homeschooling in brookings? (school district, live, moving to)

[dayfresh]

Hi there,
My family and I (we have 3 young children) are considering moving to Brookings OR. We homeschool and here in So Cal we have TONS of support and opportunities. I am just wondering if anybody is involved in homeschooling in Brookings or has any info about it? Is the area generally friendly toward homeschoolers?

Also, my oldest son is mildly autistic and part of his therapy (and now his passion and 'most important thing in his life') is surfing. Any chance there are some decent surf areas in or near Brookings?

Thanks for any input.

[Steve97415]

The first and most important thing to realize is that California and Oregon differ profoundly in terms of who lives at the coast. The Oregon coast is the retirement belt (and that goes double for Brookings). It isn't really very family friendly at all and there is really no economic infrastructure since almost everyone who lives here brings their pension from elsewhere. Given the age of the average city resident, there is little support for education be it public or otherwise. There are some cold-water surfers on the southern coast of Oregon, but they are a rare breed of extraordinarily hardy souls. Because of the Japanese Current, water temperatures are generally in the mid 50's. You need 7mm neoprene to stay in the water for anything more than just a few minutes. The coastline is rough and rocky, not broad and sandy as in SoCal.

A lot of people come to Brookings looking for the poor man's Santa Cruz. They usually move out within a year.

[Silverfall]

As Steve said the Oregon coast is COLD. It is not like the California coast so you need to think about that.

Kids that are home schooled qualify for special educational services through the school district so if you need speech or something, you can get it. There is a HUGE online school here called the Oregon Connections Academy. It is all over Oregon and they give you the curriculum online. What they also do is have a local field trip coordinator in the group. A good chunk of the home schoolers I know, use the Connections Academy.

[dayfresh]

Thanks for the info Steve - good input. I appreciate your response.

[dayfresh]

Silverfall, Thanks - I'll check out The Oregon Connections Academy and see what I can find out. We're certainly not expecting it to be anything like So Cal - (weather and all) but we know there are lots of wonderful things about Oregon to discover.....I'm thinking a trip up to visit is a great place to begin. We have friends there who are in the Commercial Fishing industry as we are - hopefully we can spend some time with them and get a better feeling for it before we make any bold moves. Thanks for your time and response.