Considering establishing a homeschool coop in D.C.

[Guest guest]

Hi all,

I am considering running a homeschool “co-op†in D.C. next year for my son

and other kids who are roughly at his age and his academic level, and I would

like to find out if there is any interest out there.

My 10-year old son is leaving his school, which is not serving his academic or

his special needs (he is gifted and has Asperger’s Syndrome), and I have not

yet found another placement for his 5th grade year. I am looking into

developing a charter school.

In the intervening year of researching and applying for the charter, I would

like to try out some of the ideas I have for the ideal school:

I would take the DC standards or better ones from another city and teach using

visual, kinetic, physical methods †" getting students to act out history,

inviting artist and writer friends in to lead special projects, using computer

programs to teach difficult concepts, using kids’ particular passions to teach

them what’s difficult for them (for my very verbal son the disciplines of

reading/writing/critical thinking/essay-writing are tedious, but I could do it

through his special passion †" prehistory). I do not want my son to spend any

more of his energy learning how to sit still and force himself to do work below

his cognitive ability just because other kids do that.

I know some wonderful people in the city to partner with on a few projects --

outdoor education, music, creative writing.

I want them to have field trips almost every week. I want them to have fun

physical exercise every day. I want them to have excited, enthusiastic, fun,

sympathetic, individualized instruction.

My bias is a little bit away from very rigid and controlled days dominated by

special services and special assistance. My goal is to make my son feel less

like a problem and more like a talented kid who can have fun like everyone else

†" just with careful empathetic “scaffolding, " and to build skills slowly,

perhaps to integrate with mainstream schools in the near future.

Ideally, I could find 5-10 kids, some like my son and hopefully some very

different from him, who would mesh well, and a few of whom have parents who

would be willing to design and run this co-op with me. It would be great if 3-5

of us were willing to take responsibility for part of the curriculum, and would

be willing to contribute $ to hire help with behavior and with addressing

individual needs. We would have to brainstorm on how to get our kids their

related services, like speech and OT etc.

If you are interested in at least meeting about something like this, please

respond to at cathrobnew@... and if you are willing, let me have

your phone number so I can call and we can discuss.

Thanks so much,

on

About me: I have a doctorate from Northwestern University in Performance Studies

and have taught and written about language, image, and communication from a

humanities perspective at several colleges. I have also worked tangentially

with the justice system, and last year I worked with the See Forever Foundation

helping establish a new school at Oak Hill, the juvenile detention facility for

D.C., where I helped get a school with multiple needs and challenges up and

running. This year I have been researching alternative education in the

district for a Casey-funded report and have gotten to know something about the

political complexities of education in D.C.. Also my son was in the first year

of the startup of the wonderful Model Asperger program at Ivymount, and I got to

see there some of the realities of putting a new school.