New homeschool group

Today I received the new member packet from our new homeschool group. We've been a part of our old one, GRACE, for the past three and a half years, ever since we moved to Southern Indiana. We've enjoyed that group very much and our children have made many close friends there, but we are going to try a new group this spring. The reason for this is financial--we aren't able to afford the fees for our old co-op group anymore.

Not long after we joined our old group, a family purchased a building and donated it to the co-op. The board voted to use it and pay for the utilities with fundraisers. I felt at the time that it was a bad idea, but being new to the group, I didn't say anything. It was nice having our own building. We could put up our own posters in the classrooms, fix lunch in the kitchen, and not have to worry about our group being in the way at a church's building. It needed a lot of work, and the families all worked together to fix it up. We had yard sales and other fundraisers, solicited donations from philanthropic groups, and made and sold our own lunches to ourselves to raise money. It still wasn't enough. Some of the members even gave their tithes to the building, something I personally had some reservations about.

At the beginning of this school year, the board voted to raise the costs of co-op registration by $100 per family per semester to cover expenses, explaining that it still wasn't going to be enough to cover everything. This is on top of co-op fees. If we kept attending this co-op group, we would be paying close to $200 twice a year just to be able to attend co-op. Erick and I talked about it and decided to look for another group. There is a group in Clay County called FISH, and it's been around since the mid-nineties. It's bigger and cheaper, since it still meets in a church like most homeschool groups do. The fees there are only $20 per family, plus class fees (although even those seem cheaper). It will be a longer drive, but we're going to give it a try and see if the kids like it. If not, we haven't burned any bridges. We'll just have to see how it all works out.