What To Consider Before Joining A Homeschool Co-op

 This is the first homeschool year that I haven't had any weekly homeschool obligations outside of the house.

When my oldest was in Kindergarten and first grade we did a community Bible study on Wednesdays.  Even though it wasn't technically a homeschool group, lots of homeschool families attended the Bible study, so in a way it provided some homeschool social time for us.

When Wyatt was in 2nd grade, we started a weekly homeschool co-op, and we did that for two years.  The first year we did Bible study and co-op, until I discovered that having two obligations during the week was too much for us. Last school year we did only co-op once a week.  

Then toward the end of last year I made the decision that we wouldn't be doing co-op or Bible study this year.  It ended up being a very good decision for us in this life phase, and I may write more about it in a separate post, but for now, I thought I would write out a few things to consider before jumping into a co-op.  

(Our messy school area.)

Some of these points are things that I did think about before we joined our co-op, and some of them are things that I started to consider while we were in our co-op.  I had a really great experience with our homeschool co-op, and I loved all the families who were a part of it!  I may even consider re-joining at a future date, so I am not writing this post from either a pro-co-op or anti-co-op stance.  These are just a few things to think about.

1. Does the co-op have a statement or belief or values?  Does it fit with your educational philosophy?  

I was blessed that the co-op we were a part of was a solid Christian co-op that shared our values.  I cannot imagine being a part of a co-op that didn't consist of families with similar beliefs - because the classes in co-ops are usually taught by the moms, I think a situation where there is no unifying statement of faith or values could get messy very quickly. The second factor to consider is whether your educational philosophy matches up with the co-ops goals.  Some co-ops are very focused on one educational philosophy, and if that is not a philosophy you are following, you may have a hard time keeping pace with the work.  The co-op I was a part of was a classical co-op, but had a great policy that the moms where still in charge of their own children's education - so if there were aspects of the work I decided not to do, that was fine.  

2. How much time away from the house will co-op take? How many days will we be out of the house? 

If you are going to commit to something like a co-op, I think you need to carefully consider how much time it will take, and what other things you may have going on during the week.  Even though I firmly believe it's fine to occasionally do school on the go, you still need to have a solid amount of time at home for your kids to be able to get their homeschool work done.  This was the mistake I made the year I decided to do Bible study and co-op at the same time - I found that for us, we needed more than three days at home in order to make progress on our curriculum.  If you are on the go too much, some things are just not gong to get done.  If you choose to do a once-a-week co-op, you may end up having to say no to other things.

3. What subjects/classes does the co-op cover?  How much homework does the co-op require?  

Co-ops are going to vary widely on these two questions - most co-ops do not cover every curriculum subject, and it's helpful to think about what kind of co-op would be most useful for your homeschool.  Would you like a co-op that covers some of the core subjects, like math, writing, science, and history?  Or would you rather be part of a co-op that covers enrichment subjects and do your own thing for the core subjects?  If the co-op does do the core subjects, do you like the curriculum they use?  These are all things to think about.  Another consideration is how much homework is given for the co-op classes, and whether there are consequences if you decide not to do any of the assignments (ie. how much control are you retaining as the mom). Unfortunately this is one thing you may not be able to know until you start the co-op. If the homework is significant enough that a good chunk of your week is going to be spent getting ready for co-op, I'd encourage you to spend some time considering if you are okay with that.

4. What kind of commitments does the co-op require from the moms?  

For most co-ops, the moms are the ones teaching different classes, and if you are going to be part of the co-op, you have to be prepared to put some time into teaching a class as well.  Make sure you are aware of how many classes you will have to help with or teach, and how much at-home preparation time and expense that will require.  

Most organized co-ops also have a fee to join the co-op, and ultimately this is a good thing, because the co-op can pay for the shared class materials this way.  If there is no defined fee (or even if there is) you'll want to find out what kinds of things you may have to pay for yourself during the school year.  Make sure you know all the commitments up front, because co-ops are usually very reliant on every family doing their part in order to run smoothly.  

5.  Will participating in this co-op enhance the things that are important to our family, or take time or energy away from those things?  

This question actually sums up my other four points - this is the question at the core.  Before joining a co-op, I'd carefully consider the level of energy your family has in this stage of your life, the activities your family likes to do, the curricula you most want to use, and the values that are important to you, and make sure that participating in the co-op will work with those things and not against them.  A co-op can be a really good and wonderful thing, but even wonderful things can take time away from the most important things.  

For my family, we ended up taking a step back from our co-op ultimately for this last reason.  I realized that after participating for two years, I needed a little more flexibility at this stage in our homeschool journey.  At the time I had multiple preschool kids, and not having that flexibility to miss co-op when we had a rough week or one of the kids didn't sleep was really difficult during that phase.  

If we had a week that left me drained of energy, just keeping up with the work for co-op was the best I could do, and some of the enrichments subjects I really wanted to incorporate were the things that were dropped.  The last year of co-op I realized that we were just not getting to some subjects or books that I had slotted for the school year because of my internal pressure to keep up with the work we were doing at co-op.  Though our co-op was wonderful overall, and no one put any intentional pressure on us, I decided we needed to step back for a bit so I could sort through what sorts of things were most important for our own family's homeschool, and make sure I was leaving space for those things.  

Before last fall, I had never really had a year in our homeschool journey where I was intentional about how we would use each day, what we would spend our time on.  I had too many outside activities that took my time and energy away from homeschooling (Bible study, MOPS, co-op), and those activities dictated how I needed to use some of our time at home.  I decided I needed to cut everything out for a year so we could find out own rhythm for homeschooling.  

That's what this year has been for us.  We haven't had any regular activities that occur during the school day, leaving the entire week open for me to structure in the way that is best for our family.  Because of our wide-open schedule, we have finally been able to commit more time to some of the subjects that were falling through the cracks before.  

I've also been much more relaxed with the kids on our core subjects, because I know if we are having a rough time one day, the lack of things on our calendar give us the ability to catch up later in the week.  That's a flexibility I find we need right now with preschoolers and young elementary kids who can't do their lessons on their own.  As my kids grow and become more independent and responsible with their core subjects, we may find that we have room for a co-op again.

Have you ever been a part of a homeschool co-op?  How did you find a balance between your co-op and the rest of your school week?