# Suggestions of for homeschooling a highschooler on the cheap?



## ErinP (Aug 23, 2007)

A good friend of mine called last night looking for options for her high-risk Junior. 

He's been living the last year and a half with his dad, 300 miles away, and has been getting into a LOT of trouble. Bigger city to mom's tiny village and less supervision (which of course is why a teen-aged boy wanted to move to dad's in the first place). But he has enough common sense to have figured out that that he's going to screw up his life at the rate he's going. 
So maybe moving home to mom's wouldn't be so bad...

His only real drawback is that he _likes_ the alternative school program he's been in for the last year since being kicked out of his school's traditional program. He can work at his own pace, a couple of days a week rather than five, and he has enough drive and interest that he actually DOES work. Plus, the off days allow him to have a job.

Our school district has a similar program so she's looking into that. But she also wanted to look into homeschooling options. 
I never had any intention of schooling my kids in high school so this isn't something I've explored at all. 


Does anyone know of online programs, for example, that don't cost an arm and a leg??


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## cindy-e (Feb 14, 2008)

well the university of nebraska has an independent study high school. Costs about $140 per credit per semester. Keystone is supposed to be pretty good. If she wants credits given by an institution that is expensive. 

If she is open to just homeschooling him herself, there are lots of courses that are high calabre and free! www.khanacademy. com for math (and some sciences). Hoagies gifted has a whole list of free online courses here...http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/online_hs.htm. Even MIT offers free courses online. http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

lots of options.  If she is a christain and wants a packaged curriculum that is easy to use, lots of people like switched on school house, which I think costs around $400 for the whole year, and can sometimes be found used. It is academically adequate I suppose. We didn't like it. Others here love it. 

Edited to add: Forgot to say that if she wants something academically more challenging that SOS, Ambleside online is good. http://www.amblesideonline.org/
OK HTH,
Cindyc.


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## halfpint (Jan 24, 2005)

Most of your homeschooling options online or classes will get a little costly (depending upon your view of cost). Our area has a lot of co-ops - where different parents teach different subjects and the only cost is materials. 

There are also 'classroom' type options, where parents can drop their child(ren) off and pay the teachers, and some of the teachers swap out. For example, I teach Chemistry and two of my students moms teach subjects that my children are taking, so we swap out classes instead of charging. But my other students pay me for the classes. We have several 'retired' school teachers teaching in this program, which is one or two days a week (depending upon the class). Some of the things offered in the program I'm involved in are - science classes with labs from grade 5-12 (all Apologia), several writing and literature classes, several history classes, several foreign language classes, home school choir, art, drama, Economics, and probably a few I'm forgetting. Ours is geared for 7th-12th, with only teachers children in grades 5-6, who have science, writing and elective classes. We are probably adding math classes next year. If my class was larger I would have allowed a parent to be a helper for free tuition for one student, and several of our other classes have a tuition free position. The cost of each class is determined by the teacher. She will have to check around in the area for groups like this, although some groups advertise on http://www.homeschoolclassifieds.com/ .

I don't care much for the SOS curriculum either, but have kept using the health program with it. 

I have a couple of friends using Landry academy who like it. It's online with a scheduled time for classes, but I think if you miss one you can watch it later - just can't participate in the discussion - but can e-mail the teacher for help.
Dawn


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## mekasmom (Jan 19, 2010)

At that age, a job or apprenticeship is a good idea if the kid is well behaved enough to follow an adult's rules. He could also run a mowing business, leaf-raking, Ebay sales, etc. Let him take a class at a community college at night. Get a twenty dollar Math book from the book store for him to practice with, then assign some novels for him to read. I would give him a lot of service activities at a local church-- choir, sweeping floors, raking the land there, helping at a mission, etc. He doesn't need to run around with a lot of immature kids, but rather to be in the presence of responsible adults to learn a work ethic and to mature.


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## ovsfarm (Jan 14, 2003)

Do the virtual homeschooling companies go up through high school? (Virtual Academy, K-12, etc.?) I thought they were basically free and included all textbook materials, etc. That might be a good option, especially if the parent is fine with the public school curriculum, just not the schedule or environment. 

A family friend of ours just finished 8th grade online and I recall him mentioning how much he liked being able to work hard a couple of days a week to be free during the other days. I think he had to get certain things accomplished within the week's time, but had a good bit of leeway regarding when he actually worked on the material.


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## cindy-e (Feb 14, 2008)

ovsfarm said:


> Do the virtual homeschooling companies go up through high school? (Virtual Academy, K-12, etc.?) I thought they were basically free and included all textbook materials, etc. That might be a good option, especially if the parent is fine with the public school curriculum, just not the schedule or environment.
> 
> A family friend of ours just finished 8th grade online and I recall him mentioning how much he liked being able to work hard a couple of days a week to be free during the other days. I think he had to get certain things accomplished within the week's time, but had a good bit of leeway regarding when he actually worked on the material.


k-12 is in all states, but not free in all states. for it to be free, the state has to agree to pay for it as part of their alternative education program. Some states do that, some don't. Here, it's free. Where I used to live in TN, it was very expensive!


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## Louisiana Mom (Oct 15, 2004)

I agree with mekasmom. The job part sounds good for him. We've been homeschooling for several years now & that is what my son does. He works 30 hours at a machine shop that is family owned. He's getting his training & being around more adult type situations while most highschoolers we know are more into partying.
We decided to go the GED route so what we did this year (junior year) is I got some books for reviewing the GED. We also checked out some dvd's from our library that help to prepare & tell you what to study. 
There are also free online practice exams.
If he wants an actual diploma, which he may as he's only got 1 more year left, then you'll have to get with the school board in your area to see what it will take.


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## ErinP (Aug 23, 2007)

GED... I'm not sure that one even occurred to her!
Thanks for the suggestions guys. I passed them on to my friend a couple weeks ago (will mention the GED today when I see her) and she and her son are still discussing options...


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