Sept Update

Little dudes are sick today, and so I'm taking a minute to update.

Ebby is doing great with doing his K12 work. Part of the reason is that it is fairly simple for him. If it were more challenging, he would probably be giving more pushback. Hopefully by the time he gets to things he doesn't know, he'll have a foundation good enough to support the new learning.

Bobo is doing better. He's still on the cusp of reading but not yet fluent. Once he gets there, I'm hoping that I won't have to supervise every one of his lessons.

This is always such a frustrating point - that point when you know that they will be a fluent reader any day, but they're not there yet. Argh!

Jojo is doing really well with the curricula I chose for her this year, and I don't think I've ever said that before. She even likes biology, and that too is a first. We're using one of Glencoe's textbooks. The workbooks that go with them have so many good "thinking" questions that she's learning it without any struggle.

Meme is getting used to doing more work everyday. She's not happy about it, but she is getting used to it. She was asked to take part in the National Math Lab. It's a program where she attends an hour long online class everyday in order to help build up some of the basic math skills. It's just what she needed.

Don't Give Up

I think I was more tired yesterday than I have been since we started school. This is about the stage where my enthusiasm wanes and my desire to crawl into bed and read a good book by myself gets overwhelming. I’m not the most consistent homeschool mom, but I’m not the most consistent anything.  I can do most things for about 6 to 8 weeks, and then I want to do something else. It can be another project in the same general area, but I need a break.

To break this trend, I feel that if I can make it through to the end of the first nine weeks without breaking, I can make it through the rest of the year.  How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. I’m taking this day by day.

We didn’t get everything done yesterday that I had planned. Jojo, Meme and Ebby did fine and got all of their work done within a reasonable time frame. I think Ebby was done by 1:00.

Bobo now, he’s a different story. He changed tactics. Rather than the slightly jovial defiance of Monday, yesterday he was outright defiant. “I’m not doing that and you can’t make me!” was repeated quite a few times.

Math was a particularly tough lesson to get through. We started the lesson at 11:00, broke for lunch, and didn’t end the lesson until after 4. Not including the hour lunch, it took 4 hours to get through that one lesson, and the lesson only had about 20 problems and a couple of online quizzes.

 
We were supposed to do language arts after that, but I was so exhausted from that massive battle of wills, I declared we were done. I admitted fully that he won that battle (not to him though), but I’m still fighting in this war.

This morning my tactic is changing. We're doing the least favorite lessons first so that we can  have something to look forward to at the end of the day.  Also, I need to remember that little dudes get hungry and we should break for snacks often.

I may be an old dog at homeschooling, but we all have things to learn no matter how old or experienced we are.

The First Monday After School Starts Blues

I don’t know if other homeschool parents experience this phenomenon, but I do every year. It’s a specific way the kids behave the first Monday after the week we start homeschooling. I could describe it in detail, but it’s pretty much outright rebellion.

It starts off with “I don’t want to do that subject, but can I do this subject twice instead?” “That subject” is usually math or language arts, while “this subject” is generally art or something like that. 

It’s best to nip it in the bud and say no, but there is always that temptation of letting them continue to draw random lines in their sketch book while you do something else, like printing out their worksheets. Yet, every year I have to learn that the hard way.

By mid afternoon, it’s grown into outright refusal to do anything, or at least do anything correctly.

Ebby’s lessons so far have been ridiculously easy. Not that I mind because it allows the rest of us a couple of weeks to find our groove, and I’m hoping they’ll get a bit more difficult. But yesterday’s lesson was the names of our body parts, and I’m not talking about the spleen.

“Point to your feet.” So he points to his nose.

“Is this my feet?” Normally I would giggle with him, give him a hug and encourage humor, but today is “Monday after the week school starts.” It’s been a long day, and this isn’t the first time Ebby or Bobo have with refused to do something or purposefully done it wrong.

So we enter this staring contest, which I eventually win, and he finishes his lesson within about 2 minutes.

Then, just a few minutes later, we have Bobo’s reading lesson.

“I’m just going to sit here and do nothing. You can’t make me read.”

“Okay. I’m going to forward the laundry, and you sit there . . . and do absolutely nothing. When you’re bored of just sitting there, come and get me.” I haven’t even finished loading the washer when he pipes up that he’s ready to read.

Well, I’m glad it’s Tuesday.

One Week Down and About 39 More to Go

We had a wonderful first week! I may sound overly positive, but I’ve never used the words “wonderful” and “first week” together before. Usually it’s “good,” “survived,” or “somewhat productive.” But we actually had a wonderful first week.

With the exception of Thursday, which in itself was a lesson learned, we accomplished everything we set out to accomplish each day. The first two days we the boys did half of their lessons, Meme did nearly a whole day of school, and we figured out what Jojo can and can’t do in the morning. She can’t read in bed, because she simply falls asleep, but she’s not yet awake enough to do math.

Wednesday and Friday we did even more. The boys completed a full day’s worth of lessons, and Meme started stepping up and getting more done.

Jojo is still finding her own pace. She hasn’t been feeling well for months and months, with non-specific symptoms. The doctors haven’t managed to find anything, although she’s had a great many tests run on her. She’s starting to feel better, but neither her appetite nor her energy level has returned to normal. She’s a hard worker, but during the last few months, she gets overwhelmed easily.

It was a big accomplishment for her that she stayed awake during school hours all week, eat something at each mealtime, and actually get some schoolwork done. It’s a start, and I’m confident that she’ll return back to her normal, energetic self.

Jojo is technically my only homeschooler. By using K12, the other three are technically public school students. Only technically though. Believe me when I say that I have more interaction in their day to day studies while on K12 than I did when they were “homeschoolers.” Especially with the younger grades, K12 is very parent involved.

