We tried a hybrid out second year and my child and I both hated it. I didn't enjoy the school feeling or the expectations for testing.
We ended up finding a one day a week homeschool theatre and arts class that has been perfect! A consistent group of peers, not a core subject or academic rigor, arts exposure and learning while I get 4 hours of time with my toddlers, to run errands, do prep work. It's been a great balance for our family.
I personally do not want a traditional co-op that looks like conventional schools with multiple subjects a day and homework. That feels very schooly. I’d be better off sending my kids to public or private schools if there’s no difference with what I do at home. We tried a weekly drop-off program for a couple years, but in the end, drop-off programs don’t build a community, and we need a community in homeschooling world. Right now, I’m building a non-traditional co-op with a couple friends. With this changing landscape of homeschoolers due to school choice vouchers, it’s important to find “partners-in-crime” who care about the heart of education and are dedicated.
My struggle is that no one in my area seems interested in letting middle schoolers PLAY or follow a curiosity for a short amount of time. The only options for connection at this age are rigorous academic co-ops (I’m fine teaching this myself) or super competitive sports/theater/arts. It’s super frustrating that all the connection options are performance based 😒
I agree. I tried reaching out in my neighborhood facebook group for middle school aged kids to get to know each other this summer, meet up for bike rides after dinner or a walk. Just hang out in the neighborhood. A few people “liked” it but no one messaged me. My kiddo and I are disappointed. People aren’t around—maintaining a school schedule all summer.
I feel like you are always writing right to my heart, Julie. Thank you for putting into words what I struggle to express. I've given up trying to "find the perfect things" for my kids on this homeschool journey. Truly, it has made me a happier homeschool mom. I did get caught up in this "hybrid school" rabbit hole before. Then I came back to my senses and remembered why I homeschool in the first place. 😂 I will never regret having my kids home for these years. It's been truly the love of my adult life. I hope all homeschool parents can find that feeling, no matter their style/curriculum/co-op choices.
We do a one day a week STEAM & phys ed co-op but there’s full parental involvement in the planning, execution, and responsibility for your own children. It’s awesome for the kids and for having stakes in the program. Doesn’t check the box of being childcare tho. Not sure you can ever really have it all!
So I taught in our Tutorial for several years and I taught mostly literature classes. There was this dissatisfaction from parents that I wasn’t hard enough on the students when I graded their work when I was supportive not harsh. However the students (all 8th and 9th graders) got zero support from parents. I never believed that slashing apart a new writer’s work with a red pen was helpful but the more my family embraced Bravewriter the harder I found it to teach those classes.
In addition to this the curriculum they use for 3rd thru 7th grade is fairly rigorous. I found myself opting out of the literature classes for my 4th grader because I did not want to put him through the stress. That made me rethink putting him in other classes, which led to pulling him from the whole tutorial this year!
We dearly love some of the teachers and friends/students there but I just can’t get past the fact that the stress isn’t what I want our homeschool experience to be.
We have been part of a once a week co-op for two years. It’s medium-sized I would say, and the main reason for us going was to help my boys find some friends since moving to a new city. So far they haven’t truly clicked with anybody. I’ve enjoyed getting to know several of the moms there (truly awesome ladies), but I have also learned that many of the other families have some fairly extreme views that we do not share.
The classes have been mostly a positive experience for my middle and little, and I was really happy to outsource high school science labs for my oldest, but there was an enormous amount of homework in one of his classes this past year that stressed us all out. Way too much school-like pressure.
We have decided as a family to give our co-op another year so he can check off the physics class, and see if they can form any actual friendships, but we will reconsider after that.
I am super happy doing our own thing, but since my boys are not very outgoing, I was hoping that a community of other homeschooled kids would give them the social aspect that was missing after moving. In LA they were in public school and had a large group of friends. I know they miss that and I miss it for them. So many homeschoolers talk about how their kids have tons of friends and I am over here struggle bussing trying to get mine to connect with anybody. We live in Seattle, so not remote.
I have looked for other co-ops but the ones I found were either park meet ups for younger kids, or classical education - which certainly is not us. Or they were just prohibitively expensive.
