To start a discussion.

I haven't entirely thought out the ramifications of these proposals, so I'm just throwing them out to faciliate discussion.

I know we just redid the age groups this year, but I was entertaining another model for the future.

There seems that there will continue a core group of kids that ramain in CLAP, in addition to the new students entering every semester to see if they fit.

In a traditional institutional school the classes and teachers change while the other students in a child's class generally remain the same, at least in grades 1-6 (longer if your in honors classes). While I'd rather not model what we do on other institutional schools, I do think their model is good at creating strong friendships and groups with the same basic core knowlege. What I'd like to discuss, for at least the younger grades, is that we create a system that would allow the core group of kids to continue their classes together.

Six-year proposed projected growth plan, which incorporates keeping kids in the same core group as they progress through the system, while adding a new group of 4-5 year olds every year.
 

5 groups	6 groups	7 groups	7 groups	8 groups	9 groups	9 groups
Fall 2005	Fall 2006	Fall 2007	Fall 2008	Fall 2009	Fall 2010	Fall 2011
						4-5
					4-5	5-6
				4-5	5-6	6-7
			4-5	5-6	6-7	7-8
		4-5	5-6	6-7	7-8	8-9
	4-5	5-6	6-7	7-8	8-9	9-10
4-5	5-6	6-7	7-8	8-9	9-10	10-11
5-6	6-7	7-8	8-9	9-10	10-11	11-12
7-9	8-10	9-11	10-12	11-13	12-14	13-up
10-12	11-13	12-13	13-up	13-up or 14-up	14-up
13-up	13 up	13 up

I used what I know about the current growth of CLAP and the general homeschooling population to come up with this plan. Future patterns though might dictate a need for a change in plans.

Pros of the above suggestion:

1. After one year CLAP has gone from 3 groups to 5 groups. Even with added classes, there may be people left on the waiting list. My speculation is that there is need for more room for students in the younger and middle grades than in the older grades. This plan takes that into account and adds the new age group in the middle.
2. If at any time CLAP could no longer support additional growth, it could simply not offer a new 4-5 year old class. This would allow CLAP to stop growth, while still continuing to support the currently active children.
3. In the younger grades, it would phase out the groupings with more than 2 years age difference except in the oldest group.
4. If we find that there is greater demand for teen classes than I anticipate, it would be easy to keep the core groups together and create further division of the teen group.
5. The over lapping years allow students to play up or down as their comfort and needs allow.
6. This plan still allows for multi-age classrooms.
7. Smaller age differential in multi-age classroom, allows classes to be merged easily if they are too small to make on their own.
8. This plan allows for ALL the children to stay together in their core group. There will always be new classes, new teachers, and new students; but this plan allows for some continuity (other than location) since the children are allowed to stay with their core classmates through the entire process.

1. Who is going to be in the class?
2. Who is going to teach the class?
3. What is the subject of the class?

Cons for the above suggestion:

1. I have seen co-ops come and go. It is a generalization, but those who purposefully chose to remain small seemed to last the longest. I assume this is because they didn’t burn out the volunteers who made them work!

Current plan:  Every year (possibly every semester) younger kids are entering the class and older kids are aging out of the class.  The black lines represent the movement of kids from one class to the next.

Pros of current plan:

1. Keeps the co-op small.

Cons of staying with current plan:
 

1. Class core in constant flux. Even though our group is very small. Being in the same co-op isn’t the same as being in the same class. For example we rarely see the kids that have moved up even though they are in the room next door and occasionally on the playground at the same time we are.
2. Continuing with the current system would mean we continue with the three or more year age groupings for all but the youngest students; and that a child would move into a new core group four times. Example: a 5-year-old child starting in the youngest group next  Fall would move 4 times in 9 years into class groups which would not only have new students from outside of CLAP, but from lower grades advancing every year.

Compromise A below will allow us to keep CLAP at 5 groups, while allowing most the kids currently in the 7-and-older groups to stay together for the next 5 years; while the two younger-age groups are changing as often as the current plan has them change.
 

5 groups	5 groups	5 groups	5 groups	5 groups	5 groups	5 groups
Fall 2005	Fall 2006	Fall 2007	Fall 2008	Fall 2009	Fall 2010	Fall 2011
						4-5
					4-5
				4-5		6-7
			4-5		6-7
		4-5		6-7		8-10
	4-5		6-7		8-10
4-5		6-7	7-9			10-12
5-6	6-7	7-9		8-10	11-13	13-up
7-9	8-10	9-11	10-12	11-13	13 up
10-12	11-13	12 up	13-up	14-up
13-up	13 up

Can also be shown like this:  Compromise A showing years 2 - 8.

Compromise B offers every child the ability to stay with thier core group, and the co-op still remains small. This is accomplished by concentrating on the current students, by only adding new kids into existing groups, and only creating entirely new groups about every three years.
 

5 groups	5 groups	5 groups	5 groups	5 groups	5 groups	5 groups
Fall 2005	Fall 2006	Fall 2007	Fall 2008	Fall 2009	Fall 2010	Fall 2011
						8-9 new
			6-7 new	7-8	8-9	9-10
4-5	5-6	6-7	7-8	8-9	9-10	10-11
5-6	6-7	7-8	8-9	9-10	10-11	11-12
7-9	8-10	9-11	10-12	11-13	12-14	13-up
10-12	11-13	12-13	13-up	13-up or 14-up	14-up
13-up	13 up	13 up

Which can also be expressed this way: