Question I am thinking about home schooling other peoples kids. I have already had three inquiries. I would only take 2 or 3 kids in addition to my own. How does this work. I know it’s allowed by the state, but how does it work. LOL Do you make the parents buy whatever curriculum you are using? Do you make them join an umbrella? What do you do? Do you provide meals. Is it run like daycare? What about the summer? I plan to charge a fee, but if they have to buy curriculum and pay me that could get expensive for them. My main concern is that some kid that I teach will not pass a review or a test. Or maybe the parent may want to put them back in school and the school decides they have to repeat a grade. That scares me because I am directly responsible for making sure that child learns. I saw a post on this before but it didn’t answer these questions. Any help would be great.
My first thought is what are your state laws on homeschooling? Here you can't homeschool other peoples children unless you are a certified teacher and then you can qualify under the private tutor laws (if you qualify for them).
I have never done exactly what you are doing but I have helped a friend with 3 children who were close in age to my 3 children. She was at risk to lose her RN liscense if she didnt do so many hours of training so she had to go back to college and do the continuing education credits, plus work at the hospital several hours a day. I kept the 3 children ages 6, 12, and 15 for weekdays for most of that schoolyear. It worked great for us as the kids were doing similar things to what mine were doing, except the youngest, who loved playing school with my youngest. He learned alot because she was here to "teach" him. The two 12 years olds used pretty much the same curriculum so we shared the cost and the older two used different stuff so the mom did purchase all the 15 year olds schoolwork. It was very interesting and my children still look fondly on the experience. It was like a one room schoolhouse. We didnt charge her anything as we were helping a friend but she did bring lunch everyday, usually a hot meal in the crockpot for our entire family. She offered to pay me regularly but I didnt need the money and was more than happy to help her. Our experience was very good but e have also been friends with this family for years so our kids got along well and we knew how the other thought, etc. I dont know that I would be willing to do this with people I didnt know well or do it for profit. I think it might be a very complicated situation. Hopefully someone else will have some good advice for you.
Thanks, I met a lady in the post office a few weeks ago who HS other peoples kids. She runs it like a small school. I think she said she uses a state approved curriculum and they pay her a fee per month for school. The cost includes the curriculum fee. I misplaced the woman’s number so I can't ask her. I called the state and they basically said that a HSing parent can choose whomever they want to provide the instruction as long as it complies with state standards. So I know that you are allowed to do it here. I just am unsure where to start. One lady even offered to pay me $200.00 a week to school her kid. I think it is a bit extreme but I really could use that money! I’m certainly not going to do it for free.
well I would check into it good before I would say yes or no. Then I would get them on a good curriculum. I really don't think I would want to held for someone else child education. But, that is me. If I was a teacher yea that is different.
Sweetie, so many questions.... First, take a breath, let it out and take another cleansing breath. I work at the local ps as a teachers aide and substitute. I present the material, teach it to the best of my ability and as long as I know that I have done my very, very best, I can't control how well the student does on a test. (((( ))))
No deep breaths needed. I am fine and stress free. I was just wondering how other people who do this run their program. I did find her number and she said that she uses Abeka and she makes each parent buy the curriculum. The parents drop the kids off with a bag lunch and she does the teaching. The parents also pay her $145 a week for instruction and after school care. The $145 covers school, after school and any local trips they take.The kids have to be picked up by 6pm. Summers she's off. She did mention something that I hadn't thought of and that is she has the parents sign a waiver. Basically it says that she is not responsible if the child is unable to gain entrance into any school due to academic performance on a test. She makes them have itnotarized as well.
I would make them pay for the curriculum and pay me. It would not be right for you to work for them for free nor for you to pay for their curriculum. I would also put limits on what you will use for curriculum because it would be too much to have to learn several different curriculums. You will probably want to do just 1 science and 1 history curriculum or geography, use a multileveled one, for everyone. Either that or pick a program that is pretty independent. I paid a private school for homeschooling this spring. My children spend very little time with them, mostly just for testing and the occassional tutoring, rare occassion. Yet, I paid $4000 for the 2 of them for the spring. They are teens and did not even need childcare or anything. If my children were young enough to need childcare, then I would fully expect to pay for childcare for any time my children stay there too.
