Homeschooling options in PR?

Hello,


My family and I  are looking for the best homeschool programs in PR.  We are considering a move to the NW part of the island.  We have a soon to be 1st grader and a soon to be 2nd grader that we would like to homeschool.  We have not found any helpful info regarding this topic anywhere online.  We would love to hear the experience of the expats that have already gone thru this or are currently going thru this.  Thanks.

A lot of Expats home school in PR, now with the quarantine a lot of people are considering it even more.
Check FAcebook groups with homeschooling in their name, some are in Spanish but if you ask for help in English they will respond.

Hi there, we moved to Palmas full time in 2017. My daughter has been in private school  here but I have decided to homeschool next year. We have a couple of homeschool groups here in Palmas, one even does a sort of co-op.  I chose an online platform as I also run my companies from home and cant focus on homeschool 100%. The platform I chose has a great facebook support page that is super helpful too.  I will say that you will be overwhelmed at first but will find your footing pretty quickly. Happy to help anyway I can, just reach out.

I know the poster asked for homeschooling options IN Puerto Rico but, if online is an acceptable option, I would really like to recommend Time4Learning. My daughter has been homeschooling since she was, like, four years old. She attends school here in PR but we continue with T4L. It was one of the best priced programs out at the time I was researching and my daughter is (almost) breezing through PR Public because T4L has done such a great job.

I am not the best student and was freaked out at what I imagined it took to homeschool but T4L does much of the teaching a lessons through games and funny/entertaining vids. I am in NO WAY associated with T4L, outside of being a patron, but I am really impressed and pleased with the program. Suerte!

There are several homeschooling entities in PR, many of them have pages in Facebook. Enter homeschooling and Puerto Rico and they will pop up.

Personally, I would stay away from FB, which is selling all your private data.
There are so many on-line resources for homeschooling!
If you know how to browse, you will find plenty of programs to your taste and standard.
But keep in mind that your children would need to be tested every year using a standardized testing. There is plenty of material online how to do this too. Also testing can be coordinated with the school board.
The most important for children is not to cut on their socializing. This can be done online too in Covid time.

May I ask why you're homeschooling your child versus sending to the same schools the local Puerto Rican children go to?

I worked in education in the us. I came her when .y son was 5. We pulled him out of the school 6 weeks later
Education here is horrible.   Private schools maybe a little better but not worth the money. You pay more for private schools then you do for a college here.
My suggestion is dont do it.  Old materials,  rundown, unsanitary conditions.  No substitute teachers. So your child will have no school at least once a week. No supervision on the play grounds.  If you don't speak Spanish,  well thats another hurled as no one will probably be able to communicate to you.   No Spanish as a second language classes. no school nurses on site,  the town might all share 1 nurse. Sorry its horrible here and not fair to your child to miss out on education

Regarding Spanish in PR- It is preferable for a child (as well for anyone) to learn Spanish well. No need for a public school for that. It is important for a child to participate in the social activities with children where a child can also practice Spanish.

Everyone should learn Spanish regardless of age, makes things a lot easier. Based on a publication from 2018 only 25% of the population are fluid in English and over 90% of the population speak Spanish at home.

It is a blessing for the kids to become fluid in Spanish as it opens them up to be able to deal with Spain, Central America, the Caribbean and South America, that is. a lot of countries and markets. You never know what financial and professional doors you may be opening up for the kids future.

As to home schooling, the government here does not interfere, there are many groups that help with that, there are organizations you can also join to get help and advice. Meantime the kids pickup their Spanish from the friends they meet and also in activities they participate in.

My son has been homeschooling here for 6 yrs.  He has no interest in learning Spanish.  He picked up Japanese.

Hello everyone,

Kindly note that a few off topic posts have been removed from this thread.

Thanks,

Priscilla
Expat.com Team

My son is a single dad with 2 elementary aged kids. He's homeschooling but we're trying to context with other homeschooling families on the north side of PR. Are there groups to contact or ways to meet?

@sandrarduncan


I'm sorry to randomly butt in 2 years after this post. but how did you navigate the end of the year assessments? We are moving to Vieques, Puerto Rico in a few months and that's my most nerve wracking thing about it, is how to navigate the yearly testing over there. We were going to start our homeschool journey here in the states but with this move coming up I have to switch gears and research puerto rico laws for homeschooling now. And it seems so simple minus the actual portfolio and assessments. They don't state the "rules" very clearly anywhere it seems