Kapil and I have new jobs for the yearlong trip. Along with our jobs as travel agents, photographer/historians, and parents/partners, we will now be teachers of the 1st, 3rd, and 7th grades! We figured that Kaysee (1st grade) and Kenza's (3rd grade) schooling should be pretty easy (basic reading, journaling, and some math workbooks), but knew that we would need to make sure that Zayan (7th grade) was academically prepared.

Our work plan included meetings with the district and each school to better understand what the requirements were for successful reentry after a year abroad. We learned that we just need to show a transcript/report card from our year abroad and they suggested that we enroll in an online accredited program, K12. For those of you who might consider doing this one day with your tribe, read on :)

In talking to K12, we learned about three different options: 1) Free K12 online public school, 2) K12 International Academy--a full online private school experience, and 3) Keystone--A semi-private/independent combination program. Given our priorities (of experiential learning in the classroom of the world and building family memories) and potentially unreliable internet access, it was clear that options 1 and 3 were not good solutions for us. Instead, we chose to go with the flexible hybrid option of Keystone + Independent Study.

Each child completed English Language Arts (ELA) and math placement tests and we customized an educational package for them--each involving ELA, math, history, science, and Spanish. Really, the only "majority online" course is Zayan's 7th/8th grade math class--which means that Kapil and I will be "teachers" for most of the year. Accordingly, we filed an affidavit as homeschool teachers with the State of California. We were instructed to assign ourselves both the administrator and educator roles of our "school." Perhaps a new Linked In resume entry for us?

The total cost for the year (for all three kids) is $3,848.84, which includes all printed materials and access to the online materials, portal, and instructors for a 12-month period. After paying the fee, we received 5 boxes of materials (each box averaging 30lbs)! Aaaahhh!! I spent the next few weeks going through each box and trimming our materials down to something more manageable.

The real master plan is to make sure that the kids continue their love for reading, engage in journal and letter/blog-writing, keep up their math skills while on planes, and pick up Spanish over the six months that we live in Spanish-speaking countries. The history and science will come with the places we are visiting. The younger two will focus on global geography (perfect!) and the older one will be studying ancient cultures (Egypt should be fun). For the science kits, my plan is to do them in the summer and ditch the weight as we go...but this is the area we might take some discretionary license as "Head of School" because I am not carrying a microscope (though they sent us one)!

Will report on this as we go and learn more!