Staying home, sleeping in and doing your homework whenever you want. The most popular belief of home school is just that. Because there’s no set time for schoolwork, some think this is the ideal version of school. Junior Gabriella Crowley has the experience needed to confirm home school’s assumed greatness.
“I was homeschooled in 9th grade,” Crowley said. “Usually I would get up early and then I would start off with an easier class to ease into it and then go into some of my harder classes.”
Crowley’s first year of high school was different from other students. She went to school online using K-12.
“I would log into the classroom and they would have lessons set up. Every week we would have a class connect, and all the students would go on Skype, and the teachers would teach and go over the lessons,” Crowley said.
K-12 is a publicly traded education management organization that offers online schooling to students. Its educational products and services are designed as alternatives to traditional “brick and mortar” education for public school students from kindergarten to 12th grade.
“The opportunities I got with K-12 were unbeatable. I think everybody should spend at least a year doing that,” Crowley said.
Crowley began homeschooling after entering Freshman Academy. She said this was because it wasn’t challenging enough.
“I didn’t really feel like I was getting the education I needed in freshman academy,” Crowley said. “I felt like I needed more out of school than what I was getting.”
After a year of home school, Crowley had to return to public school because of the cost of K-12. Despite this, Crowley still talks highly of her experience there.
“I absolutely loved it. I could spend as much or as little time as I needed. I didn’t have to go at someone else’s pace,” Crowley said. “If I felt like I could get ahead of the class, I would but if I felt like I needed to stay in one section because I didn’t really get it, I could do that too.”
Despite all the differences between public school and online home school, the one thing that remained the same was homework. Just because it was home school, Crowley was still required to do work after school hours.
“I would do work sheets for geometry and I had to take pictures of my projects for science. There was outside reading for English,” Crowley said. “It was kind of like regular school.”
Crowley said she had no trouble with loneliness. She connected with many other students during the weekly meet ups of Skype Connect as well as her teachers.
“I like being here, but I really miss all the friends I made in K-12 and the connections I could have with my teachers. I could have one to one sessions with them whenever I needed,” Crowley said.
Seeing all the different people who attended K-12 inspired Crowley. She said she loved the opportunity to meet people all around the world. With K-12, she wasn’t limited to the people around her.
“There were people from the Philippines and London. There were actors and models. There was even this one kid who was in the junior league for golf,” Crowley said. “They all had different reasons for being there.”
Having seen and experienced both types of school, online and public, Crowley said that, given the chance she would choose online in a heartbeat. She has a few complaints when it comes to public school.
“There’s not enough focus on academics. For example, they spend so much money on this new building, and yet they don’t have enough books for class. That really bothers me,” Crowley said.
Crowley is working on planning her future, but for now, she’s only decided on going to college.
“My mom says I have to spend a least a year in the US, but I want to go to college in Japan. So I plan on spending my first year here and then spending a year abroad there to see if I like it,” Crowley said.
When it comes to long time goals, Crowley said she doesn’t have a lot figured out yet besides a general idea. She said she wants to pursue her passion: languages.
“I want to do something with languages. That’s one thing I found out going to online school,” Crowley said. “I got to take German and Japanese and I just fell in love with those languages.”
