For most parents, choosing a school for their children isn’t much of a choice. If you use public schools, you simply send your child to the one that they’re zoned for, based on where you live — and if you want to send them to a different school, you either have to move or get a special dispensation from the school board.
Private schools are also an option but they can be expensive so without a scholarship, they often aren’t an option for many families. A decade or two ago, those were your only two options when it came to schooling your children. Today, there are a number of different alternative schooling options that you might use.
Should you be considering alternative school options for your little ones?
Types of Alternative School Options
Outside of typical public and private schools, what sort of alternative schooling options are available?
There’s homeschooling, where you as the parent become the teacher. You can use pre-designed curriculums or create your own, depending on your child’s needs. There is also unschooling, which is a branch of homeschooling but instead of using a curriculum or even teaching via lessons, your student learns by following their interests and passions.
There are online schools that pair your child with a certified teacher and often a digital classroom of other students their age. In many cases, it’s just like public school, only you get to enjoy your lessons from the comfort of your own home. Cyber teachers are also able to provide a broader picture of the world because they’re working from the internet and have the breadth of human knowledge at their fingertips. Some are using their platform to focus on things like environmental conservation by including events like the Team Trees Movement that was trying to raise
There are boarding schools, which is kind of like a live-in private school, though it can be costly because, in addition to paying for their schooling, you’re also paying for room and board because your child will live there throughout the school year. There are military schools which used to be used as a joke or a threat — behave or we’ll ship you off too military school! But today it is a viable option for the boarding-school style education.
There are charter schools, which don’t conform to public school standards and are able to design their curriculums to best meet each student’s needs. Charter schools might not even look like school, at least as we know it. There are also magnet schools, which specialize in one type of study, from performing arts to STEM. If you’ve got an “Academy of (insert discipline here)” which caters to a middle or high-school-aged group, you’ve got a magnet school in your area.
Unlike when we were growing up, there are a lot of good options available if public school isn’t checking all the boxes necessary to help your children thrive.
Why Should You Consider Alternative School Options?
When it’s so easy to send your child to public school, why should you consider alternative schooling options?
In a single sentence: Education is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor. Just because you thrive in a public school setting doesn’t mean that your children will and forcing them to spend all of their time in a school setting where they aren’t thriving is only going to teach them resentment.
If your child isn’t thriving in a traditional public school setting, it may not be their fault. If they have any sort of special needs, public school teachers and school systems often aren’t equipped to provide for their unique needs. A public school IEP can only do so much when you’ve got a facility full of overworked, underpaid and undertrained teachers who are trying their best.
If your child is acting out in public school, it could be a sign that they’re not engaged enough in their education or they just aren’t learning the way that the school system is willing to teach. They might thrive if given the chance to learn differently.
Getting Started With Your Schooling Choice
What do you need to get started with an alternative schooling choice, if that’s what you and your child decide to do?
That will depend largely on your state and the rules laid down by your school of choice. It could be as simple as transferring your enrollment from the public school that they currently attend to the alternative school. You may also have to go through the steps of withdrawing them from their current school before you can enroll them on the new campus.
The best advice we can offer here is to talk to your new school and see what they require. If you’re planning on switching to a homeschool curriculum, make sure you’re versed in the homeschooling laws in your state.
Looking Toward the Future
We’ll say it again, in case you missed it — education is not one size fits all. If your child isn’t thriving in public school, instead of sticking with something that isn’t working, consider switching to an alternative school option. You might be surprised how quickly they start to succeed as soon as someone starts listening to what they really need.