20 Pros and Cons: Homeschool Life for Organized Groups and Co-ops

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Last Updated on December 1, 2024 by Sarah McCubbin

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Homeschool Life is a great way to organize your homeschool group offerings and activities and keep everyone on the same page. If your group is struggling with communication, implementing Homeschool-Life.com can save you time and frustration at a relatively low cost. 

When our homeschool group first started MANY years ago, all communication was done by email through a bulk email thread on a yahoo account. Long before free Facebook groups or apps like Remind, we would get our weekly co-op updates via email. But of course there were many problems. Sometimes group emails went to spam and other times people just didn’t check. Multiple people replying to the same email created a confusing dirth of emails. 

Thank goodness we have more tools now!! As our group changed and developed, one of the immediate concerns we had was centralizing our content and creating a way for people to be notified through multiple communication forms. We needed something that was organized, searchable, and useful for collecting payments and registration. Running a homeschool organization takes a LOT of time. If you as a leader do not want it to take ALL your time, then this needs to be a priority. 

Homeschool Life is not free…but it isn’t expensive either. There is a minimum fee but once you are over 10 families, it averages out to around $10 per family. Listen…even if it was $25 per family, it is WORTH IT if it saves the organizers time…espeically if they are just volunteers. As a homeschool mom who was also the Director, I quickly learned that I could not save everyone else money at the expense of my time and energy. Nope. It’s not right or fair to do that. Over the years, we have learned that we need to charge a bit more for different things to make sure we had a budget for things that we could pay for…and would save us TIME. 

​Reasons to Love Homeschool-Life.com

One of the things I love about this resource is that the creators take feedback from homeschool groups to make their product better and better. They know that most groups are run by busy moms so they have a Youtube Channel to teach setup and implementation step by step. Our group does grading for middle school and high school and its so convenient that they have a built in option to offer all student grades in one place. 

When families choose to homeschool, they often quickly realize that they miss some of the community aspects of public school. Homeschool Life does a great job of creating a website option that can be used to build up the community of a homeschool group. Whether your group wants to fill the calendar with classes and parties or park days and field trips, it can be a great tool to make the homeschool journey smoother and organized.

One of the first features our group used was the class registration feature. We used it for academic classes like “personal finance” and “history” and for electives like “lego club” and “worship dance.” 

It works well for all kinds of groups…whether faith based or for secular homeschool families. Of course it may not be the “perfect fit” for every group, but its a tool worth considering! 

Pros and Cons for Using Homeschool Life

Pros:

1. Comprehensive Tools for Groups: Homeschool-Life offers a wide array of organizational tools tailored for homeschooling groups, including calendar management, email broadcasting, grading and resource sharing, making it easier for groups to coordinate activities and communicate.
2. Customizable Websites: The service allows homeschooling groups to create customizable websites by using drag and drop widgets to create an attractive site. This feature helps in maintaining a unique identity for each group, sharing relevant information, and attracting new members.
3. Educational Resources: They provide access to various educational resources and planning tools, which can be beneficial for curriculum planning and enhancing the homeschooling experience.
4. Private and Secure: Homeschool-Life emphasizes privacy and security, offering a safe platform for families and groups to share information, photos, and updates without concerns of public exposure.You can have seperate logins for parents and students which have customized amounts of site access.
5. Ease of Use: The platform is designed to be user-friendly, ensuring that even those with minimal technical skills can navigate the site, manage content, and utilize its features effectively. Between the Youtube videos and fast email support, the backend of the website is surprisingly easy to figure out. 
6. Supportive Community: By enabling connections between homeschooling families and groups, it fosters a supportive community where members can share advice, experiences, and resources. Our group uses the forum every day to update parents on classes, field trips, upcoming events and more. 
7. Event Management: The platform includes features for organizing and managing events, such as field trips and group meetings, simplifying the planning process and participation tracking.
8. Integrated Payment Processing: Homeschool-Life offers integrated payment processing, which can facilitate the collection of dues, fundraising, and event registration fees, making financial management easier for groups. We have all our payments made through Paypal which saves the treasurer (me) from tons of time chasing down payments. 
9. Mobile Accessibility: With mobile-friendly design, members can access the platform and its features on-the-go, enhancing communication and participation among busy homeschooling families.
10. Continuous Updates and Support: The platform commits to regular updates and responsive customer support, aiming to address user needs and incorporate feedback into service improvements.

Cons:

1. Cost Barrier for Some: The subscription-based model may be a barrier for individual families or smaller groups with limited budgets, as they need to weigh the platform’s benefits against its cost. (However I believe that it is absolutely worth a few dollars per family to save a volunteer from countless hours of work around)
2. Learning Curve: New users might experience a learning curve while familiarizing themselves with all the features and tools available on the platform.
3. Limited Customization in Some Areas: While the website offers customization, there may be limitations in design and functionality that could affect groups wanting very specific site features.
4. Dependence on Internet Access: As an online platform, its accessibility and usability are contingent on having reliable internet access, which might be a limitation for families in areas with poor connectivity.
5. Potential Overreliance on Technology: Some families may prefer more traditional or hands-on approaches to homeschooling and may find the emphasis on digital organization and communication less appealing.
6. Privacy Concerns: Despite strong privacy measures, some users may still have concerns about sharing personal information and children’s data online.
7. Variability in User Experience: The quality of experience can vary depending on how actively a group uses the platform. Underutilization can lead to a perception that the service is not worth the cost.
8. Overwhelming Features for Some: The breadth of features, while generally a positive, can overwhelm some users who may find the platform more complex than their needs warrant.
9. Technical Issues: Like any online platform, users may occasionally encounter technical glitches or downtime, which can be frustrating and disrupt planned activities or access to resources. Over the 8  years I have used the platform, there have never been any long stretches of downtime…only occasional updates which happen in the middle of the night.
10. Adaptation Time for Groups: Groups transitioning from other methods of organization to Homeschool-Life may require an adjustment period to fully benefit from the platform’s capabilities. This is definitely true…for any new software or platform. And I have found it easier to use just a few features at the beginning and use more of them over time…rather than try to add them all at once.

Creating a Plan To Organize Your Group Communitcation Is a Solid Investment

As a leader, it took me several years to learn that I should not trade my time for the best years of homeschooling. I actually had to relearn to prioritize my family over the “job” which was actually a volunteer position. 

​There will never be a perfect solution to every homeschool group problem, but Homeschool-Life.com lifts a huge burden by providing options to groups that check a LOT of the boxes for a low per family price!

More Reading:

• Homeschool Co-op in A Box!
• 10 Tips to Finding a New Building for a Homeschool Co-op Group
• Education Coaching