Other people have said this about me, but I don’t see how some families with multiple young children can do it. Mine are spaced perfectly apart for using K12. Meme is pretty much self-directed.  The only thing I do is look over her progress and push her back on the path with the subjects she tries to avoid. With Bobo and Ebby, it’s all ME.

Bobo is not reading fluently enough to understand the directions, and Ebby doesn’t read. We’re working out a good system. Most of Ebby’s classes take a few minutes for him to do.  We alternate between a Bobo class and an Ebby class. Bobo will generally do his off-line worksheets while Ebby does his on-line classes.

Then in the late afternoon, when Ebby is done, I have Jojo read to him or sit with him, while Bobo and I get 45 minutes to an hour by ourselves to do language arts.  My hope is that by the time Ebby’s work is actually challenging to him, Bobo will be reading well enough to do some things without my direct help.

My biggest worry right now is that my enthusiasm and dedication will fail.  It’s not a worry ungrounded in reality. Most years start off great, and then I get frustrated at the stubbornness of the children to do their schoolwork, the time it takes and everything else.  Once I’m frustrated, it’s only a matter of time before I start slowing down and letting things slide.

I’m determined not to have this happen this year. Part of that plan is being realistic in what we can do during the day.  I need to remember that homeschooling my children is my job. It’s okay if I can’t clean house, do laundry or cook during school hours. And if something has to slide, those things should be first.

For class planning: Meme and the boys have their classes planned and laid out for them – that’s the benefit of using the system.

Jojo, however, we’re still working on this year’s “class schedule.” She gets the flexibility that a system like K12 or Connections Academy won’t have, but we have to do all the planning.

We sat down yesterday to look through the curricula I have for high school, and of course I’m like a kid in a candy store. “You should do this class.” “Oh and this class is really important.”

She just sits back quietly; after all she knows me well. After I’ve filled a page with a long list of classes I want her to work on, I turn to her and say, “I’ve gone overboard again, haven’t I?”

“Yes, Mom,” she replies in her patient tone, “you have.” We sat the project aside so that I can clear my head, and we’re working on it this weekend.

Literature she has in the bag. She is one of the most well read kids that I know for her age. Only Algernon had read more books by this time, and Algernon is a prodigy with literature and reading.

I have the writing program that I used. It’s old, but it’s good. She started it about a month ago, and it’s working really well. So we’ll stick with that.

For math, we have a good solid plan for. Our plan: do it everyday. It may not seem like much, but it should do the trick.

Now here’s where I get overly enthusiastic.

Social studies. She really should have civics; as an adult I see the importance of it. Then world geography is important. We are more global now than we have ever been, so it is more important for emerging adults to know about the world and cultures. And economics. Seriously, how many of us would have benefited greatly if we had gone into adulthood knowing a bit more about personal economics. Then I found this great curriculum that teaches basic life skills. It’s actually called Discovering Life Skills. It teaches all those little things that most of us had to learn the hard way.

You see why it is wonderful that Jojo is so patient with me. I get like this every year. She let it run its course, and that’s about when we put things away.

We settled on:

·         Finding a science curriculum that she can work with. She hates science, and I think it’s only because it’s never been presented to her in the right way.

·         Limit social studies to one at a time. She may be able to do multiple ones this year, but not all at once.

·         Start some sort of test prep. Her eligibility to get TOPS (Louisiana’s general scholarship) is based solely on her ACT scores. The better she does, the more she gets.

·         Pick a foreign language and find a systematic curriculum to use. I think we’re about settled on German.

 
I have my homework for this weekend laid out. By Monday, I’m hoping we have a solid plan of action and that I still have the enthusiasm to push through until it’s not as exhausting.

Errands? NO!

Errands are not feasible on school days! The morning started out very nice. We all woke up early. Since I had been putting off going to the grocery since last week, Meme informed me that we were out of cat food as of this morning.  That leads to the question of going now, this afternoon or sending my husband to do it.

My husband is a great shopper, but the last time I sent him to the store for milk, he came back with 6 half gallons of ice cream. So, I thought, “Let’s just get it out the way.” 

We made a quick stop at the thrift store near the shopping place. We were in and out in under 45 minutes, which for us is super speedy. Then there was Walmart. It was still fairly early when we started, so I was hopeful of getting home before lunch and diving in to lessons.

I guess local schools are starting within the next week, because it was jammed with people buying school supplies. Between the crowds, wrangling Ebby who wanted to look at and touch everything, and the lack of open cashiers, it was after 1pm when we finally got home.

Meme, thankfully and brightly, stayed home to get some schoolwork done – she had a wry grin on her face as we left. but Jojo and I were exhausted by the time we got home, the van unloaded and groceries put away. By the time we got lunch and a load of laundry started, it was almost 3:00.  I managed to work on phonics with Bobo, but that was it.

I did however find all I needed for school supplies. I admit, the trip would have been much faster if I had avoided those aisles, but I did that last year. By the time I got back to purchase my things, the shops were out of everything that was on sale. With homeschooling 4 children, we try to get everything on sale!

 
So, no more running errands during the school day for us.  I remember sometime last year when waking up at 6 am on a Saturday to do grocery shopping seemed like a good idea. And I did it for several months. Now I remember why it was so appealing even to me, who is not a morning person. You just have to do things when the need to get done.

New Starts - Here's to the 2012-13 School Year

It’s been a while since I’ve written. I took the summer off – well, sort of. We did school work all summer long, but at a more relaxed pace.

But it’s the beginning of a new year, and I’m starting it with enthusiasm, good intentions and a hope that we will get more done this year than last. 

August is like Mondays. I love Mondays! Each Monday it’s like you are given a clean slate for accomplishing things. It doesn’t matter how much or little was done last week, it’s Monday and it all starts at 0 again.

A new school year is like that. New resolutions. New ideas. New homeschool friends. And new books.

Update on the kids:

Jojo is still doing traditional homeschooling, or at least traditional “relaxed” homeschooling, which isn’t traditional, I guess. Are you confused? She isn’t under any outside obligations or authority at least.

She decides some things. Other things, like what books she reads, she has some say-so, but the book has to meet with my approval. I tried the let her pick her own books, but she refused to read anything but fluff, and not even good fluff.  Right now she’s reading the Sherlock Holmes compendium.

A few weeks ago, she and I both came to the conclusion that she needs some outside help. I’ve looked into the local community college, and she can actually take courses despite being only 16. Math seemed like a good start for her. I’m really good at math, but the explanations I come up with just don’t seem to sink in with her. Having someone other than Mom teach her is a good thing.

Speaking of which, it’s the second year that our homeschool group’s co-op is up and running. I’m excited about it. For years and years I tried (half-heartedly, I admit) to get a weekly cooperative learning group together. It’s a bunch of families where different parents teach different things to kids that aren’t theirs. I think it’s really important for kids to have someone else teaching them every now and then.

Last year, I taught drama the first semester and hands-on history the second. I’m switching gears here by hoping to teach yoga this semester. Then I won’t have any excuse not to do yoga at least once a week.

Now for Meme. I can’t remember if I said anything, but our plan from the get-go last year was to have her stay in eighth grade for 2 years. She was a bit behind on a few subjects, and pushing her to do more work than she is capable of would be more than frustrating. It could damage her desire to learn.

She worked all summer, mostly on Study Island. Study Island is a 3^rd party service that K12 uses to help kids fill in the gaps for different subject areas by teaching them mini-lessons and having them practice with games. I love it. It allows the student to sort through different grade levels to find the bits and pieces that may be missing from their learning and practice them.

I’m more comfortable with her math skills than I’ve ever been. She doesn’t like math, but, other than myself, I don’t know many people who do. For a long while, she stubbornly refused to learn even basic math concepts, like the multiplication tables. It was not for lack of assignments. At one point (during a fit of frustration on my part), she was doing 10 pages, front and back, of math facts. She still did not retain them.

Our goal this year is to finish the eighth grade, obviously, and be prepared for high school. I’m hoping the high school K12 issues will be worked out. It’s a good program, but it can go very wrong if they let it.

Meme took the leap test at the end of this year, and we will practice that sucker all year long. Last year, in language arts and history, she did awesome. Not so well in math and science.  At least the test pointed out specific areas that she’s weak in so that we can build up those skills.

Bobo is doing fine. Like with Meme, we went in to the second grade with the intent of taking two years to finish it – at least two years at the longest.  He wasn’t behind per se. His birthday falls in September, which would in general make him the youngest kid of his class. So instead of being immature for his grade level, we started kindergarten work when he was 5 about to turn 6 rather than 4 about to turn 5.So he never did first grade.

Again with all the state rigmarole, he was placed in second grade instead of first. If it had been this year, it would have been fixed. But being K12’s first year in Louisiana, it wasn’t allowed. Last year, we took our time, going in to each lesson with the idea that we wouldn’t come out until it was learned. In language arts, that hasn’t been hard. He still isn’t reading fluently, but most boys that I know from my years of homeschooling didn’t read fluently until they were eight. 

He is, however, reading well enough that he can read what I’m googling for. Internet shopping for his birthday gifts can now only take place at night. When you think you’re going to surprise them . . .

 
Here’s to a new school year!! May it be full of diligence, industriousness, good learning and good friends!

Assessing LAVCA's High School - at least for the first half of the year

Good gogely-mogely! It’s been 8 months since I’ve posted. Obviously, I’ve been a bit overwhelmed with my year with K12.  Can I sum up all that’s happened? Probably not even a little. But I can try. Let’s start with age rather than date.

I pulled Jojo out of K12 in November.  Her first homeroom teacher wouldn’t place her in 9^thgrade, stating that unless she was in public school before and I had the records to show that she was in 8^th grade the previous year, she had to be placed using her age.  Found out later that that wasn’t exactly true.  The teacher could have moved her back to 9^th, and it wasn’t really that difficult, just a bit of paperwork. I suspect that she (the teacher) didn’t want the extra paperwork and didn’t care whether or not my child failed.

With all of our children, except the oldest and now the youngest, we’ve delayed schooling by a year. So she had never done 9^th grade work. For some subjects that wouldn’t matter, but in English and math it usually does. All of this I explained to her homeroom teacher.  Her advice, muddle through it.

Jojo is my industrious child. If I give her a basic list of things to do, she’ll do them all and do them correctly.  She’s not a slacker by any means; she’s hardworking and perseverant (at least for a 15 year old).

Monday through Friday from 7am to about 5 pm she was in her OLS (on-line school) working. She would take a few minutes break for lunch, but not everyday.  She would often grab a sandwich and eat it while working. 

Let me go back and state what I didn’t know before school started.  K12’s K to 8 system is totally different than the high school’s system. For 8^th graders and below, when the parent logs in to their own profile, we can see all that our child has done that day and all that they are supposed to do. We see which live on-line classes they have and when they have them. We see their grades, their progress and what they need to step up in.

And it’s easy. One click gives you the overview of that child. One more click and you zoom in on a specific subject, or even a specific lesson. For Meme’s work, I could track it daily, fuss at her when she wasn’t doing what she was supposed to and make her go back over lessons that she didn’t quite get.

