a company, and makes the lion’s share of our household income. Thus, the role of homeschooling parent would naturally fall to me. And that is a role I really don’t want!
This is a sponsored post for Florida Connections Academy (FCA), a public charter school that was approved by Hillsborough County Public Schools to serve students across Florida in the 2018-19 school year. It’s currently serving K-8 but will be adding a grade level each year until it is available for Kindergarten through 12th grade. However, all thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.
I’m great at teaching adults. And years ago, I had a pretty sweet side hustle as an Algebra tutor. The issue isn’t my lack of teaching ability. It’s my relationship with my kids. I am their safe space. I am the one they show the worst versions of themselves to on a regular basis. We’d all go crazy if it were up to me to teach them!
However, the rise of online education is tempting, especially since we both can work from anywhere with a good internet connection. Now that my kids are tweens I am not as opposed to having them always around. (Don’t judge me. It is not easy working with constant chattering and bickering in the background!)
Why online school?
I like that all Florida Connections Academy teachers are
Florida-certified, and specially trained to work and teach in a virtual
classroom setting. I am not expected to be the teacher. I can be the household manager who makes the kids do their school work, like I am now.
Plus, the kids have social interactions with their classmates online. The teachers have real time sessions with students via LiveLesson® — which uses webcams and chat functions. This means that kids can interact face to face while still being remote. It sounds quite a bit like the online courses in college, right?!
Reasons why I am considering virtual school for my kids
My reasons for not wanting to homeschool are that I don’t feel qualified to be their teacher and that I like the social interactions that are built into going to a brick and mortar school. But there are reasons that I’ve often considered whether my reservations trumped the flexibility of homeschooling.
I want to show my children the world.
I envy homeschooling moms who travel the country and world as a supplement to their children’s education. How much more fun and interesting would American History be if we could visit Washington DC while they are in the middle of learning it!
The School Year determines our schedule.
By the end of the school year, I am chomping at the bit for summer vacation to start so we can hit the road! When the kids were younger, it wasn’t a big deal to pull them out of school for a week here and a week there. Now they are pre-teens, my oldest is heading into middle school. There are attendance policies, truancy rules, and makeup work policies to consider. So we pretty much have to travel when EVERYONE else does….during school breaks. My husband and I have been working from home for so long that we dread crowds. Places like Disney World are way more enjoyable during the off seasons.
It looks like Florida Connections Academy makes my reasons for not wanting to take my kids out of public school null and void. Now the only thing left to do is convince my kids to try it. The funny thing is that they are both a lot like I was as a kid. I absolutely loved school. My daughter has actually wept at the end of the last day of school for the last five years straight! It cracks me up to see the tears streaming down her face while cheering classmates shove past her. But, I can’t blame her for enjoying school.
If you want to learn more about Florida Connections Academy make sure you check them out on Twitter or Facebook.
What makes online education attractive to you? Or if you already do it, tell me what the best part is in the comments!
Michelle Williamson says
My nieces have been doing virtual school since first grade. We homeschooled for pre-K and Kindergarten for both of them.
The older one started when it was FLVS FT Connections and ended up being bumped to just FLVS FT in 6th grade when Florida quit using Connections for middle and high school students. We were really disappointed and by the time FCA came around she was so established with FLVS FT that her mom didn’t want to change it again.
Then the younger one was ready to start school and FCA had started so my sister jumped into it with her because we loved their concept and the fact that it is set up so you decide when your child does school. For elementary students FLVS FT has set times the child does lessons and they are expected to be on or be marked absent. That doesn’t work for our family because of my sister’s and her husband’s work schedule. They are both off work Wednesday and Thursday so that is their weekend to do things with their girls and they need a flexible school fo it to work. FCA has certain days and times we have to make sure the little one is on so she can do her live lessons but after that the only rule for her is amassing 20 hours a week in school work. I am her learning coach 3 days a week and her mom does the other two days.
My niece LOVES her school and enjoys the fact she gets to choose her schedule. She decided this year to do one subject a day and has rocked it! She does the full week of SocialStudies and Art Monday’s, Science and Study Island are Tuesday, Language Arts is spread over Wednesday and Thursday and sometimes even Sunday evenings so they have more family time on their “weekends” and Math and PE are on Friday. She gets credit for taking dance classes every night for 2-3 hours and that counts as her PE time. We just love that they accommodate every child no matter their learning style. We’ve met so many families on field trips the school has and FCA is amazing with each child whether the child is extremely gifted or special needs they give each child an individual learning experience like no other. Brick and mortar schools are great, they give children the opportunity to socialize more but you can encourage socializing with virtual school just as easily. Taking school field trips, signing up your child for sports, art classes, dance, etc and even using places like the Orlando Science center where children can get even more hands science experiments in small classes. It costs to do the OSC science classes but they are worth it.
We’ve had great success with Virtual school even though it was hard being the learning coach at first and getting used to schedules and making sure all assignments were done, we always can call the teachers any time we or the children need help. My youngest niece was struggling with quadrilaterals, rhombuses, polygons, parallelograms and we emailed her teacher so after a regular live lesson my niece and the teacher had a 30 minute private lesson to make sure she understood all the differences and likenesses and what made each. Now she can tell you what each one is and draw each of them and she understands how to compare them, YAY!
Virtual school may not be right for some but as I said both my nieces are excelling in school. There are no other students so very little worry about distractions. I believe that Connections gave my older niece such a leg up. She had so many high school credits from middle school that she’s completed 9th & 10th grade this year. They could have put her straight into 10th grade but we were told you have to do at least 1 semester as a high school freshman in Florida. While she did middle school in FLVS she was already way ahead thanks to Connections Academy allowing students to work at their own pace.
One thing we have loved from the very start of our experience with Connections Math program is they introduce algebra very early on. When my older niece was in Connections in every math lesson there were optional problems and they were very basic algebra just figuring for a = ? my niece would do every single problem and loved it! Each year they made those problems a little harder. They skipped pre-algebra with her but she wasn’t scared of algebra like many children are because she’d been doing algebra since 1st grade! They no longer have the optional algebra problems (please bring them back) but they still have the children solving algebra problems by figuring out n = ?. So the younger child is already understanding basic algebra too. They both LOVE math of any kind and we save it for Friday because the little one zips through it and has time to relax and play before the girls get picked up by their Grandma to spend the weekend at her house.
We love Virtual School in our family for the fun and freedom!