Good Local News – Another Catholic Homeschool Co-Op Starts This Year January 16, 2017
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, catachesis, Dallas Diocese, Domestic Church, family, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, North Deanery, priests, Restoration, sanctity, Society, true leadership, Virtue.trackback
A hearty thanks go out to Fr. Cliff Smith, pastor of St. Mark parish in Plano, for making this new Catholic homeschool Coop a reality. Starting next fall, St. Mark in Plano will host the area’s second Catholic homeschool cooperative for older students. Currently there is one at Mater Dei that meets on Thursdays and is intended primarily for high school students, this new one will meet on Tuesdays and be for grades 7-12. A few details below:
Several of our group members met with St. Mark the
Evangelist Catholic Church in Plano this week, and they are welcoming us to start a Catholic homeschool co-op next school year to serve students in 7th grade through high school. It has been named the Collin County Catholic Co-op (C4).We will be meeting in the Smyth Pastoral Center on Tuesdays.
The day will start with morning Mass at 8:30am and have classes following after Mass through the afternoon.
Well that is good news. As I’m sure almost any homeschooling parents can relate, as kids enter middle and high school teaching all the advanced and complex subjects can be quite taxing. Cooperatives like this help spread the burden by hiring teachers for these subjects. Without them, a mom might be faced with simultaneously teaching 10 or more high school subjects on her own – a daunting task. Coops also provide a great outlet for kids to meet other kids being raised by parents of good will.
Fr. Smith has long been very supportive of homeschoolers and deserves recognition for that. He is taking his support a step further by enabling this new co-op to use parish facilities. I’m sure there will be many local Catholics thankful for his generosity. Anything that encourages the spread and execution of homeschooling is much appreciated. I pray even more parents in the North Dallas area will embrace this wonderful way of raising children with this latest opportunity.
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Good to know, thanks!
Is the Mater Dei Coop available to non-parishioners?
Yes
Sorry for the triple post! There is also a coop in Keller called Schola Rosa DFW, and another in Frisco called Salve Regina. I don’t have any experience with either, but they are there.
So the difference between a co-op and a public or private school is what ? The values taught ? So if homeschoolers were satisfied with the values / theology taught in a Catholic or public school, would they still homeschool ?
Different folks home school for different reasons.
For some it’s the values/theology taught at the school.
For some its the values of the peer groups at school, likely to have a major impact on your child’s values.
For others, it’s the style of education offered at the school.
Some have special needs kids that they feel they can give more attention to at home.
And there are lots of other reasons families might choose to home school.
So, different families would all answer your question differently.
Sometimes a co-op can fill the role of giving your child a better education in some subjects without demanding a 5 day a week commute or subjecting your kids to the influence of the adults/kids at the co-op all week.
I’m a public school grad, as is my wife. Neither of us spent a day in private school. But schools have changed drastically since we were students 30+ years ago. There is far more indoctrination in leftism, and far more promotion of gravely immoral material. Some of it was not wanting our kids to make the same mistakes we (really – I) did. Some of it is to have a much more explicitly religious education. Some of it is concern over the other kids our children would be exposed to.
Yes the value of a co-op is that you don’t have to have mom and/or dad embarking on subjects they are little prepared to undertake after decades away from academics, and also having to teach 25 different subjects to 4 or 5 different kids, simultaneously. It’s a concentration and division of labor into an efficient means. The kids in the co-op are all homeschooled and generally come from like-minded households, but that does not mean there are no problems. Everything comes with a cost – a co-op provides many benefits, but also has drawbacks. That’s why it’s important for parents to stay involved and closely scrutinize the co-op, who is doing the teaching, the other students and families, etc. Fortunately most of these co-ops are small so this scrutiny is not an onerous effort. But co-ops are not perfect, there have been problems with certain teachers at the one our kids have been to, mostly because they are young and not as Catholic as we might like. But for us a co-op has been a definite positive overall.
Thank you Fr. Smith! This co-op will be a huge blessing to the Catholic homeschooing populace in the area. It is very good to see the number of Catholic families who are continuing to homeschool through high school and now many more will be encouraged to do so b/c there is a academic & social community for them closer than Irving.
St. Mark’s has been the most consistently friendly parish to Catholic homeschoolers in this area- there have been some ups & downs, but more the former than latter. 3 Hail Mary’s for you right now Father, and a rosary intention in our family rosary.