High school is a totally different beast. I can’t really see anything my child is doing. It’s actually part of a different system and nothing similar to the K to 8 system. More different than, say, yahoo mail is to g-mail. You see the general similarities – yes those are the subjects and I think those are the lessons. Everything looks different. And the parent can not see what the child is doing.

Technically you have access to their profile, but the system warns you as you try to reach it that if you change anything, it’s also changed on the student’s profile. So if I looked over a future lesson, it would mark that lesson as having been read. I did this a few time and got severely fussed at by Jojo, who accidentally skipped lessons because they were marked as read. I could see the scores for some of the classes (not all), but not the tests themselves unless I wanted to mess things up on her end.

After a few mess-ups on my part – I was just trying to see how she was doing – I left her alone with her schoolwork. Of course I asked her everyday how things were going, and she usually said fine or groused a little about not liking one subject or the other.

Knowing Jojo, I was fairly certain that even without me looking over her shoulder, she would do what she needed to do. She does not shirk work. She may grouse about it, but she does do it.

For those three months, I thought all was fine. I knew that there were some administrative problems. Her homeroom teacher, after a month of never returning phone calls or e-mails, took maternity leave. Tenth grade then got an interim homeroom teacher. Then, a couple of weeks later, they switched to another homeroom teacher. 3 different homeroom teachers in 3 months.

It doesn’t sound like a big deal until you remember that the homeroom teacher is the liaison between you, your student and the school.  Again, just like in a normal school, your experience can be wonderful or horrid depending on the teacher you get.  Your teacher can do what is best for your child, even if it creates more paperwork. Or they can lie and tell you that there is nothing they can do because they don’t care.

Jojo got the latter.  I knew about this problem, but I kept hoping that as the year progressed, it would smooth out. I am a very patient and understanding woman.

Another huge difference between the K to 8 system and the high school system is that the K to 8 has their curricula pre-laid all out at the beginning of the year. It’s a generic standard curricula (don’t get me wrong, I love their curricula), that will provide lots of extra work for the child who needs it or give the option to skip ahead to the test for those who don’t. So in its generic-ness, it can be adapted for each child. But the lessons themselves are all laid out from the beginning of the year. The teachers are there to help, but they don’t determine the lessons.

K12’s high school is the opposite - all teacher driven. You child’s teachers each give assignments, grade non-multiple choice tests, and direct the flow of the school year for your child. 

From the beginning of the year, I knew that some courses were having problems being loaded. What I didn’t know was that, although her biology course didn’t load until the second month of school, her biology teacher was holding them responsible to “catch-up” to where they should be.  Some of her other teachers were doing this as well. I even overheard a teacher during a live lecture telling the kids that if they were not at 50% by the end of the first semester, they would not get a passing grade.

It didn’t matter that the child was working everyday on her lessons or that the children didn’t have certain courses for the first one to three months, the teachers were adamant that the students be at the half-way mark by January.

Mid November, Jojo came to me distraught, and I had no clue why.

“Mom, I’m failing all of my classes.”  How could that be? She was working 10 hours a day and weekends too. She had been telling me about her classes everyday.

“But you have the highest grades in both English and history. You’re at least not failing those.”

“I am if I can’t get to 50% by the end of first semester. It doesn’t matter what my grades are, I’ll still fail.”

“Okay. What about the other courses?” I knew that biology, math and Spanish were difficult for her, but she was doing all of her assignments. If she wasn’t passing, then surely the teacher would let me know.

Wrong.

“I’m doing okay in biology and Spanish, but I don’t get the math at all.  I’ve asked the teacher several times for help, and they don’t ever answer back.”

I sat down and had her show me around her OLS. She was telling the truth. Despite all of the difficulties, they still need to be at 50% by the end of the first semester.

“Several of your courses didn’t load right away. They’re not holding you responsible for that?” They were. Especially her biology teacher, who was the same homeroom teacher who never answered back, whose course didn’t load for a good month and a half and took maternity leave almost immediately.

Her father and I took several days to think about it, asked her many more clarifying questions and then pulled her out.

My assessment:

LAVCA K12 should not have tried to do high school their first year here. Although they were only dong 9^th and 10^th grades, they did not have the administrative or faculty support system in place to get that much done successfully. Why?

1. They are based out of New Orleans, which is still half desolate. They had a difficult time finding teachers.
2. They still don’t have a principal. It’s April, and they still don’t have a principal.
3. The OLS (on-line school) had many, many problems for the first few weeks. There were days when we couldn’t access our classes. For K to 8, that’s not such a big deal. They have quite a few courses that aren’t solely on-line. But ALL of high school’s stuff is on-line. A day without the OLS is a day without the ability to get any schoolwork done.
4. They did not have teachers for all of the subjects before school started. They were still getting their faculty together weeks into school.

That’s all I can remember off the top of my head, but I do remember there being more reasons that they should have stuck with K to 8 the first year.

Next school year, they’re going to offer 11^th grade as well. My suggestion, wait another 2 or 3 years before trying LAVCA’s high school.  By then things should be settled, all of the kinks worked out and the support system in place.

Also, demand that they give your child what your child needs. Be that testing, moving to another grade or simply helping with assignments. If your homeroom teacher won’t do it, go over their head. Don’t be shy about demanding the help your child needs.

Things to Remember so that I Don't Freak Out

School officially starts for LaVCA students on Wednesday – this Wednesday. As of right now, none of my three K12 students have their classes loaded on the OLS (on-line school).  I wouldn’t be panicking (as much) if I didn’t know that quite a few other students had all their classes loaded almost 2 weeks ago. 

