After CoVID started we had the opportunity to do schooling remotely from home for a couple of months and my kids and I fell in love. Although there were some hiccups in getting everything set up we enjoyed this new way of life and loved having so much time together. Before this happened I would have never even considered homeschooling or any type of online from home charter. My husband and I both had a gut feeling that we were going to school from home for the next school year. For us it was less about fearing Covid and and more about wanting predictability, consistency and a low stress learning experience for our young kids.
After the decision was final I went to work researching several online charter schools, homeschooling curriculums, schedules, supplies, and more. I spent 100+ hours doing tons of research and talking to people I knew who had experience and expertise in these areas. I knew that if I was well prepared and knowledgeable about these things, I would feel confident during the school year.
As I was reading on a local homeschool Facebook post I saw someone named Dennise comment about some curriculum she liked. She seemed very knowledgeable and I had a feeling that I should reach out to her so I sent her a Facebook message asking a couple of follow up questions from the original post. She was so kind and helpful in answering my questions and ended up telling me that she had a charter school that she was starting this year that was a hybrid of sorts that allowed a lot of parental input on curriculum and freedom in the schedule. I knew it sounded like a perfect fit.
Keeping my kids at or above grade level and having an efficient way to track their progress throughout the year was to the upmost importance to me. As of now we do not know how long or short term our schooling from home will be. Her program, AZ Learning Communities, offered the best of both worlds. She has provided many different options for online programs in each subject for her students. We are able to choose what works best for our kids and then we as the parent/teacher and she as the teacher/administrator can track their progress. I ended up choosing a pretty rigorous book curriculum for most subjects and didn’t want to have a bunch of online time in addition to our book work. The way that she runs the program is the perfect balance. The kids start out on the computer in the morning on their computer learning programs, then we take a break and get in to our books.
AZ Learning Communities has been such a blessing in our lives. The director Dennise has gone above and beyond in supplying us with tons of access to learning programs, and we get to schedule our day in a way that works for us and I can teach the curriculum I want. I would recommend this option highly for anyone who lives in Arizona. It has been wonderful!
