First impressions of the Calvert Curriculum

I will let my extended absence from my blog speak first and foremost as to how the whole ‘Calvert thing’ is going.  I have no time anymore, it seems.  I knew it going in that it would be a tough transition from how we used to do things, but I think there have also been some unintended consequences as well as some positive results as well.  Here are my impressions so far..

Attendance

Colorado Calvert is officially an online public school, so they have to take attendance.  For a homeschooler, the Colorado State Statute requires a minimum of 174 days, at 4 hours per day, for a total of 694 school hours per school year.  The state, of course, never checks that you actually met this.  The way a public school takes attendance is by counting heads every single school day.  (a fellow homeschooling friend jokes that she take attendance by noting if any of her boys have gone missing, lol...)  The way Calvert handles attendance is to require that the student do something called a checkpoint.  A checkpoint is a short 1-5 question review that covers the material taught in a particular subject that day.  In Jordan's case, a typical day means he has a checkpoint in each category that he worked on in that day's lesson: math, grammar, composition, reading comprehension, history, science.  As long as Jordan completes at least one checkpoint on a given day, he is marked 'present'.  The checkpoints are time-stamped.  We can do school on any day of the week, even on holidays, and if he completes a checkpoint that day, it is considered a day spent in school.  This is where online school gets brownie points for being flexible.  So far, attendance, with the exception of October Count has not been an issue for us, and it's that 'thing' I needed to hold my hand to the fire and keep me accountable, and hold my kids accountable too.

October Count

October Count is the God-forsaken day that the bean-counters in the Ed. Dept. devised to tie actual attendance to per-pupil funding.  If the child is present on that day, the school will get funding for that pupil for the year – something in the range of $7-8 K.  October Count for most public schoolers is on Oct. 1^st.  Parents get a slew of letters and emails in the weeks before reminding parents that only death should prevent their child from attending school that day.  Otherwise, they had better damn well show up.  I received much the same communication (in a much nicer tone), but because Calvert is an online school, their October Count window was from September 24^th to October 8^th.  I was in charge of making sure that each of my children completed a checkpoint, watched a video, attended class on class days, played a game and did an enrichment activity BY NOON, every. damn. day.  Only problem is, we unfortunately have scheduled activities most every morning that require us to be out of the house, so getting stuff done in time has taken just about every last ounce of sanity I had left.    I had never intended for these activities to be on the schedule in the first place, when I first signed up for Calvert.  I had made a strict personal rule: NOTHING ON THE ACTIVITY SCHEDULE BEFORE 3 PM.  I had visions of unrestricted mornings that required no rushing, yelling, searching for clean underwear or breakfast-in-a-baggie in the car just to get to some class or group activity on time.  That madness was reserved for kids that went to public school!  Well, that was the grand plan before I blew out my knee (which requires multiple daytime physical therapy sessions) and before I received a Lego practice schedule that meets for 4x a week in the mornings, (it used to be late afternoons).  L  It has been pretty ugly around here getting this October count requirement met.  Early mornings make for cranky kids.  Tight schedules to get kids where they need to be make for cranky moms.  The kids were doing checkpoints on half-finished lessons because it was 11:59 a.m. and we HAD to.  That is no way to get an education!  It’s not Calvert’s fault.  It’s the bureaucratic we-need-data bullshit I ran screaming away from 8 years ago.  Anyway – it is past October 8^th and I am celebrating.

Lessons

Each Calvert 'Lesson' equals a full day of school.  Each child's teaching manual contains a list of the subjects and activities to do for that day's lesson.  In Jordan's case, he has a list that rotates just a bit, adding in computer on this day, or switching back and forth between history and geography... so every lesson is not exactly the same lineup of stuff to do - which he and I both like.  I like that he can at least get part-way through a lesson, complete a couple of checkpoints to get his attendance logged for the day, and then we just pick right back up where he left off on the next day.  The only issue with this is that he is really supposed to be doing an entire lesson in one day.  We have a pacing guide that we are supposed to follow.  We are now significantly behind, but Jordan has made great personal strides in the past week or so, and is now getting through about 80-90% of a lesson in a day.  He’s almost there!  

Rylan has the same lesson line-up, except there is one major annoyance.  Her checkpoints, with the exception of math, have all been combined into one big one.  So even if we manage to do 5 of the 7 things she was supposed to cover, we can't do the checkpoint yet because we didn't finish.  So that day's attendance is screwed, unless we flub her answers and get to those activities we missed on the next day.  But, again, we are really supposed to do it all in one day.  It is Rylan's schedule that I am most concerned about because she is by far the busiest kid with her insane activity schedule.

Owen’s lessons are the easiest, but I have zero time to do any of the enrichment activities with him – which are the activities that make Kindergarten so awesome in the first place!  I don’t know how families with multiple kids in this program do it, I really don’t.  I am exhausted.  Each kid needs one-on-one, which means - after bouncing back and forth all day, about a 12 hour school day for me.  (not them..me.)  This includes taking what work we can in the car to fill whatever length of time we will be gone and so forth.  Every minute of every school day, somebody is working on something with me, unless I have made the blessed escape to physical therapy.  So far, this really sucks.