I have zero desire for an academic co-op or hybrid school as I actually like to DIY and don’t want anyone else telling me what to do. ;) But I do need friends and so do my boys! So I started my own once a week “forest school” where we meet for a few hours in the morning and go for a hike, swim, or just play in a natural area. We don’t do any lessons or even any formal activities; it’s *just* play/social time. My oldest is 7 and once our old play date friends started going to school, I realized that I had to start something myself, because there really wasn’t anything else this laid back/non-academic (and cost free!) in my area.
"These parents want the perks but without the full scale responsibility."
I respectfully object to this perceived dichotomy! Parents ALWAYS have the full scale responsibility for the education of their children. Decisions about school format (homeschool variations, public school, private school, etc.) are about choosing with whom you will PARTNER for your child's education.
It's an individualist fantasy to believe that one can educate a child by oneself. It's a community endeavor, whether we want it to be or not, because no single person knows everything. Even solo homeschoolers who purchase third-party resources like curricula acknowledge this fact implicitly - someone else wrote the books you are using.
Parents can choose to completely or mostly outsource the management of a child's education to a school system. There are many reasons parents choose this, and a common one is because of the practical limitations of running a two-income household, which is often not optional. This does not mean parents are abdicating full-scale responsibility for their child's education. It means they are choosing a partner for education that they may not otherwise choose due to capitalistic constraints.
There are perks, responsibilities, advantages, and drawbacks to every educational format. Education does not occur in a vacuum, and it's a societal shame that so many adults have the full responsibility of educating children without the full range of eduational format options - due to lack of community care, social trust, and fair compensation in American culture.
I love that you will be diving more into these topics, but please make charitable assumptions about parents who choose to partner with school systems instead of homeschool. I don't know a single mother who considers sending a child to public school to require less responsibility than homeschooling, just maybe fewer unpaid hours of her time.
Thanks for your passionate response! My statement had to do with “full responsibility for home education” not education generally. No offense intended. When you send your child to school or a hybrid school, you are outsourcing curriculum selection, for instance. Every parent has full responsibility for their child’s education. On this, we agree. I was referring to being the primary person who creates the homeschool experience for your own children. I appreciate hearing how it landed with you.
After twenty-plus years of homeschooling six children, I got to put my youngest in a new hybrid, micro school this past year. They meet 4 hours a day, 4 days a week and there's practically no homework. In Charlotte Mason style, a lot of classes take place outdoors and once a month they have a "farm day" where they get to do hands-on learning with a family who's involved in the school. We absolutely love it! My oldest daughter, who is one of the tutors, said she never saw so many sad children on the last day of school, which I think speaks to the quality of community they've created.
Such a relevant topic! Thanks for working on a series about co-ops and micro-schools. We participate in co-op once a week primarily for community and connection. I handle the academics at home. I don't necessarily want a co-op to replicate school with grades, tests, and homework. My kids are neurodivergent. They need to move at their own pace and have their learning differences well supported, particularly within an academic context. Most of the academically inclined co-ops in our area aren't designed with ND kids in mind. Some even explicitly state that their teachers/classes cannot support the needs of those with learning differences, which I get but also find discouraging because so many ND families find themselves homeschooling. So, I tend to find enrichment classes run by parents with ND kids (so they understand neuro-spiciness).
We've tried two different co-ops for enrichment classes over the last five years. Both have had their strengths and their drawbacks. The first co-op was a half-day drop-off program, once a week. The kids took classes in literature, science, art, and music/movement. They truly loved their classes and made friends. That said, it never felt like we were part of a community because it was a drop-off situation. The co-op didn't have space beyond the church classrooms and hallways, so most parents would drop their kid(s) off and go do other things with that time. (I used it to work!) We made friends, got together here and there outside of co-op, but the sense of community was lacking even with occasional co-op events sprinkled throughout the year. Also, there were very few older kids (middle and high schoolers), which I was concerned about as my kids age.
