Suppose parents opened a public-private homeschool?

Question

Suppose parents had a building...allowed any family to become members...(of course there would have to be a limit...due to available space)...there would be classrooms....the parents would be the teachers of their own children. If the parents needed to go run an errand or something...their children would just go in another classroom with some of the other parent members...there would be a consensus on a time for all the children to be together...and nothing would be mandatory. all the families could get together and offer support to each other (and have the option of telling the others to butt-out) and they could discuss and plan activities to do as a whole school...etc. etc.

I know...I'm dreaming....but wish.

Answer 1

Sounds nice, not likely though.  It wouldn't be public-private though, it would be private.  If it was "public" that would mean that it would fall under all the regulations of the public school system and none of what you said would be possible.

Answer 2

You have described almost exactly the way our homeschool teaching coop works.

They even have study hall and lunch.  Parents who are not teaching volunteer to supervise study hall and lunch times.

Answer 3

We would call that co-op the difference being that if you leave you have to take your kids with you. But I like the idea

Answer 4

it's illegal almost everywhere.  You have to become a formal school and meet the requirements, which includes credentialled teachers.

Answer 5

Its actually a real good idea! Except its kinda like running a school with no valid teachers and might cause lots of controversies between parents.

Answer 6

We already do that as HS'ers.  It's called a co-op (cooperative).  Every family has responsibilities either teaching, or being a classroom aide or hall monitor, set up and clean up or nursery, etc.

If a parent can't be in the building the entire three hours, then they have a "replacement" parent who is responsible for their child if something happens.

We have 21 different classes from PreK-High School.

Answer 7

This is actually being done, to some degree. We are involved with a co op. The one we are involved in only is one day a week, but given "homework" to last the whole week.Many of the families help each other out if the parents have to go somewhere. If you would like to know how it works for us, email me.