Because he finished his first semester of Pre-Algebra this morning “before lunch”–as he proudly announced.  He then promptly laid out his progression of math and science from here.  Wow…

To meet my kid, you would never.  EVER. imagine this kind of motivation out of him…

And yet, he is FIRED. UP. today.  Seriously.  He will start the second semester of Pre-Algebra on Tuesday in hopes of finishing it up before July 4th.  He managed to finish the last semester in 75 days without TRYING to finish it quickly.  We will have 60 days to belt out the second semester TRYING to finish it quickly.

To be fair, we have longer than that; but July becomes a complete mess.  July 4th kicks off Papa’s vacation time for a week.   Then the boys are at Boy Scout camp for a week.  As soon as they get back, BigGuy starts 3 weeks of day-long astrophysics camp.

Once that’s done, he actually still has about 4-5 weeks of access to the class.  But a break like that might really do him in.  We’ll see…

Something we learned is that despite a previous 92% average in the course, if he didn’t get at least 70% on any assignment, he could not advance to the test for that unit.  They can resubmit homework as many times as needed to get a better grade (even if the initial grade was more than 70%) but they cannot get to the unit test unless all of the assignments are at least 70% or higher.

Of course, I see where the virtual school is coming from: the kids need to know the content and the teachers need to go however far is needed to help the kids get the content.  I appreciate that.

On the flip, if it’s one homework assignment and my kid’s not getting it and his overall average is in the 90s, I don’t really see the point.  It really depends on the content topic, but really… this is why I homeschool.

But I’m not “homeschooling” my child in math right now.  I’ve handed that over to the virtual school for that.  And just like enrolling your child in any school or program, you are subject to their rules and their program as it is–take it or leave it.  If the benefits outweigh the costs, you take it.  For now, we are taking this.