Our current co-op is an all-day thing on Fridays for grades K-12. It was designed specifically for tweens and teens with a focus on inclusivity for ND kids, which I love. As for community, parent educators either run the enrichment classes, or if not teaching, hang in a large community foyer while the kids are in class. This gives people a chance to get to know one another and make connections, thereby fostering community outside the co-op walls. (Case in point: we recently got over COVID, and one mama made meals for our family to give me a much-needed rest break.)
As for drawbacks, many families drive quite a distance to our co-op because it is the only secular, inclusive option within an hour's drive. (There and back, it's a two-hour commute for some families.) Also, since the classes are enrichment, I wouldn't necessarily include them as a 'core' class on a high school transcript - even though learning is happening. Sometimes I fret about the amount of time it takes from our Fridays and what academics aren't getting done that day, but my kids are really happy with this group.
When I feel like throwing in the towel on co-op, I keep coming back to 'why' we've joined one in the first place. It's nice to connect with like-minded homeschool mamas because this journey can be isolating! And it's important for my kids to connect with other homeschooled kids, because most of the kids in our large neighborhood go to traditional schools -- so, seeing others learning outside the box matters.
We have a once a week co-op that has grown to 25 families! It started off as a few friends meeting in a house. The hardest part has been finding a building to meet in. Luckily a community center has welcomed us in. We tried a debate class a few years ago where the teacher (moms volunteer to teach) tried to give homework and make it like a school debate class. It worked for a few kids but most didn’t like the homework. We’ve learned teenagers want more classes that allow them the freedom to hang out and talk while doing something like art or playing games. Our juniors and seniors will start volunteering to teach the classes. We try to have moms teach or aide two classes and then have one class off so moms get time to socialize. That’s really important. Co-ops are for parents too. We do six weeks on and then two weeks off. It’s nice having a break too for field trips or park dates. We love our co-op!
We used to do pretty much entirely solo homeschooling but with lots of park playdates, game days, art projects with friends. Then my kids got to be teens and wanted more and different. There are a lot of co-ops around here, but they are mostly ROUGH--with VERY strict guidelines about everything under the sun, including that you can be kicked out if your kid doesn't do the homework! Thankfully, we have 2 same-aged friend families who we work with for science (so there's less pressure on any one parent for alllll the materials and mess), they do a twice-weekly PE class so they can run around with friends (and wear themselves out) without academic pressure, and we found a co-op that only has 3 50-minute classes per week that are delight-based and parent-taught. Instead of calculus and physics, my kids got to take a dip into things like art history, ASL, personal finance, workplace etiquette, bushcraft, cooking, da Vinci, medieval warcraft, and whatever else parents (and grandparents) can dream up...AND I get to do storytime with littles at this co-op, which fills my cup too. VERY thankful but it took several years of pain to get here!
I relate to this! I'll most likely be opting out of our co-op over class size, a lack of play opportunities, and a growing sense of unease due to the parents involved subscribing to various conspiracy theories. I want to start my own thing but may wait until my child is a bit older (6 currently).
We’ve spent the past 7 years building community in our neighborhood, and bringing in friends from our daughter’s electives. It’s been hard work, but now, we sometimes convince our public school friends to play hooky and join us for “field trips”.
We’re finding that kids from the drop-off (more school like) co-ops attract families who were in public school and often bring those same mentality and behaviors from that we are trying to be free from—competitive mindset, cliques and bullying, authoritarian kids with a “leader,” older kids shunning younger siblings (and being quite mean to them)… It has provided social learning opportunities, but it’s also been exhausting and more difficult to find friends that share our values for time spent and how to treat others since 2020 when those homeschool hybrids became popular. Every friendship shouldn’t be so hard or conditional.
I am glad there are alternative schooling options for families to have more choices in education, but many of them seem to be cultivating a lot of behaviors we don’t get along with, but then we end up grouped together at other homeschool gatherings and it’s making it difficult for my kids to find friends they really connect well with. We are starting a new-to-us co-op this fall with a more traditional, small, enrichment class group (one day a week) that I hope will find us some connections with similar values. (The one we loved pre-covid shut down.)
We tried a hybrid out second year and my child and I both hated it. I didn't enjoy the school feeling or the expectations for testing.
