This year has been full of fun learning so far, for both my daughter and myself. My daughter is learning things in school, I'm learning about the ins and outs of homeschooling and what works for us. However, among all this fun learning, I am running into problems that I must solve. In Maine, you have a few options when homeschooling.
A) You can compile a portfolio of your child's work throughout the year and have a certified Maine teacher review it and approve it. Then you send the teachers letter to the state and superintendent verifying your child is learning on track.
B) You can take your child to testing with other school children and test their progress.
C) You can form a Non-Approved Private School made up of two or more unrelated homeschooling teachers where the Private School sends in all the paperwork for the child and parents aren't required to send anything to the state or superintendent.
Well, until a few days ago, our chosen option was A because it is the most widely used and accepted. We had joined our local 4H club because it was geared specifically for home-schoolers. The club has a board which can review each child's portfolio if the parents wish. However, there is a $40 membership fee for the club, then each portfolio to review is between $30-50. I have been looking for other options because I would rather spend my money on school supplies or field trips. Plus, when we went to 4H this year, instead of the 20 kids there last year, there were over 50, in addition to parents and younger siblings running around. Normally this would be fine, but because my son is still young (2) and just wants to go go go, it is difficult to control him among-st such chaos!
So, the other day I went looking for another option. Last year, I reviewed a lot of information online due to the fact that my daughter would be entering into the legal age of reporting for the state, I wanted to be on top of the game. I found a Non-Approved Private school in our area, however the website was dated and no new information had been uploaded in quite some time, so I passed that one and never ended up finding what I was looking for. Unfortunately I cannot just waive my wand in Maine and "poof" a certified teacher or a Non-Approved Private School will appear just for me to use. I wish I could, but alas that is not an option. There is no way, that I have found, that a homeschooling family can come in contact with either option without paying lots of money to join some blasted group.
A few days ago, however, after skipping our 3rd 4H meeting due to the sheer stress, I went looking online again and wouldn't you know it that I fell back once more to that Non-Approved Private School that I had come across the year earlier. This time, there was updated information for the current 13-14 school year. I was so excited! It seemed too good to be true! So I scanned the info and sent the leader of the school an email requesting more info and inquiring whether or not we were too late to join for this year.
I was surprised to get an email right back just a few hours later. I was excited to find out that with a $35 dollar fee, the whole family is included, not per child. Then we do not have to report anything more to the state, the school handles it. The best part is when our children reach high school age, we can pay the school to compile transcripts for us and she can even get a diploma! I was pretty excited to hear this news and it immediately alleviated all my worries for this year!
As a family, we shall still collect all of our children's work, and maintain a portfolio for each year as a backup, but I am so excited that we can now just focus on the schoolwork and not the politics or the money it will cost us for the year.
Halle-fricken-lujah! =)
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