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The decision to place charter school information here on this website hasn't been made quickly. We've wrestled with placing this information on DC Homeschool Central for a few years now. Why? Because as more homeschoolers sign up for charter schools, the state of Oregon looks at that and says, " Oh, look how many homeschool families are now signed up with charter schools? (Let's say that it's around 75%, although we have no idea what that percentage is right now.) They must not be able to teach on their own. In that case, let's make a lot of additional laws and rules for those independent homeschoolers who don't sign up with charter schools just to make sure they are crossing their t's and dotting their i's, as well."
Think that can't happen? It actually has happened in some states in the U.S. and has had repercussions against independent homeschooling in some states, like requiring all homeschooling families to submit student portfolios of work, be monitored weekly or monthly by a public school teacher, require a lot more frequent standardized testing, and more. With "free" education comes strings attached - always. And remember, when your child is enrolled in a charter school in Oregon, he or she is now legally a public school student. Your child may still be doing all or most of his or her learning at home, but legally, he or she is not what the state of Oregon calls a true "homeschooler."
Why are we placing the charter school information here for you? It's simple. While we don't necessarily endorse all charter school programs that operate within the state of Oregon (some are much more homeschool friendly than others), we know that there have been a lot of families who would have never jumped into homeschooling in Douglas County without being able to join a charter school. As parents are a part of a charter school at home, they gain confidence that yes, they can indeed educate their children at home! Often, after a year or two, parents decide to go independent, withdrawing from a charter school, meaning that they get to select their children's curriculum, schedule, religious instruction, and so much more! And those are some of the true benefits of homeschooling your own children, on your own terms.
The following charter school programs are listed in order from most homeschool-friendly (curriculum choice and flexibility) to most like public schools (no choices in curriculum/follow Common Core curriculum principles).
If you would like to send us your own list of pros and cons for one of these programs you've participated in, please email us so we can include your thoughts here!
In general, when joining a charter school, the supervising teacher you will be assigned makes all the difference in the success of the program. Some of them allow all kinds of customization to fit your child's needs, and others may not.
Fossil Distance Learning Program:
Fossil Distance Learning Program is a free charter school program operated by the public school district in Fossil, Oregon. For new students, a lottery is held each April to randomly select which new students and families will be joining the program for the following school year. Student applications are found here, and you may contact their offices here.
Fossil Distance Learning Program offers:
- Education Plan and commitment - All students and parents will have a written agreement about learning goals and progress that is regularly visited as a team.
- Mentoring visits - Teachers will visit students twice a month to check with the student and parents, answer questions, and provide help.
- Field trips - There will be many hands-on field-based learning activities throughout the year. Their goal is to provide one field trip each month in each region they have students.
- Powerful curriculum - They do their best to locate and utilize powerful standards aligned curriculum that will meet the needs of a diverse group of students.
- Highly trained caring staff - Their team is formed of licensed, caring educators who have been hand selected and specifically trained in learning techniques to ensure success for your student.
- Technology - They provide laptops and/or iPads for their students doing online classes or to supplement their paper/pencil curriculum.
Pros:
- Curriculum and technology (laptops and iPads) are provided by FDLP.
- You are allowed to use religious curriculum and materials with your children, but those won't be paid for by FDLP.
- The parent has the widest range of curriculum choices than any other charter school program in Oregon, which makes it much more homeschool-friendly for both the parent and the child. Materials can be ordered through Timberdoodle, Rainbow Resource, and other curriculum sources. $500 (kindergarten) and $1000 (1st - 8th grades) is available per student to spend on choosing curriculum (non-religious), tutoring, extra-curricular activities, and group field trips including some museum passes.
- Funding is allowed to be used on reduced price gently-used curriculum to further spread your allotment. Group buys on curriculum like Rosetta Stone foreign language programs are available to help cut costs.
Cons:
- Your child will be enrolled as a public school student in the Fossil School District.
- Your family may have to be on a waiting list (after April) for the following school year or the year after that, so be prepared to possibly not be able to start this program as soon as you'd like.