We ended up finding a one day a week homeschool theatre and arts class that has been perfect! A consistent group of peers, not a core subject or academic rigor, arts exposure and learning while I get 4 hours of time with my toddlers, to run errands, do prep work. It's been a great balance for our family.
Love this model!
I personally do not want a traditional co-op that looks like conventional schools with multiple subjects a day and homework. That feels very schooly. I’d be better off sending my kids to public or private schools if there’s no difference with what I do at home. We tried a weekly drop-off program for a couple years, but in the end, drop-off programs don’t build a community, and we need a community in homeschooling world. Right now, I’m building a non-traditional co-op with a couple friends. With this changing landscape of homeschoolers due to school choice vouchers, it’s important to find “partners-in-crime” who care about the heart of education and are dedicated.
I agree!
My struggle is that no one in my area seems interested in letting middle schoolers PLAY or follow a curiosity for a short amount of time. The only options for connection at this age are rigorous academic co-ops (I’m fine teaching this myself) or super competitive sports/theater/arts. It’s super frustrating that all the connection options are performance based 😒
So frustrating!! I wonder if there are others like you and together you could create this alternate version
I agree. I tried reaching out in my neighborhood facebook group for middle school aged kids to get to know each other this summer, meet up for bike rides after dinner or a walk. Just hang out in the neighborhood. A few people “liked” it but no one messaged me. My kiddo and I are disappointed. People aren’t around—maintaining a school schedule all summer.
I feel like you are always writing right to my heart, Julie. Thank you for putting into words what I struggle to express. I've given up trying to "find the perfect things" for my kids on this homeschool journey. Truly, it has made me a happier homeschool mom. I did get caught up in this "hybrid school" rabbit hole before. Then I came back to my senses and remembered why I homeschool in the first place. 😂 I will never regret having my kids home for these years. It's been truly the love of my adult life. I hope all homeschool parents can find that feeling, no matter their style/curriculum/co-op choices.
Love this!
We do a one day a week STEAM & phys ed co-op but there’s full parental involvement in the planning, execution, and responsibility for your own children. It’s awesome for the kids and for having stakes in the program. Doesn’t check the box of being childcare tho. Not sure you can ever really have it all!
Sounds great!
So I taught in our Tutorial for several years and I taught mostly literature classes. There was this dissatisfaction from parents that I wasn’t hard enough on the students when I graded their work when I was supportive not harsh. However the students (all 8th and 9th graders) got zero support from parents. I never believed that slashing apart a new writer’s work with a red pen was helpful but the more my family embraced Bravewriter the harder I found it to teach those classes.
In addition to this the curriculum they use for 3rd thru 7th grade is fairly rigorous. I found myself opting out of the literature classes for my 4th grader because I did not want to put him through the stress. That made me rethink putting him in other classes, which led to pulling him from the whole tutorial this year!
We dearly love some of the teachers and friends/students there but I just can’t get past the fact that the stress isn’t what I want our homeschool experience to be.
It’s wild that we leave school to avoid that stress and then re-create it in co-ops!
We have been part of a once a week co-op for two years. It’s medium-sized I would say, and the main reason for us going was to help my boys find some friends since moving to a new city. So far they haven’t truly clicked with anybody. I’ve enjoyed getting to know several of the moms there (truly awesome ladies), but I have also learned that many of the other families have some fairly extreme views that we do not share.
The classes have been mostly a positive experience for my middle and little, and I was really happy to outsource high school science labs for my oldest, but there was an enormous amount of homework in one of his classes this past year that stressed us all out. Way too much school-like pressure.
We have decided as a family to give our co-op another year so he can check off the physics class, and see if they can form any actual friendships, but we will reconsider after that.
I am super happy doing our own thing, but since my boys are not very outgoing, I was hoping that a community of other homeschooled kids would give them the social aspect that was missing after moving. In LA they were in public school and had a large group of friends. I know they miss that and I miss it for them. So many homeschoolers talk about how their kids have tons of friends and I am over here struggle bussing trying to get mine to connect with anybody. We live in Seattle, so not remote.
I have looked for other co-ops but the ones I found were either park meet ups for younger kids, or classical education - which certainly is not us. Or they were just prohibitively expensive.