This is a case where on-line support groups are anti-helpful. We are all new. No one knows much more than anyone else. We have no helpful advice to give each-other. So when my stuff looks different from your stuff, I start to freak-out.

Certainly there must be a place I can go to calm my fears. I can’t keep calling the teachers every time something doesn’t seem just right. I don’t want to be one of those mothers! 

So I’m looking around at the K12 tools on the OLS and see theBigThinK12. It’s where all the K12 parents and older children from around the world hang-out on-line to get advice from each other. There are people there who’ve done this and been there and hopefully learned a thing or two.

I started poking around, found a bit of information that helped me compose myself and I thought I should share it in case anyone else is freaking out.

First 2 to 3 weeks: For everyone, no matter what K12 school you are in, be it LaVCA, CAVA, OHVA or any other state’s K12, the first few weeks are always a mess for many reasons.

1. Some folks decided at the last minute that this is for them, so they’re all registering at once.
2. There are perpetual teacher seminars to get teachers used to K12 or simply update them on new policies. 
3. Those roving bands of statewide orientations sent the teachers all across the state for two, or was it three, weeks. 
4. Then there are the technical glitches: students classes not loaded on the OLS, Study Island not working, attendance record not working or anything else you need on-line not working.

These things are all normal. Before the end of the first month, it all gets sorted out.

Worst case: School officially starts on the 17 ^th, and I still don’t have my books or classes. According to the old-timers, they pro-rate your start date and school for you doesn’t start until you get your stuff. Don’t panic that you’ll be behind.

I don’t get my child’s classes straightened out until after school starts: as soon as your advisor (usually the homeroom teacher) makes the changes, it takes up to 24 hours for the changes to go into effect. As soon as they go into effect, it’s processed at the warehouse and you should get your supplies within a week. Until then, your OLS should be correct and you can get a jump on doing the online stuff.

Study Island isn’t Working: Study Island does a big launch every year. K12 will kmail you the information to get you signed-in, but they have to wait until Study Island launches for it to start. From what I hear, it’s not subtle.

 

Things on my OLS aren’t working: It’s always bumpy that first week. The system rolls over from summer and there’s going to be a glitch or two. K12 will work the first week to get that sorted out.

I have all my books, but my OLS classes aren’t uploaded yet: Let your teacher know, and until then start in on the books and workbooks you have. It’s pretty much a lesson a day for most subjects. Sometimes they load things early, but quite a few people don’t get theirs loaded until day 1. It’s a pain in the tush as far as far as planning goes, but they’re not expecting us to jump in on day one with both feet if the OLS has just been loaded.  Also, from what I hear, the classes are often loaded at midnight – probably when they push updates through the system.

My child’s teacher is really busy and won’t call me back: The virtual schools are for the most part closed in the summer, just like a b&m school. When the teachers come back, there’s an overwhelming amount of stuff to do in a short time frame. The ILP (individual learning plans) for each student, scan tron tests for 3rd to 10^th graders, making changes to schedules, fixing glitches with their students’ classes and non-stop orientations and meetings.  Add to the list that this is the first year K12 is in Louisiana, so most of the teachers are new to K12. Training, training and more training. Most things will be fixed by the end of week one. Those that aren’t should be fixed by the end of week 2.

 

When you finally do get your teacher on the phone, be polite but firm. They weren’t avoiding you; they just have so much to do in very little time. Back up what you discussed with your teacher by taking notes during the conversation and sending it to them in a kmail. They are human, and we all often forget what we talked about two minutes ago. Think about it. They probably went from talking to you to talking to another parent with similar but different problems. Kmailing them a run-down on what you talked about is a polite thing, not a hassling thing.

So basically, be persistent with your communication, but keep calm. All of these things we are panicking about are normal. It's not a case of "our child's stuff is totally messed up."  It will get sorted out and you won't fall incredibly behind. Breathe in, breathe out (repeat).

Getting Sorted

I knew going into this adventure that the first few weeks getting started would be hard, but I thought it would all be on my end. Since this is LaVCA’s first year, they too are having a good bit of growing pains.

Meme and Jojo took their assessment tests. Jojo, like anything I ask her these days, replied “I don’t know” to the question of how she did. Meme, never very forthcoming with the words, didn’t say much, but I overheared her tell her best friend that she failed the unfailable test. 

Supposedly, as soon as the child is finished taking the test, the scores are sent to the teacher, who reviews them and comes up with an ILP (Individualized Learning Plan). 

I figured that I would hear from the teachers in a couple of days post-test.  Silly me. All these teachers have pretty much been in training meetings for the last two weeks. Top that off with every child being new in LaVCA this year (since it’s year one), so every ILP has to be made from scratch.

So my anxiety doth run over my cup. I know I fret, but I had a major fret episode. Yesterday, Friday, I finally couldn’t take it anymore. I called both Meme’s and Jojo’s teachers, left a message on their voicemail (they were in another meeting) and waited.

Meme’s teacher called back a couple of hours later. Of course, I’ve been trying to convince K12 that she needs to be in seventh grade, despite her age. We have not yet done seventh grade work with her, and I don’t think she could handle eighth grade work.

Well, she actually did okay on the assessment test. Compared to other eighth grade students, Meme’s on the high end of average for reading comprehension and just below average in math. Considering that we haven’t yet gotten to sixth or seventh grade math, that’s not bad. And since she didn’t start reading until she was 9, being on the high end of average for other eighth grades is pretty good.

Her teacher and I talked for while, discussing what this means. One of my worries is that she won’t be able to handle the eighth grade work in science and history. The teacher said that since her reading comprehension is fairly high, all things considered, and since science and history are all based on reading stuff and understanding that stuff, she can do the work. That does make sense.

