News Photo by Reagan Voetberg Jami LaPointe, a partnership parent and community expert, reads to students in the super readers class on Tuesday morning at the Alpena Family Partnership building.

ALPENA — Each Tuesday, families from across the area arrive at Sunset Elementary for the Alpena Family Partnership Program, a program that primarily serves homeschool families seeking additional learning opportunities for their children.

The family partnership is part of the Alpena Public Schools umbrella, said Jen Myers, director of the Alpena Family Partnership. Students who take courses through the partnership are enrolled in APS. The partnership offers classes for kindergarten through 12th-grade students and gives kids the option to take electives that they might not have access to otherwise.

Most of the families that utilize the partnership homeschool their children, although students enrolled in the traditional public school curriculum can also opt to take partnership classes.

Families have a variety of options when they decide to take part in the partnership program.

They can have their children take electives like music, art, or botany classes, which have two components. Students taking electives are required to take an online course. Secondly, they have the option of learning in person at the partnership at the old Sunset Elementary each Tuesday. Students can take up to four electives. Families are able to check out Chromebooks through the partnership in order to complete the online portion of the curriculum, which is what the state recognizes as the required class, Myers said.

Families can also choose to take core curriculum through the partnership. Students taking core curriculum utilize the Bookshark Virtual curriculum, which is completed at home with their parents, and then they have the option of coming in on Tuesdays for their electives.

Since the in-person electives are optional, families that choose the core curriculum can do all of the work online, which allows families throughout the state of Michigan to enroll at APS and use the BookShark curriculum through the family partnership.

Additionally, families can take a combination of core curriculum and electives.

Myers said that the program started seven years ago. They have seen growth in both the actual number of students enrolled and the funding received through the number of full-time equivalent students.

APS receives funding from the state for each enrolled student, including those in the partnership. If a student in the partnership is taking two electives, and another student is taking four, that would count as one full-time equivalent student.

Students enrolled in the partnership need to have at least one parent or designated guardian with them when they learn in person on Tuesdays. Parents can often be seen hanging out in the common area of the building while their kids are in classes.

“A big benefit that a lot of our families appreciate is that their students get some socialization and work with other instructors for part of the week,” Myers said. “But it’s nice because the parents maintain their autonomy as the homeschool and the primary educator of their child.”

Parents and students have built great friendships through the partnership.

“I know our families have built some really great relationships,” Myers said.

A couple of the parents talked about their experience and what they like about the family partnership.

“It gives our kids a really cool social opportunity, and I also really appreciate the classes like the guitar lessons, or gymnastics, ROV, things we might not have access to on our own,” one parent said. “…There’s a lot of stuff that I don’t know how to do, like foreign languages, that we’re able to access through here.”

Parents also discuss the different resources and curriculums they use. If a parent has a child struggling with a subject, they can reach out to other parents about helpful resources that could help their child succeed.

“I think one of the things for us being high school level, we’ve still been able to have access to sports and dances and all the normal high school things,” another parent said.

If you are interested in having your child enroll in partnership classes, you can email the partnership at partnership@alpenaschools.com

Reagan Voetberg can be reached at 989-358-5683 or rvoetberg@TheAlpenaNews.com.