- Their website is difficult to navigate and doesn't have much information on it for prospective families, so we recommend calling them and receiving more information over the phone and via email/snail mail.
- Weekly lesson plans are required to be turned in. Don't let that completely scare you: a local mom has mentioned that she only spends about an hour each week working on the lesson plans for her three children, altogether. In addition, a designated work sample is turned in from time to time.
- State testing, including Smarter Balance, is done on an annual basis.
- This program, like all charter school programs, is not designed for the unschooling family.
Baker Web Academy:
Baker Web Academy offers K-12 students a full menu of classes (online and/or textbook-based) as well field trips, labs, and other face-to-face educational opportunities. Each family is assigned a mentor teacher who visits the student twice a month in the comfort of the student’s own home, or at a local business, if the family prefers. Teachers are Oregon-certified instructors who care deeply about students and want to make their education meaningful and challenging. Students receive the materials they need for success, whether that is a laptop or a curriculum of textbooks.
Pros:
Cons:
Pros:
- Parents have a wider variety of curriculum than many charter schools from which to choose, including some of the popular and successful homeschool standards like Math-U-See, All About Spelling, Singapore Math, Teaching Textbooks, Saxon Math, The Story of the World, and more.
- Baker has two online curriculum packages, and offline packages like Calvert School. Baker also has "a la carte" choices, with several different math, language arts, science, and social studies curriculum choices.
Cons:
- Religious curriculum isn't allowed in this particular charter school, so if that is important to you, it may not be the best fit for you.
- Grades 9-12 are all online studies.
- Your child will be enrolled as a public school student in the Baker School District.
- State testing, including Smarter Balance, is done on an annual basis.
Academy for Character Education (ACE):
ACE is a tuition-free charter school located in Cottage Grove, Oregon. ACE is committed to helping you provide your child with the best education possible by applying their four pillars for learning:
Pros:
Cons:
- focusing on building strong character
- working as a team with you
- ensuring that your child is appropriately placed
- utilizing the time-tested classical method
- Students may attend ACE even if the school is not in their district
Pros:
- Character Assembly and Projects (at the end of each term)
- School Community Day on Tuesdays, so your family would drive/carpool to Cottage Grove once a week for group class instruction and activities
- The school year takes place three weeks per month, ten months per year from September through the end of June
- Complete Classical curriculum
- Latin Instruction Grades 1-12
- One-on-one free math tutoring
- Advanced Placement (AP) classes
- Field trips
- Many private lessons in music, art, gymnastics, dance, etc. can be paid for by the program
- Parent/teacher monthly meetings
- High school diploma program
- Free curriculum and lesson planning is provided for the remainder of the week when you are at home
- Very challenging academic program, so possibly not as well suited to those with learning challenges or behavior challenges
Cons:
- Strict policies in attendance, dress code including uniforms, turning in assignments, etc.
- Your child is enrolled as a public school student in Cottage Grove, which may or may not affect signing up for middle school/high school sports in Douglas County.
- No choices in curriculum are offered because this school uses specific materials and books to teach using the classical method.
Connections Academy:
Connections Academy is a tuition-free, fully accredited online public charter school program. It utilizes public school curriculum textbooks and online schooling in the younger grades, switching to completely online programs at the upper grades.
Pros:
Cons:
Pros:
- Public school curriculum is provided free for your child's use.
- A supervising teacher will meet with you regularly to answer your questions and to provide support.
- Students are able to interact with other students via live lessons and field trips, including some in Roseburg.
- Extra-curricular options are available for free, including foreign language classes (starting in the 3rd grade) and various clubs such as chess, movies, cooking, music, etc.
- Scheduling is flexible as long as all semester work is completed within the semester.
- Teachers can customize assigned work to accommodate students with special needs, including transition issues. Large chunks of one subject at a time can be scheduled instead of doing every subject every single school day. If writing is an especially challenging thing for a student, the supervising teacher can exempt the child from some assignments or allow the child to verbally answer questions sometimes instead of writing out the answers.