We agreed to keep her in the eighth grade. In a weird way this means that she’s skipping a grade simply for the fact that we haven’t done anything for seventh grade. Oh well, it’s all subjective anyway.  She still needs a bit of remediation in math, but not as much as I thought.  She may need some extra help in writing as well, but the teacher’s philosophy is that if she’s reading on that level, she can emulate what she reads and write on that level too.

 

Meme is actually pleased with herself.  So I can officially call her an eighth grader now.

The Ball is in My Court

I received an e-mail from K12 with instructions for the assessment tests for Jojo and Meme. They are taking them tomorrow, and I’m down-playing it so that they won’t be nervous. 

I looked through Meme’s language arts text book, and it doesn’t look that bad.  And the reading books (Diary of Anne Frank, Romeo & Juliet and Fredrick Douglas’s writings), they’re certainly right around the level of books I’ve been assigning her for the last year.

It certainly looks doable for Meme.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m not such an utter failure as a homeschool mom. (I gotta love these pep talks I give myself).

Meme & K12

I’m feeling more confident today in exploring K12 for Meme. Her teacher is setting up on-line assessment tests to see exactly where she is. No decisions will be made about grade level or work level until she takes these tests. I’m comfortable with that.

I admit it’s a huge relief actually talking to her teacher and beginning to come up with a plan of action.  Things happen, and we can’t do anything about that. It’s been hell on me the last few years trying the juggle moves, job hunts, childbirth, learning disabilities . . . I could go on, but I’ll sum it up with “loads of not fun crud.”

Despite the fact that it should have been, education was not always the top priority. Sometimes we were focused on simply surviving the changes going on in our lives. The thought of someone guiding me through this “catching up process,” which has daunted me for the last 3 years, is comforting. I like that Meme will have someone other than myself to be accountable to.

Of course, I haven’t yet told Meme that she’s going to be doing a virtual academy this school year. I’m a bit afraid of the resistance I’m going to get. 

Meme, my sweet Meme. She’s bright, creative, artistic, and imaginative but resists doing any work that she doesn’t deem is fun. Aren’t we all like that? At some point, most of us learned that there are a good many things that we’ll do on a daily basis that isn’t fun, but we need the end results.  From the daily: we need clean plates to eat off of; therefore we need to wash some dishes. To the lifelong: we want a comfortable life and a stable job; therefore we need to work hard on our education, which is just one step in getting there, but an important step.

The idea of being actually responsible and held accountable for her school work scares the heck out of her.  I need help motivating her. I need some structure at this point.

A large part of me, the long-term homeschooler part, feels like I’m betraying my fellow homeschoolers by using a public school virtual academy. I realize that it’s just pride who phrases this switch in terms of a betrayal. The reality is that I don’t want to admit that I’m failing in areas as a homeschool mom and some of my long-held beliefs about how children learn may not be correct – or at least not correct for my children.

A whole paradigm shift takes a while to adjust to.

Flexibility

Even in retrospect, we never know if we've made the right decision, but sometimes simply making any decision is better than perpetually being undecided. Yet I sit here still undecided about Meme doing a virtual academy. Well, maybe I’m not undecided about her doing one, just perturbed about the current circumstances.

I called Connections Academy early last week, and asked them the question I’ve been asking them for the past few weeks, “How far up on the waiting list is Meme? I need to know what her chances of getting a position are so that I can figure out what to do with her for next year.” Still no answer and I got passed around a good bit but to no one with any knowledge or authority.

Then I remembered the letter Jojo got about the Louisiana LEAP test. It had CA’s (Connections Academy) principal’s personal phone number on it. I called her asked her my question and still no real answer. She said that CA is going to BESE (Louisiana’s main school board) mid-August to ask for 400 more spots. Mid-August is after both K12 and CA start for the year. She asked that I pray they get the spots, and if they do then Meme should, not will, have a place.

Not definite enough. I can’t bank my child’s education this year on a long list of maybes. She couldn’t even tell me how far on the waiting list Meme is because she doesn’t have access to that information. If she doesn’t have access to that information, then who does? And who determines who’s next to call on the waiting list once a spot opens up?

On the K12 front: she’s been accepted into K12 as an 8^th grader. I have no problem with K12’s system. It’s the lack of flexibility they’ve shown so far that I have a problem with. Friday, after K12 orientation, I decided to take a chance.

I e-mailed Meme’s teacher and laid everything out. I told her that she’s behind, what she’s behind in and precisely how far behind she is. I let the teacher know that if she proceeds to expect normal eighth grade work out of her, Meme isn’t going to do well. I recommended that she be placed in seventh grade since that would give to her the best chance for success.

She e-mailed me back in just a few hours (kudos for promptness), and the e-mail sounded encouraging. The teachers are having a conference with other teachers today, and she’s supposed to bring up Meme to see what they recommend and what they can do within this system. Her words were encouraging: “We don’t want Meme to feel overwhelmed. We want her to succeed.”  Let’s see what happens. If K12 is willing to work with the situation, then I’d be more than happy to have Meme use them.

That brings me to Jojo. I’m pretty set about her being homeschooled for another year, but she’s still registered for K12. When I tried to pull her out a few weeks ago, they said that since she’s been accepted into the school we have to wait until her teacher contacts us to withdraw her.

Right now we’re in limbo. I was actually encouraged by the K12 orientation.  The speaker painted K12 more flexible than I had thought.  Maybe they can work with the girls despite the problems. My big fear is that she’s entering high school and mistakes she makes will be on her “permanent record” and her TOPS and college opportunity may be harmed.

