Paths of Righteousness: Homeshool Co-ops...Are They Worth It?

I see a lot of discussions and yes, sometimes even hype about homeschool co-ops. I was in a homeschool co-op for 2 years. All 3 of my children participated. This year we are not in a
co-op and it's a much different homeschool year for us. I thought I'd share what some of the pros and cons were for us.

First, you need to understand what our co-op looked like so you can compare apples to apples when considering being in a co-op yourself. Our co-op was NOT started by me. It had already been established for a few years which was good for us. We had about 15 families which I thought was a very good number. I'm more of an introvert than an extrovert so smaller is better in my opinion. But I do think there needs to be more than just my family and one other family. There is more accountability that way.

We had to be at our co-op every Wednesday morning no later than 8:30.

This was a little early for this night-owl! But we made it on time for two years every time but maybe once or twice. One specific time, we had gotten about 10 minutes away from home (I had a total drive of 30 minutes) and had forgotten my son's science project that was due that day. We turned around and got it which obviously made us late.

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Our co-op was a parent-lead co-op. Each parent had to participate based on a point system. I won't go into all that right now but it was pretty simple. To earn points, you had to teach or assist in class. Other opportunities to earn points was to be the librarian, organize special days, etc. The first year I chose not to teach at all. I assisted in 2 classes. The second year, I taught one class (Apologia Zoology Land Animals science) and assisted in another (Reading for 2-4th graders).

From 5th grade through high school, the students were given assignments that Wednesday and were expected to turn them in the following Wednesday. There were also tests and quizzes given to these ages. Only my oldest child fit in this age category. He was 8th and 9th grade when we went to co-op.

My other two children were younger than 5th grade so there were no assignments for them. The classes were considered to be supplemental.

The Pros:

I enjoyed the fact that my children had interaction with other children. My youngest child, a girl, loved it! She is very social so it fit her very well. My middle child could take it or leave it. My oldest did not like it at all. He kept up very well with his classes but he wanted to be home. He is a home body by nature I suppose so this was pretty normal for him.

I also enjoyed being exposed to various curricula that I may or may not have ever tried. Last year, my (then) 9th grade son used Teaching Textbooks Algebra I, IEW U.S. History/Writing, Apologia Physical Science, and Latin through Memoria Press. I had never used any of those companies in our homeschool.

My (then) 4th grade son used Apologia science (referred to above), Abeka History, DITHOR which is a literature/reading program offered through Heart of Dakota, and was in a class called Math Games. Good stuff!

My then 2nd grade little girl used Rod and Staff for science and the rest was not any set curriculum which was fine at her age.

The Cons:

As much as I enjoyed the curriculum choices, I couldn't continue the curriculum we had been using all along and that I was used to. I felt like "Now we interrupt this programming to bring to you...yada...yada...." That was a negative for me. Other moms loved having the curricula chosen for them because they never knew what to use anyway.

I lost a day of my school week which was a HUGE negative to me. Even though we were at co-op doing school, we weren't--especially my 2 little ones--keeping up with all our lesson plans at home. That was frustrating. And no matter how good my intentions were, I just could not do more school at home after getting up early, driving an hour round trip, and spending several hours at co-op.

The deciding negative factor for us leaving the co-op was the difference of other moms teaching my children versus me teaching them. What I mean by that is this. I have high standards in my homeschool. I hold the bar high. I expect them to work and learn. I found out not all moms are like that. My daughter had a teacher that just wouldn't show up more than she would show up. They would have to quickly find someone to substitute. When the teacher was there, they sat around and talked instead of doing any learning. It seemed there were about half of the teachers that were more like me and half of them were far, far different.

So in a nutshell, I discovered that co-ops for this homeschool family just made us feel cooped up.

Chicken Coop