Wow. That feels hard
I have zero desire for an academic co-op or hybrid school as I actually like to DIY and don’t want anyone else telling me what to do. ;) But I do need friends and so do my boys! So I started my own once a week “forest school” where we meet for a few hours in the morning and go for a hike, swim, or just play in a natural area. We don’t do any lessons or even any formal activities; it’s *just* play/social time. My oldest is 7 and once our old play date friends started going to school, I realized that I had to start something myself, because there really wasn’t anything else this laid back/non-academic (and cost free!) in my area.
Re: two-income families that want to homeschool:
"These parents want the perks but without the full scale responsibility."
I respectfully object to this perceived dichotomy! Parents ALWAYS have the full scale responsibility for the education of their children. Decisions about school format (homeschool variations, public school, private school, etc.) are about choosing with whom you will PARTNER for your child's education.
It's an individualist fantasy to believe that one can educate a child by oneself. It's a community endeavor, whether we want it to be or not, because no single person knows everything. Even solo homeschoolers who purchase third-party resources like curricula acknowledge this fact implicitly - someone else wrote the books you are using.
Parents can choose to completely or mostly outsource the management of a child's education to a school system. There are many reasons parents choose this, and a common one is because of the practical limitations of running a two-income household, which is often not optional. This does not mean parents are abdicating full-scale responsibility for their child's education. It means they are choosing a partner for education that they may not otherwise choose due to capitalistic constraints.
There are perks, responsibilities, advantages, and drawbacks to every educational format. Education does not occur in a vacuum, and it's a societal shame that so many adults have the full responsibility of educating children without the full range of eduational format options - due to lack of community care, social trust, and fair compensation in American culture.
I love that you will be diving more into these topics, but please make charitable assumptions about parents who choose to partner with school systems instead of homeschool. I don't know a single mother who considers sending a child to public school to require less responsibility than homeschooling, just maybe fewer unpaid hours of her time.
Thanks for your passionate response! My statement had to do with “full responsibility for home education” not education generally. No offense intended. When you send your child to school or a hybrid school, you are outsourcing curriculum selection, for instance. Every parent has full responsibility for their child’s education. On this, we agree. I was referring to being the primary person who creates the homeschool experience for your own children. I appreciate hearing how it landed with you.
After twenty-plus years of homeschooling six children, I got to put my youngest in a new hybrid, micro school this past year. They meet 4 hours a day, 4 days a week and there's practically no homework. In Charlotte Mason style, a lot of classes take place outdoors and once a month they have a "farm day" where they get to do hands-on learning with a family who's involved in the school. We absolutely love it! My oldest daughter, who is one of the tutors, said she never saw so many sad children on the last day of school, which I think speaks to the quality of community they've created.
What a fabulous example of a great microschool!!
Such a relevant topic! Thanks for working on a series about co-ops and micro-schools. We participate in co-op once a week primarily for community and connection. I handle the academics at home. I don't necessarily want a co-op to replicate school with grades, tests, and homework. My kids are neurodivergent. They need to move at their own pace and have their learning differences well supported, particularly within an academic context. Most of the academically inclined co-ops in our area aren't designed with ND kids in mind. Some even explicitly state that their teachers/classes cannot support the needs of those with learning differences, which I get but also find discouraging because so many ND families find themselves homeschooling. So, I tend to find enrichment classes run by parents with ND kids (so they understand neuro-spiciness).
We've tried two different co-ops for enrichment classes over the last five years. Both have had their strengths and their drawbacks. The first co-op was a half-day drop-off program, once a week. The kids took classes in literature, science, art, and music/movement. They truly loved their classes and made friends. That said, it never felt like we were part of a community because it was a drop-off situation. The co-op didn't have space beyond the church classrooms and hallways, so most parents would drop their kid(s) off and go do other things with that time. (I used it to work!) We made friends, got together here and there outside of co-op, but the sense of community was lacking even with occasional co-op events sprinkled throughout the year. Also, there were very few older kids (middle and high schoolers), which I was concerned about as my kids age.
