Portfolio Night

Our first homeschool evaluation is tomorrow morning.

Yes, we've been homeschooling for the last 9 years, but this is the first year that one of the school-age kids was not enrolled in a public cyberschool. This year Middle was on his own, which means that we had to file an affadavit with the school district and now, at the end of the year, have to meet with an evaluator to go over what we did.

I'm hoping we did a good job.

Looking back over the year, I'm pretty pleased with much of what we did, but also wishing we'd done more in other areas. Math went much better than expected; History much worse. I'm chalking it up to 5 years of intensive history through the cyberschool - in any case, he was burnt out on the subject.

I'm looking forward to hearing the evaluator's feedback and suggestions for how to proceed from here. We still go back and forth about whether he should go to school next year or not, but I'm already thinking of ideas and possibilities for next year. Seventh grade is probably the last year I will be comfortable having him at home; I feel strongly about the boys going to high school and I think a year of eighth grade helps to prepare them for that.

As always, when I ask him what he wants to do, he is as torn as I am. I think he'll be fine either way, and either way has its pros and cons.

Rarely are decisions like this black or white.