Q&A

Can kids move between the full time and part time programs? Yes. If your child is enrolled in a part-time class one year, you can change your enrollment in subsequent years to the full-time class. Or vice versa. Decisions about students who would like to switch are dependent on spots available.

What does parent/family involvement look like? In the spirit of community and to keep administrative costs down, we ask each family to contribute either volunteer hours and/or an additional financial supplement to support the success of the school. Many families choose a combination of these options, depending on their family’s resources. The annual requirement is set at 40hrs/$1000 for 5-day families, 24hrs/$600 for 3-day families and 16hrs/$400 for 2-day families (requirements for single-parent families are halved). 

Do you have before and after school care? Our students use a couple different after-school programs nearby. Red Oak staff walks those students to their after school programs.

Will I have to register as a homeschooling family if I enroll my children in your program? Yes. All students at Red Oak will register as homeschoolers. We will provide all the paperwork with your local school superintendent, as well as providing the necessary assessments that each student will need to have when they file in subsequent years. This also allows all Red Oak families to receive various teacher discounts at several local businesses!

What if my child needs/wants to transfer to another school? Admission to other schools looks very similar to what any other student may experience. However, since our students are homeschoolers, you would simply provide your annual homeschool assessment form (Red Oak provides these annually to all of its students) instead of school transcripts. Most public schools (CCS included) do not require any testing to determine which grade students would be placed in, they simply place the child based on their age.

Private schools in Columbus also have a similar admissions process for homeschoolers. The only difference would be that you would provide letters of recommendation (1-2) from teachers, the student’s portfolio and your annual homeschool assessment form instead of a school transcript. Red Oak will provide all of these documents to families. However, most private schools DO require students to take a standardized test for admission, but this is required of ALL their applicants.

Are there sibling discounts? We understand that the cost of an alternative education for your children can sometimes put a strain on finances. At this time we are unable to provide sibling discounts.

What are the backgrounds of your educators? Our educators come from varied backgrounds, from teaching in public schools, private schools and having homeschooled their own children. Some of our educators have informal educational training and some have professional degrees/licenses.

What about clothing requirements? The kids will be required to wear weather appropriate clothing when they are dropped off for school each day. This includes any necessary rain jackets, rain pants and rain boots during warmer weather. During the winter months students are required to have waterproof/resistant winter coat, insulated snow pants, insulated snow boots, hat, gloves and warm socks. Students are also required to have an extra change of clothes in their backpacks/cubbies throughout the year.

Will there be other fees for activities? When there are field trips, those will be paid only by students attending the field trips. The school doesn’t add anything to those fees and we try to keep them under $10/trip.

How will you deal with discipline issues? We tend to say that no one “gets in trouble” here at Red Oak. Conflict management is a big part of the work that we do and kids often need guidance navigating conflicts. This is a safe place to make mistakes and when someone has made a mistake, they are given support and guidance through the process of making amends with their peers and/or teachers.

While we don’t do punishments here, some actions do have consequences. If a student is behaving in a way that might not be keeping themselves or others safe and hasn’t been able to listen to teachers and adjust their behavior, they may be asked to sit out an activity. However, we always work with the student during that time to try and trouble-shoot ways to make better choices next time. If a student has consistently struggled with behavioral issues, we will work with the student to come up with a student support plan, share it with parents, then re-address in a couple of weeks.

We see behavior as communication and attempt to get to the root of the problem, rather than punish bad behavior.

I’ve never homeschooled. Will you tell us what to do on our “homeschool” days? Nope! It is the responsibility of each family to decide how to spend your school days at home. We have a support network and lists of resources that our families have used in the past, but it is 100% up to you how you want to approach homeschooling. We have many un-schoolers and some families who use more traditional homeschool curriculums.