Charter School Distance Learning programs (for homeschoolers), what are they and how do they benefit your kids?

Over the years I've had many families ask what we are doing for our homeschool and how we afford so many field trips & have access to so many opportunities. Like many of you they have been curious to find out what my "secret" is and how they can have it to. It's not so much a secret as most homeschool families we know participate in one of these programs, but if you've been out of the loop & don't know what a DLP or a charter school dlp is, it can feel like a huge secret that you've been missing out on. But don't fret, there's no need to feel left out any more!  While you read this post my hope is that it will inform you & by the end you will be able to make a decision whether participating in a Charter is a good fit for your family or not. If it isn't, don't stress about it! They aren't a perfect fit for everyone, but in my experience it's been a huge blessing! :) Plus it is super simple to sign up and participate in this amazing opportunity, it doesn't cost a thing and you can always change your mind later on :) 

So, what are they in the first place you might ask? A Distance Learning Program is a special program that has been designed to assist homeschool families all over the country by allowing a unique blend of public school benefits to co-mingle with your homeschooling. Initially, a homeschool family registers their child(ren) in one of the Charter school distance Learning programs of their choice (usually there are multiple options in each state. My home state of Oregon has 20 options!). Once your child is accepted into the program, you will be eligible to: start receiving state government funds to assist with the purchase of your curriculum (usually everything except faith based), learning opportunities, field trips, activities, stem activities, extracurricular activities, outdoor school, summer camps, music lessons, sports, dance lessons, 4h or other clubs, etc., have a guide to assist you with reaching your school/learning goals for your kiddos and will be there to answer questions, help with testing and offer support throughout the year (along with many other benefits).

 In our experience, joining a charter DLP has been one of the best things we've done for our homeschool. 6 1/2 years ago we joined a charter that was just starting so we were in on the ground floor and able to discover along with them all the benefits that are afforded and available to homeschool families through one of the programs. It truly has been one of the best discoveries I made in my early days of prepping/planning for our first year of homeschooling and I'm so glad that I took the leap to register. My kids had so many opportunities such as: enrichment courses (the charter we were apart of had a campus we were able to visit 2x a week for classes), special field trips: Overnight aquarium trip/sleep with the sharks, overnight zoo field trip/sleep at the zoo & behind the scenes tours, outdoor school, 4h camp, etc., ability to take several private lessons or join/take music lessons, dance lessons, jui jitsu lessons, horseback riding lessons, swim lessons, gymnastics, art classes and private lessons, art camps and so much more! 

Looking back there are several things that I realized would have been helpful to know, but I had no idea I should have asked or thought about when we first registered for the program that I think will be very beneficial to you to have knowledge of. For starters: Spend some time researching all of the programs in your state, find out which ones are accepting new students or have a wait list and get your kiddos names on their lists. Even if you are only vaguely interested in the program it is important to put your name on the list because some programs have very very long lists and it may be a year before your child's name is picked and you just never know where you might be six months or a year down the road. You may just want to kick yourself over a missed opportunity if you don't take advantage of registering for one or all of the programs while you can ;) 

The next thing would be to make a list of the pros and cons of each program you register for, that way you can decide which program(s) would be your top choice(s) and which ones you would be okay turning down if/when you get into them. *I was accepted into 3 programs all in the same week, I had to get back to them within a few days to say whether or not we accepted or declined the position for our kiddos in the program. Generally they will give you a few days to respond. It really helped me be able to make a quick decision by having my pro/con lists already completed. I was able to search my lists quickly and determine which program to accept and which to decline without any regrets :) 

After accepting a position in one of the charter schools they will send you info about your enrollment, potentially additional paperwork to complete and discuss some of their guidelines with you as well as send you a handbook (mine sends these things electronically & they are available on their website for me to download). Depending on the time of year you are accepted you may be sent emails from your guides/EF (Educational Facilitators) or school liaison (your student(s) personal contact/aide/assistants in the program) for an introduction and to set up contact, go over your questions and inform you of upcoming important dates, events etc. Our EF generally contacts us in August a few weeks before school to run down our list of curriculum choices, discuss any set backs to what we want to order or need to start our school year, go over our goals for each child for the up coming school year, and to walk through each child's ILP (individual learning plan), also to answer any questions I might have and to talk about the best use of our allotment funds (also to answer when those will be available). Once all of those things are taken care of we may not have communication again until the first week of school. 

