I am a new teacher myself. I was subbing in several public and charter schools, and just started working in a preschool. I have 2 kids that are not home schooled, but we do a lot of educational stuff at home. While I considered homeschooling them if the schools were all that bad, I have not seen the need. The experience they are getting in school here is far better than what I had in school when I was young. I have always implemented little extras at home and use as many teachable moments as I see arise, but I do not feel they are being stifled at all in school.
Someone on here claimed that the social interaction in schools is almost nothing, but that is really untrue. There are a few teachers that insist on a quiet controlled class, which does cut any real socialization, but most teachers and classes I've been in are not like that. Most encourage a little noise, some fun, and plenty of interaction.
My honest opinion is that some people are absolutely right to home school their kids. It depends on what works best for your kids, your family, and yourself. I only encourage it if you are willing to put in the necessary work to make sure they are taught well enough to compete with anyone else, socialize well with other children (including knowing how to deal with conflict), get lots of hands on, fit into a school setting in case anything happens to need to be in one, and learn any important life lessons you can think of that need to be learned.
I only stress this because I have in-laws that rightfully pulled their children out of school, because of the schools there in PA being unwilling to work with her on some serious problems that were occurring with her oldest daughter. Now that I agreed with, what I found awful was that every time I talked to her she would brag about ways she was cutting as much as she could from required teaching, then later on as her oldest got older came to find out she had reading deficiencies that the mom was refusing to deal with or even acknowledge, was handing her daughter a pile of text and expecting her to work on it all herself with no help because "She's in 5th grade and shouldn't need any help anymore." She was not doing anything to socialize them, not even taking them to the library or playground. The closest thing they have to socialization is spending the night at relatives houses and going to church on Sunday. Beyond that they stay at home, in the house, don't use hands on lessons, intrinsic motivation, or any of the things that I think are important about being able to home school. I mean homeschooling should provide so much opportunity to do all sorts of wonderful lessons without the constraints of a public school, a strict curriculum, or even a principle or director. You can use everyday activities, trips, business, the outdoors, and any number of other life's activities to provide a very enriching education that fully covers every area they need to learn. Plus there is lots of one on one attention that often is missing in a school setting. Yet some people are not willing to put in the work to make these things happen.
I doubt you would home school the way my in-laws have, but I didn't think they would either. If you are willing to put in the time and work though, I think it can be a wonderful opportunity to give them a very good education with all the one on one attention they need, and at the pace and level they need. Plus here in Florida, you have lots of resources available to give kids plenty of socialization. Now someone on here said their kids do PE once a week, and playgroup once a month. That seems far too insufficient to me. I think kids should be provided some form of physical activity daily, not just weekly. Even at the preschool I'm in, we do music and movement every day and go outside for recess at least once a day.
