Looking into all our options before taking my boys out of public school. We have a K-12 independent study program in our district. I was wondering how well it works for children with IEPs. Our home district (we’re on inter-district transfer) agreed to pay for our private speech therapist (looong story). Would the district still provide services with independent study? Or is it just inviting “big brother” to overwhelm us with bureaucratic policies.
From the other side, I used to grade correspondence/independent study courses for a few years. In our area, the courses themselves were very well-designed and generally well-written and there was a good plan. But the person administering the system believed in taking the path of least resistance, and instead of giving the kids the years’ curriculum and encouraging them to set up a schedule as recommended, he gave them one high-school course at a time and told them they could just sit down and finish it off in a week, get rid of the year’s school work in a couple of months. Oddly enough, the graduation rate was exactly 0%
I have done correspondence courses myself in advanced university mathematics and linguistics. Being the classic procrastinator I used a lot of express mail getting the assignments in; but courses with a deadline and schedule can work out quite well.
So remember, in independent learning even more than anything else, you get out of it what you put into it.