Communication with your EF (guide or liaison/school representative person) may look different depending on which program you choose; ours usually looks like: daily email check-ins or texts, 6 times a year zoom chat or potentially: once a week zoom chats (if we are reviewing our ILP or changes to it or going over results from state tests etc), in person "face to face" meetings, assistance with prep and planning your weekly or monthly lesson plans, aide filling in your ILP's, reviewing of ILP's & quarterly work samples, and test prep/help for state testing or MAPS testing etc. Our program requires: collaboration with our EF to create an ILP for each student, 4 times a week to email or text our EF for attendance, once a month send them our lesson plans, submit quarterly work samples and give grades at the end of the term or year. Those things may sound like a lot (for some), but I have enjoyed the accountability and assistance that these things have brought to our homeschool. It has all been worth it (imo) to receive the allotment funds & guidance in exchange for completing these minimal requirements. :) 

So what is an ILP anyway?  Basically, it is a document for each child that lists all of the subjects they will study for the year, each book they will (or you intend) for them to read, every workbook, curriculum they will use, activity or lesson they will use, and a list of all the private lessons or extracurricular activities and field trips you have planned for the year. It is a place to list out all the planned and potentially planned ideas and activities for the year so that the charter school program can determine if you can use allotment funds for said activities, curriculum, field trips etc and to see which things you may want to pair back or postpone to the next year. One of the other requirements that our program has is that we list all the proposed outcomes/goals for each course & what each child is expected to learn or have gained knowledge or skills about by the completion of the course. That has helped me to keep on track and make sure we are reaching our goals. I have really enjoyed using an ILP as a way to map out my year for each of my children and as a way to help me focus on reaching/achieving our goals, mark off their accomplishments and keep tabs on what we have left to work on/complete in each course. Once your ILP is all set up and you've connected with your charter program they will inform you about the requirements/expectations they have in order for you to remain in the program. I'd suggest recording that info somewhere you will have easy access to throughout the year since you will most likely reference it often ;) 

 Tips:

* I like to keep a list going of potential things to purchase for future reference. This makes it easy to figure out what I need for potential unit studies, future activities etc. & makes a great resource for any updates to our ILP's. 

* I have a file for each child where I slip copies of their completed work, tests, records of grades, a list of books they've read through the year, a list of books we plan to or want to read, a list of all the activities/field trips/classes/lessons they've completed/participated in and a list of all the educational movies/films/documentaries/shows we've watched during the year. 

* I also keep a list of all the places we want to visit & the ones we already have I mark them off so we can keep tabs on how many are left on our list :)

* Each year I've used our allotment funds to purchase an America the Beautiful pass (https://www.nps.gov/planyourvisit/passes.htm) that provides entrance to all national parks, federal lands & several state parks. It has been one of our favorite purchases & allowed us to travel to 6 National parks, 4 national monuments and multiple state parks across our home state, Oregon and several in Washington and California. The pass allows unlimited access to all national parks any day of the year & access to all federal lands as well as many state parks. One of our favorite discoveries was that the pass gave us entrance to several of the state parks along the Oregon Coast that we hadn't been to which allowed us to tour, explore and learn so many new things/places :) 

* To piggy back on our national parks pass we have also purchased NW Forest Passes, and hiking permits that have allowed us to explore nature, encounter wild life in their natural habitat, explore at our leisure and discover new "favorite places" in our state. Our family loves to hike and get out in nature so these passes have been a huge blessing & enabled us to explore more freely & without added expense. :)

