Homeschool vs School at Home? Does it matter?

Tenn over at School @ Home put out a request for submissions on the topic “What Makes a Homeschooler a Homeschooler” and I truly wanted to send her a submission. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time or the energy. I still don’t have the time or the energy but I am vowing to make time for this sort of thing, so here goes.



First, some history. Michelle was enrolled in public school until April of 2004, she was in the 8th grade when we removed her from the school system. We didn’t plan it in advance, we simply did it because it was the best option for her. We spent the rest of “8th grade” continuing with the subjects and topics she had been working on and then we spent the summer figuring out what she knew and what she didn’t know and just getting an idea about how we might schedule our lives and her education once the “real school year” began in the fall.



None of the school in a box options felt right for us. We are not a “religious” family and curriculumn with religious education built in was not for us. I did buy two literature workbooks, Frankenstein and To Kill a Mockingbird, that included discussion questions that coincide with Biblical study. When it came time to study Frankenstein, we simply skipped the Biblical questions. (Though I think Michelle would find it interesting at some point to go back and ponder them a bit on her own.)



It’s tough to find curriculumn for a just starting in homeschool at the high school level child, religious or otherwise, and I was pretty worried that this was not going to work. But, we made a plan and we got busy with it in late August. It worked well except we quickly realized that I simply could not give her the assistance she needed in Algebra. Higher level math is not my thing, it never has been. She moved quickly through the Algebra workbook that we’d chosen for her but by mid October she was beginning to struggle all by herself and I was in search of a tutor or a curriculumn or an online class – something had to be done.



Lo and behold, Florida Virtual School! My older son’s teacher had mentioned it in passing when I expressed concern about his placement in a high school math class when we first moved to this fair city but I never really needed to research it. I should have, it would have done him a world of good.



Michelle and I registered her with the system, and we registered her as a homeschooler. We requested Algebra 1 and while we were at it we went ahead and requested Biology 1 and Spanish 1. We faxed in a copy of her official “We are homeschooling” paperwork from the school district and we waited for placement. A couple of weeks later, Michelle was officially enrolled in the Algebra class. A couple of weeks later, she was assigned a Biology teacher and then the Spanish teacher shortly after that.



These three classes are considered “full credit” classes and should be completed in 36 weeks. 18 if you are on an advanced pace. You can also choose honors if you like. Public school children must have taken the prerequisite courses to be eligible for honors but if you are homeschooled, the parent simply needs to request the honors track. Students can work at their own pace in terms of moving quickly through the course, but they cannot move “too slowly”. In our experience you’d have to be doing almost no work to not be able to keep the “pace”. For a homeschool child, the pace is slow, slow, slow. For a public ed student who goes to school a full day and is working on FLVS courses at night and on the weekend, the pace is probably tough at certain points.



To recap – “9th grade” consisted of Michelle doing “school at home” through FLVS for 4 classes (we added a Webmasters class that we heard was awsome, and it was in February of that year) and she “homeschooled” the rest.



This summer, Michelle took Economics and American Government (honors) just because we thought it would be interesting to see what other Florida high school students were required to take. She loved AG and hated Economics, as I expected she would. This year, she’s taking Chemistry 1, Geometry 1 and Spanish 2 through FLVS and the rest of her education is created and directed by us.



Yes, FLVS receives state funding. Yes, someone other than me grades her work. Yes, she receives grades just like a public schooler in Florida does. She can even print a transcript of her grades if she wants to. BUT, ultimately it is me who is responsible for her educational progress. On the rare occasion that I’ve had issues with the curriculumn, grading or expectations of Michelle’s FLVS teachers, I’ve addressed those issues with them and they’ve been very accomodating and helpful. To me, those FLVS teachers have been exactly what a tutor would have been, if I’d been able to find one.



I understand that many homeschoolers are concerned that they will lose the right to create their entire curriculumn and somehow be required to choose an option like FLVS. But to me it feels a wee bit silly to insist that those of us who choose to use “school at home” option not call ourselves homeschoolers. Isn’t there enough division amongst us without creating this us/them feeling between us? How is this division between us going to help the cause of homeschooling?



I’m in support of every single person who chooses homeschool, regardless of the curriculumn choices (or lack thereof) that they make. I don’t care if you call yourself homeschoolers, unschoolers or school at homers – it’s all about making the best choices for our children. What’s worked well for Michelle may not work well for your children and what works well for yours, may not work well for Michelle – isn’t that really what homeschooling is about? Isn’t that what makes a homeschooler? Finding the educational path on our own and following it?


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