Our current co-op is an all-day thing on Fridays for grades K-12. It was designed specifically for tweens and teens with a focus on inclusivity for ND kids, which I love. As for community, parent educators either run the enrichment classes, or if not teaching, hang in a large community foyer while the kids are in class. This gives people a chance to get to know one another and make connections, thereby fostering community outside the co-op walls. (Case in point: we recently got over COVID, and one mama made meals for our family to give me a much-needed rest break.)
As for drawbacks, many families drive quite a distance to our co-op because it is the only secular, inclusive option within an hour's drive. (There and back, it's a two-hour commute for some families.) Also, since the classes are enrichment, I wouldn't necessarily include them as a 'core' class on a high school transcript - even though learning is happening. Sometimes I fret about the amount of time it takes from our Fridays and what academics aren't getting done that day, but my kids are really happy with this group.
When I feel like throwing in the towel on co-op, I keep coming back to 'why' we've joined one in the first place. It's nice to connect with like-minded homeschool mamas because this journey can be isolating! And it's important for my kids to connect with other homeschooled kids, because most of the kids in our large neighborhood go to traditional schools -- so, seeing others learning outside the box matters.
We have a once a week co-op that has grown to 25 families! It started off as a few friends meeting in a house. The hardest part has been finding a building to meet in. Luckily a community center has welcomed us in. We tried a debate class a few years ago where the teacher (moms volunteer to teach) tried to give homework and make it like a school debate class. It worked for a few kids but most didn’t like the homework. We’ve learned teenagers want more classes that allow them the freedom to hang out and talk while doing something like art or playing games. Our juniors and seniors will start volunteering to teach the classes. We try to have moms teach or aide two classes and then have one class off so moms get time to socialize. That’s really important. Co-ops are for parents too. We do six weeks on and then two weeks off. It’s nice having a break too for field trips or park dates. We love our co-op!
We used to do pretty much entirely solo homeschooling but with lots of park playdates, game days, art projects with friends. Then my kids got to be teens and wanted more and different. There are a lot of co-ops around here, but they are mostly ROUGH--with VERY strict guidelines about everything under the sun, including that you can be kicked out if your kid doesn't do the homework! Thankfully, we have 2 same-aged friend families who we work with for science (so there's less pressure on any one parent for alllll the materials and mess), they do a twice-weekly PE class so they can run around with friends (and wear themselves out) without academic pressure, and we found a co-op that only has 3 50-minute classes per week that are delight-based and parent-taught. Instead of calculus and physics, my kids got to take a dip into things like art history, ASL, personal finance, workplace etiquette, bushcraft, cooking, da Vinci, medieval warcraft, and whatever else parents (and grandparents) can dream up...AND I get to do storytime with littles at this co-op, which fills my cup too. VERY thankful but it took several years of pain to get here!
I relate to this! I'll most likely be opting out of our co-op over class size, a lack of play opportunities, and a growing sense of unease due to the parents involved subscribing to various conspiracy theories. I want to start my own thing but may wait until my child is a bit older (6 currently).
We’ve spent the past 7 years building community in our neighborhood, and bringing in friends from our daughter’s electives. It’s been hard work, but now, we sometimes convince our public school friends to play hooky and join us for “field trips”.
We’re finding that kids from the drop-off (more school like) co-ops attract families who were in public school and often bring those same mentality and behaviors from that we are trying to be free from—competitive mindset, cliques and bullying, authoritarian kids with a “leader,” older kids shunning younger siblings (and being quite mean to them)… It has provided social learning opportunities, but it’s also been exhausting and more difficult to find friends that share our values for time spent and how to treat others since 2020 when those homeschool hybrids became popular. Every friendship shouldn’t be so hard or conditional.
I am glad there are alternative schooling options for families to have more choices in education, but many of them seem to be cultivating a lot of behaviors we don’t get along with, but then we end up grouped together at other homeschool gatherings and it’s making it difficult for my kids to find friends they really connect well with. We are starting a new-to-us co-op this fall with a more traditional, small, enrichment class group (one day a week) that I hope will find us some connections with similar values. (The one we loved pre-covid shut down.)