This is follow-up post to this, in which I was asking advice on how to improve the situation for my 13 year old daughter's 16 year old boyfriend who is still in middle school due to moving a lot. The boy is bright and mature but has been overlooked and is now struggling to relate to his younger classmates. In the comments people were suggesting he get his GED or go to online school. I am skeptic of a GED because it won't prepare him for college the way a school can, and I am skeptic of online school because I don't see how he will make more friends being in online school than being with younger classmates. Nonetheless, I informed him of the possibilities.The boy did not seem that keen on online school, he would rather have a traditional high school experience, but as he is older than his classmates it might be too late for that experience and he was open to looking at online schools. He did say it seems to take what's supposed to be fun out of school and only leave the work part though. He also expressed concern regarding his abilities to sit at home and study in front of his laptop each day all alone without any teachers or classmates physically present to provide motivation, companionship and structure. We had an idea for him to take online school during summers to catch up a year in high school, but still have 3 (instead of 4) years of local high school and the opportunity to have lab, gym, oral presentations and group work.So first thing he did was call the high school to ask if they accept online credit to which they replied no without any further explanation. I decided to call the day after to ask the same question but regarding my daughter, who was also part of the discussion and offered to take the online classes with him so he wouldn't have to study all summer all by himself. I spoke with an administrator who said that it is in the school policy that they don't accept online credit and there is no way around it. So this plan failed, and the next idea we had was to see if there is an online school which will accept the majority of the credit from a local school and still provide a diploma. When we started looking at online schools we found some which are accredited and expensive and some which are not. At a first glance the accredited ones seem to be of higher quality. Does anyone have any input on the importance of online schools being accredited? Does anyone have an online school with high quality classes and teaching to recommend?Since the accredited online schools we found cost money the kid talked to his mother who is completely against online schooling and not willing to pay anything towards an accredited school, but if they turn out to be the best option I would be willing to help out there. Unfortunately though, the accredited schools we found during this first search all seem to require the majority of the credits be taken at the online school and not be transfered from a local school. This would be a drawback. The reason he wants to take classes at the local school is not only that online classes seem to require a lot more effort (discipline) and less reward/ feedback. It is also important to him that he gets to take the classes he cares the most about, such as math and science, at the local school to have a better opportunity to properly learn the material.This led us to talking about how the local school performs slightly below the national average and realistically he won't be getting a good education there either. In light of this, he said he should perhaps just do an online school so he can move on in life and get out of this town. (We live in a 12 000 people town about 3 hours away from what I would call city, by the way.) At this point my daughter said she will then join him because leaving someone at home to do 4 years of school all by themselves is torture. I suggested they then start by taking some online classes this summer to see how it goes and decide after that if they want to continue online school or go to the local school. My daughter said that for her to take online classes this summer there has to be some real possibility that those classes will count into her or his high school diploma because she doesn't want to be doing any work that doesn't directly lead to anything.So, that's about where we are at right now. As a father, I am very hesitant about my daughter going to online high school instead of local high school as there are things learned in local high school that online high school can't provide, such as (non-online) interacting with peers, teachers, participating in after school clubs and sports, group work, oral presentations, lab work, lab reports, social events, and so on. When it comes to the boy, there is the drawback of him being behind his peers in local high school to consider, and I don't know if online high school is a better option. Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, but my gut instinct tells me that he should be patient and graduate the local high school 2 years behind his peers and it will benefit him long-term, but I don't know. I don't know what advice to give him. So that's why I'm asking for additional input, this time on online schools.I might end the post here, but I'd like to also update you on the outcome of some of the other advice I received in the previous post. It was suggested he call the high school sports team to see if he can play with them (he is too old to play with the middle school teams). He was hesitant to say the least when I suggested this, but he agreed it was worth at least giving it a try. If he didn't like it he didn't have to keep practicing with them, if he got lucky he might make friends (and he better call the coach immediately if he wanted to have a chance to make some friends before summer vacation). The coach was very friendly and welcomed him to practice the same day. I left work early and took him (if he continues playing with them he will have to figure out some other way to get to practice as the middle school and high school are quite far apart). He was definitely the best player at practice and afterwards one of the seniors came up and invited both him and my daughter to a party the following day (yesterday)... (yes, they went, and nobody got hurt but I don't think they enjoyed themselves). So to summarize, I don't know if he will make friends or even continue on this team, but at least he is trying something. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2qmR9uA
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