Skype and Travel Tutor for Family RTW Trip
 

We're planning our second family RTW trip. The first one we "roam schooled" our kids and it didn't go spectacularly well.

I've been talking with tutors in LA about the possibility of Skype tutoring and meeting us on the road for 2 or 3 in-person intensives of 1 to 2 weeks.

Does anyone have a recommendation of where I might find tutors experienced in this?

What ages and how long are you going to be gone for?

We worked with our public school district, but we are fortunate to have a really exceptional independent study program in our district. For example- my older daughter could email in writing assignments, get them back from her teacher with extensive comments, then email revisions back- I think she learned more about writing from that teacher than any of her in person teachers before or since!

That sounds to me like the hard way to do things.

Why not cyberschool?

My kid was in a K12 cyber school (http://www.k12.com) for 4 years and it worked quite well when we were traveling a lot.

They will be 13 and 14. They will miss two months of school on a five month trip. Maybe we will leave a little earlier if we have a great independent study option set up. We did a RTW trip four years ago and based on that experience we really want to have one-on-one tutoring - as well as a professional to track their progress. Let's just say that it did not go well with my wife and I running the boys curricula. Actually, as I've done my research I've gotten quite excited about the potential learning that the boys can do one-on-one with a teacher/tutor during this period.

A good cyber school has a credentialed teacher overseeing the students progress and regular one-on-one sessions. Work done in one is also generally accepted as proof of learning when/if the student returns to a conventional school, which is particularly important when you start to think about transcripts for college. A 14 year old is not too young to start looking ahead toward college planning. ISP's and private tutors might not be accepted as proof of learning by a conventional school.

Don't know what state you are in, but quite a few states now have public cyber charters. California does.

In some states, you can "homeschool" via the internet without paying for the internet based school yourself. Some states also subsidize distance learning courses from their state university for high school students.

Yes. Our independent study through our school district was entirely free and since it was the same curriculum as our local public schools transfer was seamless when we switched back to regular public schools.

What you're describing is usually a public cyber chart. A few school districts offer their own cyber programs, but generally those are restricted to residents of the district and traveling families might not be eligible (at least they aren't in my state).

If you're traveling temporarily but maintain a home and pay taxes, you should still be considered a resident.

The local school district here requires students to be physically present in the district to be enrolled in their cyber program. The state public cyber charters here don't.

That's unfortunate, ours didn't seem to care where we were as long as we checked in regularly and all assignments were turned in.

The other families I have known who did this, brought a teacher with them. Consider it, you pay for travel and expenses and many might jump at the opportunity. I'm sorry I don't have any details on how they worked it out or the exact money it required.