What’s been happening

Hi All! Things have been busy here this last week or so. This week we (the kids & I) went to the park twice to play with friends. I also went shopping for fabric for a quilt, then on Thursday I went to a quilting thing at the church! We have really enjoyed our new church. Tuesday found me in SeaTac with Michelle, my pastor’s wife, attending an info meeting for WAVA (WAshington Virtual Academy).
Allow me to share the story (you know how I love stories!!).
Awhile ago, I heard about WAVA. I thought it sounded like something good, but I wasn’t sure. The more I heard about it, though, the less I liked it. WAVA is an internet school, funded through the public school. They will give you everything for free. You get curriculum, books, workbooks, even science stuff – all for free. This sounded good. Since it is a public school-funded program, you would have a teacher over you. Then I learned that each family has to meet with a teacher once a week. Then I heard the teacher will also call you during the week to check up on you!! That was too intrusive for me, so I pretty much signed off on the idea of WAVA.
When Michelle asked me if I wanted to go to the informational meeting with her, I said yes. I was going to say no, but then I thought maybe I’d get some answers. So Tuesday we drove up to SeaTac. The meeting was good. They had different tables set up with the curriculum your child would be using. The curriculum looked good – especially the Language Arts and math. There was a lady from WAVA there who gave a presentation. She had a lot of info. Here are some things I found out –
* the parent/teacher meetings are limited to the phone (every other week) and e-mail (every opposite other week).
* you can maintain your homeschool status by enrolling your child in no more than five classes (they only need math, l/a, history, science & art!!!).
* If you maintain your homeschool status, your interaction with the teacher is limited further.
* The kids are tested with the WASL, but if you remain a homeschooler, your child(ren) is not subject to the WASL (which makes me happy because I do NOT like the WASL. And I don’t want to teach the children to a test.).
*You can withdraw at any time.
* there are placement tests for your kids to take online, and you may use them even if you don’t decide to enroll.
All of this to say, we decided to enroll the kids and see how it goes. Daniel is done with his tests, Jonathan is finishing his last one today. I’ll keep you informed on how it goes!