We're in our ninth year of schoolin OPK's. We've had 35 kids, from one to nine of them at a time, none of them related to us. We hs'd DS from fifth until he was done, and now we have his DS, our dgs age 4, but it's more of a "playing at schooling" at school. He's learned to write his name and a few little things but we're not pushing really hard. I try very hard to match the curriculum to the kid, not the kid to a one-size-fits-all curriculum. I don't have any problem with a kid being in different publishers' materials for each subject, or different grade levels of materials for each subject. I usually place them in the grade they would be in at public school, but give pretty extensive diagnostic testing to try to find out where they really are in each subject before we start. I used to do assessments in public school (worked on the multidisciplinary team twenty years), so I give some informal reading inventory, and whatever placement tests are available for whatever curriculum I think I might use with them. CLE has a LA and a Math, if I think I might use Saxon Math, I have an old test to go with the older books I have. Lifepacs have a test for every subject, but if I'm going to use Lifepacs for Bible, Science, or History, I usually guesstimate according to reading scores. I may use a WRAT, and a couple of brief reading lists I found on the internet. I usually have the kid write something so I can judge their skills there, like "write me a letter" about what you like and don't like about school, or what you did for your summer vacation. Since I'm in this more as a ministry and not as a business, I don't really push for a lot of money, and I let the parents break it up however they get paid -- once a month, every other week, weekly, whatever. Sometimes that means that I don't get paid, or irregularly. But out of that, I buy EVERYthing. Every pencil, notebook, workbook, eraser, marker, crayon, textbook, copy paper, printer ink, everything we use, I buy. Including the disposable paper products and the cleaning products, heating fuel, electricity, and water. Sometimes a parent will decide to grace us with paper tablets, or markers, or pencils, or paper products, but sometimes not. When I buy everything, everybody has the same thing and if I gave it to you, it's what you need - no bragging about having "the best" notebooks, fanciest pencils, etc. No superfluous doo-dads. No goofy cartoon characters or teen-idol type school supplies. I have a dress code -- no raggy jeans, no pictures, words or numbers, shirts should have sleeves (t-shirts are okay, even camouflage), real shoes preferably tennies/sneaks. No exposed body parts (pants have to be high enough and shirts have to be long enough to cover the subject), no visible tattoos, and I discourage multiple ear or other visible piercings. Dresses or skirts need to be long enough and loose enough. I don't care how your hair is cut or worn, as long as it's not a distraction to others, and a color that occurs naturally in the human species, even if it's different every week. We brownbag lunch, but we do have a microwave so packing leftovers from last night's supper is doable. We try to encourage healthy lunch, but don't have any set rules about it. Everybody eats their own lunch, but if someone brings something to share, that's cool too. Today's my dh's birthday, so one of the grandmas baked him a choco-chip cookie cake. The kids have desks, and there's a whiteboard on the wall, and dh and I each have a big desk. But the kids can bring a snack for midmorning or afternoon, and often munch while working. I discourage chee-tos or other things that tend to get messy. Drinks are allowed at their desks, too, as long as it has a reclosable top like a screwtop or sports top. No open cups, glasses, cans or bottles. Most of the kids just bring a water bottle. For holidays, we take a week off at Thanksgiving, two weeks at Christmas, and Good Friday and the week after Easter. That's it, no half-days, no broken up weeks, no teacher inservice (I'll inservice him when we get home! LOL!) days. A whole 180 days of school for the kids, not 175 for the kids and 5 "teachers only" or any of that malarky. I send report cards home every twenty school days -- public has 6-weeks periods, and private has 9-week quarters, but they both send "progress reports" halfway through. I figured why have to do it twice, I'll just send one once a month and be done with it. I give Stanford 10 Achievement Tests annually, just so the parents have something besides my opinion (report card) about their kids' progress. Any questions, ask away! ETA: I tell the parents up front that I make no promises about how our program compares academically to the local public schools. But so far, I've never had one go back to public that didn't test into their "right" grade. What they did after that, I have no control over.
I have heard of people doing this as well as have had people ask me. In the past I was overloaded with my own kids but am considering next year taking on one kid so ds has someone to hang out with on breaks.
wondered about this a well, something to consider when you live in a town with no private schools and people keep coming up to you asking you about it.
We have private schools but they still ask me. I have serously thought of it before and worried if I could do it, but like I said one kid at home schooling next year it could be a great way to do it.. especiall if its one of his friends!
i agree teacher mom, see we have on private schools here, so people are asking me about it, so glad for this post.
Cannot do it here! I know if you school under a church, then they have no say. Here is what our law states, An instructional program provided to more than one family unit does not constitute a home-based educational program. I sure wish we could do something like that, but no luck here. I know my son would enjoy having other kids around.
Thanks guys. I have been wondering since we first started, but I didn’t want to overwhelm myself. According to the school board you can do it here. They basically said that a parent can choose someone to do the schooling, but the parent is responsible for making sure that requirements are met. Basically if you choose someone else to do it then fine but if you fail the review then that is on you. They prefer you not do it, but it is not against the rules. That being said I think I know which direction I am going. A good friend of mine asked me to Homeschool her son when we first started. I called her up today and her son will be my first student besides my kids. It is a good fit because her DS and my DS are in the same grade and on the same level. Then I can go from there. In exchange she will provide free daycare when I need some me time (she’s a daycare provider)and teach Bible, which I currently do not do. Oh and I get paid! Lindina- where do you get the placement test from and where do you get your Stanford 10 Achievement Tests? I tried to get hold of the Stanford 10 awhile back and they gave me the run around. It would be nice to know if DS has gone up since he last took it at his old charter school. Right now we use Calvert and I know they have a placement test. Since I have to order the new curriculum anyway and they are in the same grade, I was going to have them work out of the same books. This way his mom doesn’t have to buy a curriculum. I know this kid can do the work, he is very bright, but I am wondering if I should have him take the free placement test for Calvert anyway. Lindina I sent you a PM