- Students are able to advance faster through their curriculum by testing out of some semesters of work (for example, math), if they are gifted in a specific area and are ready to advance more quickly through the subject.
Cons:
- As your child grows, more of the curriculum will be online until eventually, it is all online.
- The curriculum is all public school curriculum based on Common Core principles.
- Religious curriculum isn't allowed, unless you choose to add a separate curriculum/textbook/materials in addition to what you're already expected to use.
- Your child will be enrolled as a public school student in the Scio School District in Scio, Oregon.
- State testing, including Smarter Balance, is done on an annual basis.
Oregon Virtual Academy (ORVA):
Oregon Virtual Academy is part of the K12 national curriculum program.
- Full-time, tuition-free, publicly -funded online public school option
- Support from Oregon-licensed teachers
- Students may earn college credit while in high school
- Compelling, high-interest courses that introduce a variety of possible careers
- An active, supportive school community
- A range of extracurricular activities
- A robust Advanced Learner Program
Pros:
- Free online public school program
- Families are allowed to opt out of immunizations and state testing, if they choose
Cons:
- In some states, K12 has been done well, and in other states, it has been a disaster. (Google reviews of K12 if you'd like more information.) It all depends on who's in charge, and who your supervising teacher is.
- Completely online program, which is great for some students and not good for others.
- The curriculum is all public school curriculum based on Common Core principles.
- Online students must be online a set number of hours per day to be counted as being in attendance, limiting your own family's schedule.
- Religious curriculum isn't allowed.
- Your child will be enrolled as a public school student in the North Bend School District on the Oregon coast.
- State testing, including Smarter Balance, is done on an annual basis.
Yoncalla School District Extended Options Program (for dual enrollment - college/high school)
The Expanded Options Program (EOP) was created in 2005 through Senate Bill 300 (SB 300) to provide high school students with additional options to continue or complete their education and to allow them to earn concurrent high school and college credits through Oregon’s community colleges and universities.
If accepted into the program, students take classes on or through Umpqua Community College (in person and/or online), and the student's sponsoring high school covers the cost of tuition and fees, including books, in many situations. To be eligible to apply, the student must be:
- 16 years of age or older at the time of enrollment and preparing to enter grade 11 or 12 (although Yoncalla High School has admitted a student in the past who was 15 during her first term at UCC as a high school junior).
- Currently enrolled in high school (public/private/homeschool), and
- On track to complete course requirements for graduation
If you are a homeschooled student preparing to enter your Junior year of high school, you’ll need to contact the principal or person in charge of the Expanded Options Program of the school district in which you intend to participate. Some high schools in the area have a waiver and DO NOT participate in the program. Umpqua Community College’s Expanded Options Program (EOP) works with the following high schools in Douglas County, Oregon for the 2017-2018 school year (hopefully, this is current – we tried): Baker Charter School, Camas Valley, Douglas, Glide, Elkton, North Douglas, Oakland, Oregon Virtual Academy, Phoenix, South Umpqua, and Yoncalla.
NOTE: If you live in a school district that doesn’t participate in the program, you can go to your district office and fill out a student transfer form to a school district that does participate in the program. I highly recommend Yoncalla High School’s EOP program as they have been doing this for a number of years. It may take a few days to receive your student transfer approval letter, but then you are eligible to participate in the program at the high school in which you want to enroll.
The following comments are geared toward students who decide to do the Expanded Options Program (EOP) through Yoncalla High School, since that’s what I’m the most familiar with.
How to be approved by Yoncalla High School to participate in their Expanded Options Program:
- Call Mr. Brian Berry at Yoncalla High School at (541) 849-2175 sometime before March 10th and arrange a meeting with him at the high school. He will explain how the program works, answer your questions, and give you the next steps to take to be approved. We recommend that you meet with Mr. Berry and apply for the program in the fall before your teen would be joining the program (basically, a year in advance.)