Lots to think about. I’m still pretty sure we’ll homeschool Jojo, but I don’t want to close our doors until I know what’s behind them.

K12 LAVCA Orientation

Has it been a month since I’ve written?! Man! I would say it’s because I’ve been extremely busy, but, despite being busy, I’ve just been putting off thinking about the whole thing. 

Friday was one of the mandatory parent orientation for all Louisiana K12 participants and it was a mess.

We started out bright and early. Bobo and I were carpooling with his friend Tyty, Tyty’s mom and his grandmother.  We all got a good start, heading out to Zachary, a nearby small town, where the letter I received in the mail and the flyer I received by e-mail stated that the orientation would be held at 9:00.

Arriving at 8:30, there were very few cars in the parking lot and no doors open. We made sure that this was the place, and it looked like the K12 people were running late. We loitered around. 9:00 came and went. Other parents started to call the Louisiana office, but all calls went straight to voicemail, which was full.

9:30 came around. More parents were there. We started talking to a few. Several parents had taken off of work and one parent had rescheduled her son’s chemo to be there. They were pretty peeved that K12 still was a no-show.  More phone calls – trying to reach anyone who knew what was going on. Of course we’re thinking that something horrible happened. We saw the K12 people in a accident from the commute from New Orleans. Our logic: if they changed the location, surely we would have gotten an e-mail, phone call or they would have left a note on the door of the original location letting us know.

Now it’s hot. If you have never been in Louisiana in July, you don’t know what hot is. By 10:00 it’s over 90 degrees, the sun is brutal, and the humidity makes your glasses perpetually fog up.  There is little shade, and even the shade is hot. We take our chances and run to the local convenience store for cold drinks. I brought snacks, but I assumed that we would have access to a water fountain shortly after arriving.

It was 10:30 when we got back to the parking lot. As soon as we pulled up, the group of parents in-mass walked away from the overhang and headed towards our van.

“They changed the location,” one of the moms said.  What nice people to stay for us to get back! One mom gave us the new address and said that the K12 people told them that we could attend the 1:00 session.

We were livid. Having just been watered and fed, we went straight to the new location, arriving at 11:00 quite peeved. The head of Arkansas’s K12 met us outside and apologized profusely. He explained that we could attend the 1:00 to 3:00 session. We explained that we’ve been on the road since 8:00, I had a babysitter who was only willing to keep my other kids until 1:00 and he needed to make special accommodations for us, like right now.

A couple of other families, who we recognized from the other parking lot, also showed up. I admit, the guy was more than accommodating. He had us register then and there and immediately brought us to get the vision and hearing screenings done. 

Then after the morning session was over, he had the main speaker give us a condensed version of the orientation so that we would all be out of there by 1:00.

I understand that mistakes can be made, miscommunication happens and K12 is just getting started in Louisiana this year. It’s not that one makes mistakes that counts, it’s how one handles the mistakes that matter. They handled it pretty well.

The speaker said that we should have gotten a k-mail (K12’s e-mail system) letting us know the correct location.  Some of the parents had not yet logged into their k-mail. I had, and I told her that I checked my k-mail that morning and there wasn’t an e-mail saying that they changed location.

“It was sent out several weeks ago,” she said.

“I didn’t get one saying that the location had changed,” I replied. Of course, when I got home, I rechecked my k-mail.  There was a k-mail about the orientation, but it had the same wording as the paper mail and personal e-mail I received. There was no mention of location change.

However, when I pulled up the attachment on the k-mail, it had the new location. I know the K12 people probably think “stupid parents – can’t even read an attachment properly!” How were we supposed to know that this one attachment, which we received around the same time we got the other two, would be different, especially if they don’t even mention in the k-mail’s body that “Hey! Locations may be different than what was written on all the other messages about orientation you received!”? Seriously!

Wow! That was a long rant. I think I got it out of my system.

Now for the good bits:

What I Learned from K12 Orientation

I knew most of the information from what I had gathered for the K12 and CA comparison (http://flyingmonkeyshomeschool.blogspot.com/2011/05/louisianas-virtual-charter-schools.html). A few new bits were gathered.

• Partner School: K12 is partnered with CSAL (Community School for Apprenticeship Learning) charter school, which ironically was where the meeting was moved to. 
• No 11^th or 12^th Grades: In case I hadn’t mentioned it in the comparison, K12 doesn’t have 11^th or 12^th grades this year. Next year they will add 11^th, and they will add 12^th the year after. 
• Core Subject: For Louisiana they have 6 core subjects that all children take:

o       Language Arts

o       Math

o       Science

o       History

o       Art

          o        Music 

• Foreign Language: For 4^th graders and above, you can sign up for a foreign language, but they don’t recommend it for the first semester of anyone just starting K12, but you can add it half-way through the year. The foreign language doesn’t cost anything since it’s included in the package for Louisiana students. They offer:

o       Spanish

o       French

o       German

o       Latin

• Secondary Sites: Some of the things offered through K12 are actually not part of K12 but secondary sites they highly recommend. An example is for typing. They encourage students to use Dance Mat (http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/) which is sponsored by BBC for British schools. 
• Dates: School begins August 17, 2011 and ends May 11, 2012. 
• The total days a child has to attend is 177 

