Dual Enrollment … how did that change your homeschool?

We did dual enrollment with our second oldest when he was a Jr and Sr. It worked well for us and once we move closer, I plan on taking advantage of it for our others as well. Since my oldest was going to the satellite college near here, my second oldest could ride in and out of town with him which kept it from causing too many interruptions for the youngers and myself. My oldest 2 are now in colleges close to each other but two hours away from us so I don’t have the transportation option for the younger group at this point.

Some “my child” specific information that might help some:
He took a Spanish class the first semester of his junior year. Picked this one since he still needed a foreign language, I don’t know one so I couldn’t teach it and we have yet to find a foreign language program that we actually like. It was wonderful to have that off my plate. It also helped him to see what classroom learning was like before he went to college.
Second semester he took a welding class. At this point, he had become very frustrated with everything mostly because he had absolutely no idea what he wanted to do after high school (made worse since his older brother knew exactly what he wanted to do by the time he was 14) so I encouraged him to look through the college catalog and pick something that he might be interested in. He is now pursing a welding technology degree at the community college a couple hours from here and LOVES it.
He skipped first semester Sr year to finish stuff up here. Then last semester, he took an English/writing class and Calculus so he could transfer those for his degree.
So for us, it fulfilled many different rolls: taking care of a class I couldn’t teach, helping him find what he was really interested in doing after high school and getting him a few classes ahead in his degree.

As far as home stuff: he did continue to do school at home during all but the last semester. He did all but the subjects mentioned above at home. He didn’t have anything else to finish up the last semester except what he covered in the dual enrollment. Since he was independent, he was able to adjust his schedule to the dual enrollment schedule. He and I touched base once a week on how he was feeling about the work load and worked through any issues as they came up.
Family subjects: he was gone 2  days a week during two of those semesters. We live in the country so he would ride in with his Dad and older brother and spend the time at the town library or the college library doing homework between his classes – the college is in a small town near here and is a small satellite college so this wasn’t an issue.  His brother also hung out with him between his classes and work schedule. Personally, I would have had a hard time with him being at the college all day twice a week if it was a big college or in a big city but that’s just my opinion. We choose to keep him involved with the family stuff anyway. To do that, we had two different read aloud books going – one for when Sam was home, one for when he was gone. We also assigned different enrichment subjects to the Sam-home days and the Sam-away days. He helped me choose which ones to do on his days home based on what he had already learned and what he was interested in learning. I found that all my kids (we have 7 youngers) looked forward to the different days.

It also proved to be a good transitional time for him and us. He was gone more and more as he got closer to graduation so the youngers (and me, truthfully) could adjust to him not being here all the time. That made his moving away for college this year easier. He also had a chance to try out a different learning environment and different teachers while still before heading out full time. He is now doing wonderfully in his college a couple hours from here.

If there is any other specific information I can give you or you are curious about, please let me know. I’d be happy to try to answer.

And, Missceegee, I totally agree: HOW can my babies be this old????

I think it depends on the student and their goals.  For my dd it isn’t the right fit, but who knows for future kiddos.

I know one young man who did it and it was a fit for him.  He transferred to unf with aa degree at 18.  He focused on marketing I think.  He’s 20 and a college grad with a job and and recently married.  It fit his goals and he would say worth it for him.

I think you have to decide kid by kid.

I think supplementing verses replacing depends on the child and what you want to still have control over.  It does change the atmosphere of homeschooling.  Your child is out of the house some and you have no authority over those classes.  But it is a wonderful experience for them, it gets them ahead, and helps them transition well.  I opted for supplementing and still having my high schoolers doing a few things with me.

Everything is mostly independent in high school anyway,  I just wanted them to still have some experience with the atmosphere of learning the CM way.   I wanted them to still be able to do morning time with us as much as possible- to experience poetry, art, music, Plutarch, etc… a little longer.  I still like discussing their readings with them and I like to review their science journals and have them share commonplace books with me.

We’ve used college classes for maths and extras like Psychology and Sociology.  But I still wanted them to do CM style Literature and History with me.

I have one child who is not at all interested in going to college.  However, next year, part of her homeschooling will involve taking a couple of classes at the local university.  This will give her a taste.  It may change her mind, it may confirm that she doesn’t like it, but either way, it wont hurt!

So my oldest and next youngest (twins) are two years apart. For her senior year, all three big kids dual enrolled and attended classes together. That was such a blessing. They started with 2 classes first semester and then 3 the following. The boys continued to dual enroll for the rest of high school. We live in a smaller town in Florida (versus Miami where we used to live) and they had church friends also there on the small campus. First semester I drove them, then they drove themselves.

I see the wisdom in it. They were very well prepared for classes with their CM education. It was a good transition to outside accountability, especially for the boys. I could not teach some of the subjects they took. I could not have done it justice. They performed so much more for the professor than they were doing for me. It is a bit mom-intense at times, because I was proof-reading so many papers. They have had amazing professors and horrible ones.  But both were learning experiences and profitable (so thankful for YouTube to learn a subject when you have to)!  We utilized their guidance counselor a lot. It was a good transition to entering the world and working out those awkward homeschool social quirks but yet remain different than the world.  They also got to see up close what “lostness” looks like and to learn to share their faith and stand up for truth.

For my younger kids, it was also an adjustment. Our schedule changed, and it revolved around the college year. It is hard to “do school” when big kids are off and wanting to go to the beach. When there are finals and papers, chores don’t get done as consistently. There were a lot of impromptu study groups at my house (keep frozen pizza handy). For the first few years, I still required some subjects from them at home (independently) and kept them working on good books I wanted them to read before graduating.

I am still praying about whether next child will dual enroll and when/how much. She will not have siblings there and is more impressionable. I will wait to see maturity and may take her and wait there in the parking lot and do a read aloud with the youngest while we wait. I still have 2yrs to figure it out. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to utilize dual enrollment. I received a lot of positive feedback from professors praising the love of learning and maturity they saw in my kids (compared to those who were never homeschooled) and even praised me for doing a good job with them. That was really nice and comforting to know they were well prepared.