Charter School Meets Homeschool

2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013

Wow! We are in our 6th. year of homeschooling and I am still excited about sharing a year of learning with my offspring! This year though, we add a student. My third-born child starts pre-elementary, (I am not a fan of the labels of "preschool", "4K", etc., and I don't believe in rushing the learning process, but) she is none-the-less wanting to write and excited to read, so we are diving in this year!  I catch that train when it takes off and it was leaving the station this summer, so we hopped aboard.

Still, that challenges me with 3 students and a 2 year old in the middle of it all. So, I found a brilliant online charter school that wasn't hooked up to the public school system (which has given me bad stomach aches in the past-a personal bumpy journal I would rather not revisit).  This in turn, put a burden on our savings account, but would free my brain-load and student-teacher ratio up a bit.  It would be for my computer-junkie of a 14 yr. old, so I thought it to be a match in heaven.

The Keystone School at keystoneschoolonline.com, had all that we were looking for and more.  The price was half of what other sites were charging, yet they had much more to offer.  Their students entered into Ivy League colleges and universities; their list of class offerings were perfect for the sequence of what we had been learning; they had classes my son was interested in; they would provide a diploma for junior high and high school; and there were teachers and guidance counselors around the clock that would be available as needed!  The added bonus, was that The Keystone School had social online clubs and groups, as well as a supervised Facebook account for its students!  My son has Asperger's Syndrome and I found this to be a perfectly safe and comfortable way for him to make friends and feel part of a group.

Their tuition included the books he would need and they were sent to our home right away. A Learning Coach called us two weeks into our enrollment, to see if we had any questions or concerns and to just introduce himself. This is a busy man. The Keystone School is an international school and our Learning Coach provides online seminars as well, to help our children with their learning environments and journey. A personal phone call was impressive. A teacher from each subject also emailed us to introduce us to their classes. Online instructions, videos and seminars are also available for parents and teachers to learn about how it all works. 

Our big idea bombed when my son read the teacher emails. He said that he got sick to his stomach (he did turn white and looked queasy) and he started tearing up. He stated that this felt like public school all over again and it brought up bad memories. (This is where the damage and trauma that public school did to my child, angers me and still comes into our lives.) He relates the school process to his days of being bullied and of teachers yelling at him and sending him out of the classroom when he was over-whelmed by stimulus such as noise.                                 Outcasted.

I then thumbed through the books, hoping to gain his interest back. He was so excited about the class descriptions online, that I was hoping to spark his interest back. What I found though, in the first half of all of the books, (with the exception of the electives that didn't have books) was that the material was all of what we had already learned in the last couple of years. This was a chief complaint of my son's with homeschool. I was accused of re-teaching him the same material over and over again and that he was bored to death! That was it. I closed the books. I released him from his chair in front of the computer and the emails, gave him a hug and let him know that we will figure out a way to make learning fun again this year. No repeats on subjects.

Then, I called the sweet staff at the school and they assured me that upon my return of the books (as long as they were in new condition), that my money would be returned back onto my credit card, minus the shipping of the books of course. I thought that they would then hang up. Instead, she listened patiently to our reasons for not moving on with Keystone and offered assistance in the future. She told me to call with any questions I had with homeschooling my son. She wished me all the luck I needed and complimented me on raising four children. Then, she reassured me that they would be available in the future if he wanted to just try out a class or two (instead of the six we put on our plate this year).  It was the first time I had returned a product, requesting my money back, and hanging up, feeling as if I made a few friends, instead of being angered by rude employees.

Next, my 2 year old wakes up from her nap on our leather couch, in a pool of her own urine, for the fourth time this year. (Our couch has multiple rips in it, so the couch is now absorbing this urine.) I call my husband on his way home from work and ask him to turn around and head for the furniture store.  He asks me how we are paying for this couch. I happily tell him, "with the money being returned to us from the charter school." It looks like I will be earning that couch, by teaching my offspring for a 6th. year.