I’ve held off writing this post because I wanted to make sure the honeymoon was over before assessing our academic status after returning to public school six weeks ago. (We homeschooled last year – in case you’re a new reader.)Six weeks is precisely the amount of time it took us to decide to quit public school last year. That’s when we started homeschooling.

We just attended parent-teacher conferences last Thursday, and were very pleased to reconfirm what we thought we were experiencing in our first weeks back in a public school setting: our kids are doing very well.

Academically, both D (5th grade) and C (3rd grade) are earning strong scores in every subject area, and are firmly locked in with a group of students at the same level. Where we were begging for gifted and differentiated instruction at our last school, we’re finding that isn’t as necessary here, because a higher level of performance is expected, so our kids are the “norm”. (They’re both pulled for GT in math.) Although I still worry about C getting worksheeted to death, and he tells me sometimes he wishes I would school him at home, he seems to be stepping up with a stronger work ethic and care than he showed last year. I think his competitive spirit drives him in a group setting.

When we homeschooled last year, I did no testing at all (I personally don’t like testing, but I understand why it’s necessary in a school setting.) So I was concerned that they would forget how to test. But their standardized MAP testing came back with high scores as well. What a relief.

And socially, they’re both doing well also. They get along with everyone, and aren’t singled out by peers. But they’re different from other kids in some ways — and probably always will be. While they play daily with close and excellent friends in our neighborhood, at school, D chooses to serve as a classroom volunteer, in lieu of some of her recesses, and C is content to play by himself on the days the other kids are engaged in a football game (he plays on the soccer and basketball recesses.)

But they’re happy. They’re creative. They’re independent.

So in all, our kids’ academic and social transition back to public school has been pretty seamless. Here are some key reasons for it:

1. We did our research to choose a community we believed would be a great fit for our family — educationally, socially, and for other opportunities.
2. We started to move during the summer, when neighborhood kids had more time to play and explore new peer relationships.
3. We worked very hard to keep pace academically with higher achieving schools, while we homeschooled last year.
4. Our kids were excited about the move and the new school. They have embraced (for the most part) the changes we’ve made as a family in the past few months.
5. We are extremely lucky. We have intelligent, healthy, happy children with strong senses of self. And we accidentally landed into a neighborhood that’s straight out of 1960’s Mayberry.

So that’s the great-news update. Here you can read part 2 – where I ask for your input on the things that aren’t transitioning as well.

HOMESCHOOL EXPERIMENT RESULTS SERIES:
WHY WE STARTED
the JOYS
the STRUGGLES
the FUTURE for us
UPDATE after we Quit Homeschooling
Family out of Sync

Other Homeschooling Experiment milestones:
The Beginning
Week One – Starting with a Frazzle
Five Steps to Drive Yourself off a Cliff
Week Two – Just when I thought I knew what I was doing
Week Three — Let there be CRAFTS!
One-month Review
D’s Review at One Month
Week Five – Stress and frustration
Week Seven – Flip-flopping curriculum
Note to self – Consider having low expectations some weeks
Two-Month Review — Some aha moments
Three-Month Review — Not all peaches and cream
Four-Month Review — Loving ancient history
Five-Month Review — What I underestimated
Six-Month Review – Let’s Just Skip this Month
Seven-Month Review — Curriculum Review
D’s research paper — Save the Earth Saturday series
Tales of a Fourth-Grade Guinea Pig
All posts about the experiment — including WAY-COOL FIELD TRIPS!

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