This is my
very first post so I'd like to introduce myself to you. You can call me Candice.
I am a stay at home mom of three energetic little ones. I am an artist and I
attend school online for my Bachelors in Graphic Design. I have two boys,
Spaceman (8) and Cowboy (6) and a little girl, Princess (4). Yesterday,
February 26, 2014 was a very important day for our family. It was the day that
we finally decided it was time to stop fighting with the school system and pull
Cowboy out of the public charter academy that the boys are both enrolled in.
I first tried homeschooling using the eLearningk12
curriculum in 2010 for Spaceman in Pre-K. He was getting into so much trouble
in class because he was bored. I did not realize that the things I was teaching
him at home was far more than they were expected to learn at his age. I was not
forcefully teaching him, only satisfying his natural curiosity. We only did the online curriculum on the side
for a few months. I did not like how unstructured the Pre-K curriculum was and
I still had two little ones at home.
The next year Spaceman returned to the public school for K
and Cowboy joined him in Pre-K. They both struggled all year. I spent 2-3 days
every week there for the boys so I started to volunteer. I was on the PTC for
the two years that my boys attended that public school. I was a board member
and I was involved in collaborative meetings. It was sad to see how the school
was becoming stagnate. When we first bought our home in 2009 we were excited to
only be two miles from my dad and be able to live in an amazing school
district. One of my brothers is 13 years younger than me and I watched him
attend this same public school. The problem arose when my little Spaceman went
to register for Pre-K. His first day was also the new principal’s first day.
Everything began to change. Faculty and staff started dropping like flies.
This led us to the public charter school. The previous
principal from the public school was amazing! She was such a great leader that
the best and brightest from the public school followed her to the charter
school when she was appointed the Director. We also followed like lambs to slaughter.
We were promised a higher education and a more disciplined and creative setting.
Cowboy had a great year in K at the charter school. He had the most amazing
teacher ever. She was able to see where he was struggling and got him all the
help he was so desperately needing. Spaceman enjoyed the harder curriculum, but
had a very hard time staying out of trouble. He got into trouble in science
class when he corrected his teacher several times. They were switching classes
at 1st grade already. My first grader had four different teachers
and my Kindergartener had five different teachers! Now I still have Princess at
home with me because we decided to send her to Pre-K. She is super smart and
gets all of the socialization she needs from family, gymnastics and other
outings. She is a social butterfly. She already knows what she needs to start K,
she just needs to meet the age requirement.
My hubby and I decided it may be time to pull them out of
the charter school and start homeschooling the boys for next school year. Both
of my boys have had multiple surgeries for PE Tubes, Adenoids and Tonsils. They
still stay with earaches constantly. Spaceman just finally lost his last tube
last week, but Cowboy still struggles and has his tubes pushing out. Any parent
that has gone through this knows how much pain these little guys can go
through. This is his second set of tubes. The nurse at the charter school sent
a note home stating all of the excusable reasons for an absence that only
require a parent note. Cowboy has missed a lot of school lately. Most of these
excuses have had doctor’s notes, but some were parent notes. I was called by
the school to set up a meeting about his absences and how he is falling behind
in class. Not to mention how miserable he is the entire day.
After talking with my hubby I asked Cowboy if he wanted to
stop going to the charter school and do homeschool now. Yes, in the middle of
the year. My biggest fear, uprooting a kid mid-year. I called eLearningk12 to
set everything up. Since it is mid-year I will be going with the level 2
instruction, where their teacher provides the lesson plans and deals with the
administration aspect. By next year I may or may not need this. I have not had
time to set up the classroom yet, since that was planned for after we were done
with spring cleaning. We have a nice sized 4 bedroom house where each kid has
their own room and we have an extra building that I used to do my crafts in
before I returned to school. We had ideas of combining the boys and moving the
rooms around to make the largest room the class.
I will be setting up in the dining room with Cowboy doing
his work at the kitchen table for now. I will be posting more as we go along.
This is only the beginning of our journey.
