By Akilah Johnson
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Apparently, a growing number of Broward’s home-schooled children are receiving part of their education outside of home.
A Plantation learning center that usually focuses on math prodigies started a program last year that specifically aimed at helping home-schooled kids boost their logic, computer programming and math skills. The Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science IMACS for short cut its prices, so kids could spend a morning a week studying at the facility.
Well it worked, according to IMACS. And this year, the center said it plans to expand the program by offering additional math classes and giving parents the choice of dropping off their kids on Tuesday or Thursday.
Kelly Salsamendi, a mother of three who home-schools her children, enrolled her oldest in the pilot-program: a computer programming and virtual robotics class.
“There are some subjects, such as computer programming, that I’d prefer to hand off to experts in that field”, Salsamendi said.
Salsamendia’s kids were part of the nearly 61,000 statewides 2,800 in Broward’ who were educated at home last year, according to the Florida Department of Education.
Some quick home-school facts: parents don’t have to have a specific educational background, but they must tell the state that they plan to educate their kids at home. A record of student work must be kept on hand, and state law requires students take one of five academic tests each year.
This article originally published August 26, 2009, and has been republished with permission.