Home-school charter offers alternative for families

Academy presents personalized study



EAGER TO LEARN—Emily Wells, a home-schooling parent at River Oaks Academy charter school, reads with her children Quinn, 7; Winston, 6;, and Maxfield, 13, in one of the classrooms on Aug. 20.

EAGER TO LEARN—Emily Wells, a home-schooling parent at River Oaks Academy charter school, reads with her children Quinn, 7; Winston, 6;, and Maxfield, 13, in one of the classrooms on Aug. 20.

At the end of every summer, Emily Wells spends several hours reviewing the state education standards and planning her curriculum for the coming school year.

But the Westlake Village resident is not a credentialed teacher.

She’s a stay-at-home mother of four who’s been home-schooling her children for more than a decade.

Wells’ eldest child, 20-yearold Cambria, is now entering her sophomore year at UC Santa Barbara. But the local mom still teaches Max, 13; Quinn, 7; and Winston, 6, at home.

“For me, the best thing about home schooling is just the flexibility,” she said. “We can travel in the middle of the school year if we want to. And we have a lot of flexibility when it comes to the curriculum.”

The Wells family is one of the founding families of River Oaks Academy—a parent-initiated, public K-12 home-school charter program sanctioned in 2010 by the Ventura County Office of Education.

The 130- student charter school, headquartered in Westlake Village, will begin its fourth school year Sept. 3. About 60 percent of the students live in eastern Ventura County, while the remaining pupils live in Los Angeles County.

Personalized curriculum

Although her kids were part of the home-school program at Las Virgenes Unified School District for six years, Wells said she eventually started to feel limited by the program’s requirements.

“Don’t get me wrong: Las Virgenes was a blessing,” she said. “But I wanted something different for my children.”

Unlike home- school programs offered by public school districts, River Oaks is not bound to specific textbook or curriculum requirements.

Claudia Weintraub, director of River Oaks, said the program uses a “passion-driven process of exploration and creation” to help students achieve state standards.

“We create a love of learning by tapping into the ideas, thoughts and passions these kids already have,” she said. “When we’re passionate about something, we become way more energetic and way more creative.”

Weintraub said students and their parents work directly with one of six credentialed teachers to identify themes of personal interest, which can then be intertwoven with content standards to build a personalized curriculum.

“Little Johnny might really love trains or automobiles,” she said. “Then you can try to bring that in and try to create a curriculum around it. The moment you can go more in-depth in any subject matter and tie in something (the student) loves, they’ll become more focused.”

Home classroom

While River Oaks students spend about three to four hours a day learning at home, they also have the option of attending River Oaks- sponsored workshops and going on field trips throughout the week.

Workshops include video game design, cartooning, music classes and science labs. Regular field trips include park, beach and museum outings.

“Some activity groups are organized by the parents,” Weintraub said. “Sometimes parents form co-ops with one another, where their students will get together and the parents take turns teaching their own specialty. It’s like their own little schoolhouse.”

Wells, who spends Sunday nights gathering worksheets and planning the weekly lessons for her three home-schooled students, said being mom and teacher simultaneously can sometimes be a little hectic.

But Max, her incoming eighth-grader, works well independently, so she can focus more on her younger kids, she said.

“We’re able to cater things to our home-schoolers without having to explain to (district administrators) that ‘yes, this is a good and valid way to teach your kid,’” she said. “If you’re teaching a class of 30, there are ways to make it productive. But when you’re working one-on-one . . . it’s a completely different paradigm.”

The office of River Oaks Academy is at 880 Hampshire Road, Ste. S, in Westlake Village. For more information, visit www.theriveroaksacademy.com.


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