Math

Okay, no offense to any of you Singapore fans out there, but Calvert uses Singapore and we all hate it.  We have used MEP up till now, with Teaching Textbooks and Khan Academy as a resource.  Who ever heard of a 14 year old begging to do math 'the way we used to'?  I have!  I have no idea if I can pull some strings or not, but we can't do a whole year of this.  Singapore does such an awful job of presenting material (a short, difficult-to-understand paragraph) followed by a mind-numbing amount of repetition that calls for no variation or creativity....  MEP WE MISS YOU!  I am vowing right now that we are picking up with MEP again and carrying onward in our own way.  I can't do this to my kids.  Singapore will kill math for them, and I have been fighting like mad to keep the wonder and magic of math alive as they progress.

Reading

In Jordan's case, I am thrilled with the Language Arts component that Calvert offers.  He is learning so much with each lesson (which illuminates for me all the stuff I wasn't covering, but should have).  Jordan read Jack London's To Build a Fire during the first week. You know?  Of all the literature I read in Jr. High and High School, it was THAT short story that I remember.  Any time I tromped through the snow, I would think back to that story.  Jordan has a special appreciation for it since he has done the Klondike scout campout every year, and can personally identify with dealing with intense cold.  He is recognizing that literature does not take hold of you, unless you can make a personal connection with it.  He has also read a slew of short stories by various authors such as Edgar Allen Poe, Ray Bradbury and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  He’s checked out a couple Sherlock Holmes mysteries at the library because he really likes that literary style in particular.  Bless him.

In Rylan's case, she uses a standard classroom reader.  I do like the activities associated with it, and there is some writing involved, which makes me happy.  The rest of her work is pretty standard, and sort of uninspiring, if you ask me.

With Owen, I am reading stories or poems to him and then we discuss them.  He is learning  his letters and sounds...finally.  This is all stuff he has been working on with Reading Eggs for the past year, but only now has he been willing to sit down and actually move a pencil around on paper.  Ever since we finally broke through that barrier, he is now a willing participant in coloring, writing, cutting and pasting.  He is a whiz with shapes and counting.

The Assignments

Not only do the kids do a checkpoint for their subjects, they also have work to turn in.  Each week the teachers post a list of assignments (that are a part of the regular lessons anyway) that are due.  I have to scan them, save them to a separate file folder for each kid, and then submit them.  The first couple of weeks were tough, because it was almost 20 files.  Now it is about 8-10 that I send in on a weekly basis.

The Teachers

I love Rylan’s and Owen’s teachers.  They are real pros at this, and have easily made a connection with the kids through the online classes.  Each kiddo has class twice a week – one is math and the other is language arts.  Owen’s class is about 20 minutes long.  He puts on headphones and talks part of the time.  His teacher has the ability to turn on each student’s mic as she chooses – that way they are not all talking at once and producing feedback.  So every now and then I will hear his voice pipe up with an answer to a question she asked.  It is the same way with Rylan’s classes.  Her classes last about 30 – 45 minutes.  Owen’s class is also interactive, so he can use the mouse to do different things on a work surface on the screen, when it is his turn.  I think that is really cool.  Jordan’s classes last about an hour, and they don’t chat via headphones, except in his small-group math enrichment class.  Jordan’s teacher is new this year and I can see that she is learning the ropes just as we are.  She is a very nice lady, but a bit reserved and hard to read.  Jordan likes her well enough, but there is not a personal connection yet.

The Fieldtrips

We have had two ‘fieldtrips’ so far.  The first was a school picnic that met the Friday before the first day of school.  The kids got to meet their teachers face-to-face for the first time, and meet any other students that came.  We had a good time.  Owen’s teacher gave him a pencil and a lucky penny, and you would have thought he had won the lottery.  Rylan’s teacher has a very lively personality and she took to her immediately.  Jordan joined a game of soccer with the older kids, within five minutes of arriving.

Our second ‘fieldtrip’ was a gathering at a library about a month after school started.  The kids split off into two groups – older and younger, and did literary activities for a couple of hours with their teachers.  They had a fun time and could now connect better with classmates since they had seen them online a few times.  Jordan made quite the connection with a girl, actually.  They now exchange multiple texts every day.  Unfortunately (for Jordan, not for us) she lives over an hour away.  They have been trying to figure out a way to meet up ever since the library gathering.  We’re suggesting the families meeting up for dinner or ice cream at some half-way point.  We’ll see…

The Backlash

Unfortunately, a stinging remark or two about making Calvert our chosen way to homeschool has been directed my way, and left their mark as I have incredibly thin skin when it comes to that type of thing.  Well, any type of criticism, really.  It’s bad enough that I already question absolutely everything I do as the right thing to do every second of the day.  There are definitely opinionated camps as what is the correct path to follow in regards to how organized you should be.  Homeschooling is starting to feel as lonely as ever.  I’m worried about my mental health with the amount of stress I am under to get the work done, and how the schedule leaves zero time to fit in anything that could be considered down time with the kids – like a play date or a nature walk.

So that is Calvert for us at this point in time…I’ll reassess in a few more weeks.  By that point both Lego and my physical therapy will be done, so we will have gained back some crucial daytime hours that are so negatively affecting us right now.