Oi, do I have mixed feelings about this.

My oldest is now in 3rd grade (finishing it up anyway) and my interest in participating in a co-op group has truly waned.

I found it helpful when I started out. He was in first grade and I joined a non-religious/non-sectarian group. We accepted families from all walks of life and teaching styles. That part I really like. You can learn a lot from others' styles.

I'm now co-chair of our little group, just keeping things organized. I'm also on a yahoo group for our county. Essentially there aren't really co-ops around, in the sense that a few moms take turns teaching certain subjects, meeting every week, etc. We used to have a reading group, etc. but I find myself not terribly interested. I do a few things with friends for the fun of being together, take off some of the work load.

The yahoo group is the same way. It's mainly "field trips" and play dates. Which is all well and good.

My group had some nonsense political garbage it struggled with long before I joined. The crap was because some believed it should be run a certain way, can you imagine? They couldn't just start their own group? Instead they made the rest of us miserable.

Home schoolers, are you out there? How's your co/op / support group going? Is it helpful? Or only for certain things? I like monthly support meetings, where we encourage each other with children pleasantly absent.

Anything that's worked great? Terrible? Successful? Miserable failure?

I homeschool too. We do it through a local church school who handles the records and worst of the paperwork that has to be submitted (yeah -- I hate paperwork) and allows us access to elective classes like music, art, etc which gives my child a feel of being in a classroom with other kids. It's working well for us. They have a program coordinator who is also homeschooling who I meet with each trimester, so I don't have the problems with group politics. I sure have heard about them though. I think in general homeschooling parents probably more opinionated than most (although when it comes to our kids, most of us have pretty strong feelings) about how education should be done -- therefore the struggles. I don't think we ADDers have much patience with political manuevering -- we're much to what you see is what you get for that kind of garbage.

Scattered