Today is the 1st day in over 13yrs that I will not be homeschooling – any one. Not my oldest, youngest, your homeschoolers, or the neighbors. This isn’t a cute title to say we’re doing home education differently either – there are zero students in my house. My youngest started charter school today, STEM School for the strong math / engineering Brainiacs.
I loved Classical Conversations last year – we had an amazing Challenge A director! Henry learned so much about writing – his “Language Arts” skills went from basically struggling to writing beautiful papers. But there were some holes my science heavy architecture loving son would eventually grow to resent. Personally, the lack of history as it’s own subject is a huge beef with me – being a history nerd.
We knew we would need to find a lot of supplements and extras, which I just didn’t want to do. So when we found the STEM School 12 minutes from the house, I jumped to get his name in the charter school lottery. Henry is trying it out for 8th grade – with option to homeschool again next year if it isn’t a great fit. But their high school is ranked 10th in the entire state of CO (over 640+ high schools here), so I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
If starting charter school wasn’t exciting enough of a change for our family, my oldest leaves for boot camp this week. We are unbelievably excited for Jake. He hated school work, hated sitting home online during his senior year. Hated being on a laptop All. Day. Long. Unfortunately this past locked down year has changed his desire to attend college and pursue a degree in Graphic Design. So off to California to be a Marine! I hope once he’s settled and stationed somewhere (he is hoping Japan) he will utilize the military benefits and get that art degree.
Which leaves me feeling like … an empty nester. At least 8am-3pm. More time to practice yoga and enjoy paddle boarding before winter!