• ILP: Individualized Learning Plan. At the beginning of each year, your child’s teacher will create with you a learning plan based on your child’s needs and abilities. Every 9 weeks this ILP is reviewed and adjusted. I like this aspect. It means that if your child starts out behind but catches up quickly, then they aren’t held back for being initially behind. Goals are actually set, and your child tries to achieve them.
•   Mastery System for K-8: I did say this in my comparison, but I think it needs repeating. K12 is a mastery system – your child works on a concept until they have mastered it. It does not work by your child going over a unit, taking a test (assessment – they do not call them tests) and moving on unless they score at least 80% on the assessment. If they don’t, then the child keeps reviewing. On the other hand, if your child catches on very easily to that concept, they don’t have to spend copious amounts of time reviewing something they know.
• High School: is more like on-line college classes. If you have experience with these, you know what I mean. If not, I don’t know how to explain it.
•  Scan-tron Tests: For language arts and math for 3^rd to 10^th graders (maybe for 11^th & 12^th when K12 gets them, but I don’t know). These tests will help determine what level your child is working on in order to adjust their curricula up or down to meet their needs. Also a teacher can asses if they need one-on-one work with them in order to get back up to level.
•  Learning Coach Duties

o      Who: Most likely the learning coach is a parent or grandparent.

o       Work with the teacher. From what it sounds like, until high school, the learning coach is the one who interacts with the teacher. The student has very little actual interaction. Depending on the student’s needs, the parent may be in contact with the teacher often or only every now and then.

o       Logs Hours Daily: K12 made an agreement with Louisiana that K12 students would average 6 hours a day or 30 hours a week of educational time. Totaling 177 days or 1062 hours.

§   For the most part, these hours are logged in doing the core subjects. If your child spends 60 minutes on math, you log in those 60 minutes in the math column.

§   Education time is fairly subjective. There is a Supplemental Hours category to fit in non-core subject time. In other words if your child helps you cook dinner, it can be considered educational. After all they are learning fractions, measuring, and chemical reactions.

§   Fieldtrips count in this Supplemental Category, which does count towards the 1062 hours.

§   Daily: Hours should be logged in daily. K12 needs to be able to generate a report of student attendance for the state at any time. So if everyone logs their hours in only once a week, their report would be inaccurate. The reminders to do this are plenty.

§   At any time of night or day, you can log in your hours for the school day. For example, at 1:30 am on August 23^rd, you can log in your hours for August 22^nd.

§   Hours can not be logged in for dates that are school holidays, but you can enter the hours worked on that day for the next date. For example, school is closed for Labor Day, September 5. But if you and your child do schoolwork that day, you can log it in for the September 6^th slot.

o       Student Accounts: If the student is 3^rd grade or above, the learning coach should create a student account for their student to use. That way the student doesn’t have access to administrative features that they don’t need (like logging their hours).

o       Portfolio: The learning coach should keep samples of their student's work to submit to the teacher at least every 9 weeks. This work should show their best attempt as well as early attempts to show progress.

• Teacher’s Duties:

o       The teacher is considered a curriculum and assessment specialist. What does this mean? Assessment: you teacher figures out at what level your child can do. Curriculum: after figuring out what your child can do, they assign him work according to his ability and goals.

o       The teacher is your first point of contact within k12 about your student. In other words, whatever your questions or concerns may be, contact your child’s teacher first. Their contact information can be found when you log into your OLS (On-Line School) at www.k12.com.

o       Teacher should know about all special circumstances. If your child has special medical needs, your teacher should know. If your child has special educational needs, your teacher should know. If your child has behavioral, mental or emotional issues, your teacher should know.

• DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) Testing. If your child is going into K-3^rd grade, they will have a DIBELS test. It takes about 15 to 20 minutes and simply shows the teacher how well your child can read or, if they can’t, how many early literacy skills (like knowing the alphabet) they know.

o       DIBELS testing is going to happen August 24-26. The location is unknown yet.

• Louisiana LEAP Testing: For kids entering 4^th and 9^th grades, they have to take the Louisiana LEAP test with K12. They can not simply go to their local school to do it. K12 testing locations will be all over the state for accessibility. It is a multiple day test. 
•  Special Services: If your child has special needs, such as dyslexia, speech impairment or other disabilities, let your teacher know. In the 2^nd or 3^rd week after school starts, they will arrange for your child to be tested. If necessary, you child will then get help. This is a big deal for those of us going from homeschooling to using a state funded charter school. Things that we were denied by the school system, from speech therapy to reading help for our dyslexic children, will now be addressed.
•  Field Trips:

o       Always happen on Fridays

o       Will occur all over the state to give different families a chance to take part

o       May be limited to the number of children

o       Mostly it’s okay to bring non-K12 siblings, unless stated

o       Need to be registered for

o       Count as supplemental hours for the day/week

Some Useful Sites and Links:

• K12’s main site. Use to log on to your On-Line School (OLS): http://www.k12.com/
• Louisiana’s K12 main page (LAVCA): http://www.k12.com/lavca/ 
• LAVCA site for loads of help: http://lavca.k12start.com/ On this site you can find tutorials on getting started plus step-by-step instructions. Exploring this site has been way helpful. Especially look at these tabs:

o       Getting Started

o       Secrets of Success

• Facebook pages for K12 Louisiana (I wish I had known about these before the meeting location mix-up):

o       Louisiana’s official K12 Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Louisiana-Virtual-Charter-Academy-at-K12/158178810919178

o       Greater Baton Rouge Area LAVCA K12: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Greater-Baton-Rouge-area-Lavca/144331215647693

o       Central Louisiana Virtual Charter Academy (LAVCA is K12 in Louisiana): https://www.facebook.com/groups/234453036574490/?ap=1

o       K-12 LAVCA Families from Slidell to Baton Rouge: https://www.facebook.com/groups/janegordon/?ap=1

I think that’s it. The orientation overall was worth going to. Our questions were answered. The speaker made a distinction between the K-8 students and the high school students, letting us know that these grades act very differently within K12.

 

If you remember anything that I left out, please leave a comment.