- Provide Mr. Berry with your student’s up-to-date high school transcript. Because your high schooler will be finishing his sophomore year, the transcript should contain all classes through the 1st semester of his sophomore year. You can update the transcript in June to include all coursework completed by the end of the school year. Mr. Berry may ask to see your high schooler’s homeschooling textbooks and assignments to help determine and validate the high school transcript you are turning in for your high schooler. If you need help doing this, please contact Julieanne at julestwin@gmail.com.
- Apply for admissions online at Umpqua Community College (mark it as “dual credit”) https://www.umpqua.edu/apply This is a very simple process, and you’ll know almost immediately whether or not your high schooler is admitted.
- Have your high school counselor or assigned staff member fill out the UCC EOP Google Docs Authorization Form. This will allow you to be coded as EOP for registration, which is crucial to the program so you don’t get billed for tuition, fees, and books. This will need to be done every quarter while attending UCC in the EOP program. For Yoncalla High School’s program, you would contact Brian Berry as mentioned above.
- Take any necessary placement tests https://www.umpqua.edu/take-placement-tests at UCC and the online orientation to UCC. http://www.umpqua.edu/orientation/ To take college placement tests, call the UCC Testing Center to figure out when they are open or look on their website (it varies from term to term or in the summer months.)
- You and your high schooler will need to meet with Mr. Berry again to help determine which classes to sign up for at UCC, after college placement tests at UCC have been taken. UCC will give your student a list of classes for which he or she is eligible to sign up.
- Make an appointment with a UCC guidance counselor to help select which exact courses to take during the various times of the week they are offered. I highly recommend going to www.ratemyprofessors.com before meeting with the guidance counselor because you can avoid the few professors at UCC who are less successful at teaching college classes.
- Register for the courses through Self-Service Banner https://www.umpqua.edu/register-for-classes or in person at the Welcome Center.
- In September, after class book lists are available in the bookstore, purchase your books at the UCC College Bookstore. Some high schools cover this expense, and others do not. Please check with your school. NOTE: Yoncalla High School covers this expense, or at least, has in the past. Once your high schooler is approved by Yoncalla High School, has taken placement tests, and has registered as an EOP student and registered for classes, the bookstore should receive notice that your high schooler won’t have to pay for his books.
- Start classes on the first day of the Academic Term. https://www.umpqua.edu/academic-calendar
Benefits of using the Expanded Options Program:
- Your high schooler will graduate with an official high school diploma and college credit. Your high schooler may graduate with an Associates of Arts (AA) degree, depending on which classes he or she takes. However, it is easy to provide your high schooler with your own high school diploma when he or she graduates from homeschooled high school, so if your only motivation in doing this program is so that your teen receives an “official” high school diploma, it’s not necessary to participate in this program to receive a diploma. You can order one at www.homeschooldiploma.com for an official looking diploma. Colleges these days don’t require an “official” high school diploma from homeschoolers.
- If you are a middle income family and haven’t set aside significant funds to cover college expenses (as in, $40,000), this is one way to get at least half of your high schooler’s bachelor degree paid for. Middle income families are generally only offered student loans for assistance.
- Your high schooler won’t have to worry about admittance to a four-year college or university since he or she will already have a college transcript from UCC for two years of schooling…unless your high schooler doesn’t receive good grades while attending UCC.
- Your teen will be placed into classes at his level, even if they are below college level coursework. Free tutoring is available at the tutoring center if your high schooler needs help.
- Your high schooler will be living at home with you, so you still have some control over courses that are taken, peer groups, and discussing concepts studied in classes.
- Your teen will be eligible to participate in public school sports and other club activities in the school district to which he has been accepted, even though may be exclusively taking college classes
Disadvantages of using the Expanded Options Program:
- Your teen won’t be under your direct influence with course subjects, professors, etc.
- Your teen will gain independence faster than normal (as compared to spending all four years of high school at home with you), and this may cause a few bumps in the road depending on the teen
- Your teen will need to comply with state testing every spring, generally in the month of May
- Your teen will not be eligible to participate in college level sports programs because he will be considered a member of the high school with whom he is working
If you know of any additional charter school programs that are able to operate in Oregon, please let us know! Here is another list of some charter school programs.