* Last school year when the pandemic began I was able to use our allotment funds to purchase new sport equipment, board games, fishing poles, craft supplies and supplies for several activities that helped to make a very chaotic time of lots of unknowns a little brighter. We purchased a new basketball hoop, volleyball net & volleyball, badminton racquets, street hockey net, sticks & pucks, puzzles and tons of board games to keep the kids occupied & give them something new to do during the first round of "stay at home" orders/mandates during the initial closures created by covid-19. We also were able to use allotment funds to purchase several kits for craft projects and a few memberships for cooking/baking, yarn and several yards of fabric so my daughter could work on some sewing projects :)

**Also, as a tip to consider: One of our close friends daughters ended up having to complete the GED program at our local community college (after she had already graduated high school) because the nursing program she intended to take didn't recognize her homeschool diploma as valid! One of the great benefits of joining the Charter School program is that they are accredited and all the grades that my daughter has earned in high school have been recorded on transcripts that will be recognized at any college she attends in the future. *This is a great benefit and one that might be a major pro on your list if: your child plans to attend college, you aren't sure how or stress about creating high school transcripts, or if you want to minimize the pressure on yourself in the record keeping areas. 

As you can see from above there is no shortage of things/ideas of what you can spend your allotment funds on, the only restrictions would be faith based items/curriculum and things that your charter school deems not specific enough or relevant to your ILP. There have only been 2 things that we have been denied to purchase and they were things we ended up purchasing anyway as a souvenir while on a trip so it wasn't a big disappointment or anything ;) 

If you have any other questions or think of things that may benefit others drop me a comment and I'd be happy to answer them (to the best of my abilities ;)) or research and attempt to answer haha. Did I miss covering something? Leave me a comment and let me know :)

* For all my friends residing outside of Oregon, what are some things you've found to be most helpful or relevant?  How do distance learning/charter programs work in your state? 

Happy schooling!

~K

** Oregon residents:

Links for all 20 of Oregon's Distance Learning Charter Schools:

*List of all distance learning charters in Oregon:

 http://www.ohen.org/resources/alternative-educational-paths/oregon-charter-schools/

• https://alliancecharteracademy.com/ (Alliance Charter Academy)
  
• https://bakercharters.org/  (Baker Charter School)
• http://bridgecharter.com/ (Bridge Charter School) 
  
• www.clackamaswebacademy.org (Clackamas Web Academy)
  
• https://www.fossildlp.com/ (Fossil Distance Learning Program)
  
• http://www.frontiercharteracademy.org (Frontier Charter Academy)
  
• http://or-ph.insightschools.net/ (Insight School of Oregon-Painted Hills) 
  
• http://www.mewebacademy.org/ (Metro East Web Academy)
  
• https://www.connectionsacademy.com/oregon-online-school (Oregon Connections Academy)
• http://www.k12.com/orva/ (Oregon Virtual Academy)
  
• http://www.orved.org/ (Oregon Virtual Education)
  
• http://www.paisleyschooldistrict.com/distance_learning_program/ (Paisley Distance Learning)
  
• http://www.pcc.edu/prepare/head-start/open-enrollment.html (Portland Community College Open Enrollment)
  
• http://www.renaissancepublicacademy.org/ (Renaissance Public Academy)
  
• http://www.silviesrcs.org/ (Silvies River Charter School) 
  
• https://sheridanallprep.org (Sheridan All Prep)
  
• http://summitlearningcharter.org/ (Summit Learning Charter and Early College)
  
• https://www.marcola.k12.or.us/teach-nw/  (Teach Northwest)
• http://ttoa.ttsdschools.org/pages/Tigard_Tualatin_Online_Academy (Tigard-Tualatin Online Academy)
  
• http://www.ashland.k12.or.us/willowwind (Willow Wind Community Learning Center)