Why I Chose an Online Public School

Hello, my name is Lee Anne.  I am a stay at home mom with two young children, a daughter (aged 9) and a son (who is 6). 

Last year we moved to a new town and when I went to enroll my children into school I found out that the bus would not pick them up for school.  Since we did not have a vehicle, this would mean that my son (then 5) and my daughter (8 at the time) would have to walk the 9 1/2 blocks each morning to school and then walk those same 9 1/2 blocks every afternoon to get back home. 

That may not have been bad at certain times of the year but in Oklahoma the weather can be extremely hot for the first month or so of school and winter temperatures can be bitter. 

After trying to work out something with the bus depot where they could walk to the stop a couple of blocks away and failing (miserably I might add — the head of the bus depot was down right rude!), I tried contacting the superintendents office.  The only luck I had there was the secretary giving me the number for K12.  I’m sure you’ve probably seen the ads for their virtual charter academy, they are everywhere.  I had even considered calling to get information in the past but had decided that it would be way to hard to do.

Since I was out of options with the regular school system I decided to call K12 and find out about it, thinking that I would try it for this year and by next year we would put them back in “regular” school when we could drive them back and forth. 

After requesting the information and finding out more about the program I became much less skeptical about it.  I decided it wouldn’t be too bad and it was just for a year right?

I almost gave up when the enrollment process took longer than I thought it would (since we enrolled late, it was harder to get district approval). 

At first it was a little overwhelming, especially when the boxes of supplies showed up!  I was still worried that I would not be able to do this properly.  It had been years since I’d been in school and although I was good at math, language arts, and history I wasn’t sure if I could handle the science (my most hated subject when I was in school) or the art (I can’t draw a straight line to save my life!). 

What I found out was that they give you every resource you need to be effective.  It was still a little confusing at first and it took us awhile to find our “groove” but once we started thinking outside the box we really found a way to make this work out great for us.

My purpose for this blog is to let other families know what online public schools are like, what to expect, what other resources are available to you, to show you how we made it work for us, etc.

Welcome to my blog!