Who can teach a course?

Instructors may be interested members of the community or family members of current and past PHS students.

Instructors with a strong background in working with teens and who are actively engaged in their fields are highly sought after at Planet Homeschool.

Parents, guardians, and caregivers of current PHS students are encouraged to consider what knowledge and expertise they have to share and to propose classes to share their skills and their passions with our community of learners!

Instructors may make use of student assistants.

Who can propose a course?

Proposals can be made by current students and their parents, guardians or caregivers, current instructors, and prospective new instructors. They can even be made by prospective new students and their parents, guardians, or caregivers.

When should I propose a course?

Course proposals (also called “course suggestions” and “course ideas”) for the following academic year are typically due by the last Friday of January. The instructor availability form is due by the first Friday of February. Full details for courses selected for inclusion on our course schedule are typically due by the first Friday of April with the full course schedule announced on the second Friday, class registration for Fall Semester opening to renewed members on the third, and an Open House with class registration open to new members held on the fourth Friday of April. Please consult our co-op’s calendar for the exact dates.

What ages and grade levels are PHS Students?

All Planet Homeschool classes are restricted to students ages 10–19.

Courses may be for the entire 10–19 age range or restricted to a smaller age range (most commonly to either middle school or high school students).

• High-school courses are typically for ages 14–19 or 9th–12th grades.

• Secondary-school courses are typically for ages 12–19 or 7th–12th grades

• Middle-school courses are typically for ages 10–14 or 5th–8th grades.

• Other courses are offered for both middle school and high school students, ages 10–19.

Instructors should be prepared to teach the full age range for whom their course is advertised so that all enrolled students have a meaningful educational experience.

What sort of courses are taught at Planet Homeschool?

Courses in all subjects are of interest to PHS students, and the following have been offered at PHS: sciences, engineering, mathematics, humanities, visual arts, performing arts, literature, English, foreign languages, history, physical education, social sciences, trades and crafts, and more. Please consult our co-op’s Course History for examples.

Course content must be secular, objective, and age-appropriate. While religious content may be included from a cultural, historical, sociological, or anthropological perspective, classes at PHS should have no religious teachings or practices. Science classes at PHS should use curriculum and materials that include and present scientific facts, principles, models, and theories as recommended by the majority of practicing experts in the field of study. Topics covered may include evolution, the Big Bang, climate change, and global warming.

Instructors set their own course plans. While a syllabus is not required, families will appreciate a course overview and/or schedule.

How are courses chosen?

Course proposals are compiled into a Course Interest Survey with February voting open to both current and prospective students.

Our co-op’s Lead Volunteer team meets in late February or early March and works together to use the top choices from the Course Interest Survey to create a course schedule with a balance of age ranges and subjects while taking into account instructor availability and classroom space needs.

Our goal is to create a 25-course schedule with:

• a balance of subjects including sciences, engineering, technology, humanities, applied arts, performing arts, life skills, and small-group mathematics
• a balance of courses for:
  • high school (ages 14–19 or 9th–12th grades)
  • secondary school (ages 12–19 or 7th–12th grades)
  • middle school (ages 10–14 or 5th–8th grades)
  • double digits (ages 10–19 or 5th–12 grades)

How to propose a course

(1) Course proposals should be submitted using either our co-op’s Course Proposal Form (also called the Course Suggestion Form or the Course Idea Form). The more complete you are in making a course proposal, the more likely it is that you’ve provided enough of a teaser for your course to be selected by our members.

(2) For a course to be placed on the final course schedule, an Instructors Details form must be completed by the end of the voting period for the Course Interest Survey (usually mid-February). This form collects essential information about instructor availability and confirms that all instructors understand and agree to abide by our co-op’s policies.

(3) A Course Details form must be completed promptly for any course proposal that makes it onto our final schedule and is usually due in early April. This form is designed to guide you through gathering all of the little bits of information we need to get your course entered into our online class registration system.

Check out our co-op’s Course History page for examples and see our co-op’s calendar for exact deadline dates.

How much does it cost?

The Instructor Class Fee is $10 per course. The maximum fee is $40 per semester. (Fees current for 2023–2024.)

This fee will be due before the first day of class but after your course has both met its Minimum Student Number and passed its Minimum Student Date.

This fee helps to cover our co-op’s overhead expenses in providing a space for you to teach, such as rent, this website, and supplies. Instructors who are also co-op members will have this fee waived as their contribution towards those overhead expenses will be made via their membership fee payment.

This is a per-course fee, not a per-instructor class fee.

Instructors are hired by the individual families whose children enroll in their courses, not by Planet Homeschool.

Communicating with Lead Volunteers

Instructors are expected to provide our co-op’s Lead Volunteers with an email address where they can be reliably reached … “I never check that email address” is not an acceptable reason for failing to respond.

Please watch for email requests from co-op volunteers for either further details about your course or for you to review your course’s entry in member surveys to ensure it is represented accurately during voting by our members, or to proofread your course’s entry on our class registration system should your course be selected.

During the course selection process, most communications will be sent via email from PlanetHomeschoolMN@gmail.com, so you should ensure your email provider recognizes that address as a legitimate sender. This can often be accomplished by adding the email address to your safe sender list, address book, and/or contacts but may require additional measures.

Some emails will be sent from the personal email addresses of individual volunteers.

After your course is selected, co-op communications are primarily posted to our co-op forums and are sent via email from lifeline@homeschool-life.com, so you should also ensure your email provider recognizes that address as a legitimate sender.

Instructors are expected to keep abreast of co-op-related communications and to respond promptly to communications from our co-op’s Lead Volunteers.

Instructors are also expected to provide our co-op’s Lead Volunteers with a phone number where they can be reliably reached.

Instructors are encouraged to follow our co-op on Facebook and Twitter.

Communicating With Students and Their Families

Instructors are expected to respond promptly to communications from both current and prospective students and their parents, guardians, or caregivers.

Your Class Home Page provides enrolled students with a dedicated Class Forum and the ability to send short messages about specific assignments. These will be sent via email from lifeline@homeschool-life.com.

Some communications from students and their families may be forwarded from PlanetHomeschoolMN@gmail.com and others will be sent from the personal email addresses of individual students or their parents, guardians, or caregivers. These email addresses will be included on your Class Roster.

Classroom Policies

Instructors are expected to abide by all co-op policies but may set additional guidelines for their classrooms, including policies for late registrations and late cancellations and on expected and acceptable behavior during class.

Semesters

Fall semester is 12 weeks long and typically starts the second Friday of September and runs through the second Friday of December with no classes on the third Friday of October or the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Spring semester is 16 weeks long and typically starts the first Friday after January 6th and runs through the first Friday of May plus the second Friday of May as a scheduled inclement-weather makeup day with no classes on the Friday before Presidents Day (which is the third Monday of February) or Good Friday.

This schedule is subject to change.

Courses can be single-semester or full-year programs.

Course proposals must specify if the course is intended to be:

• a 12-week 15-hour Fall Semester course

• a 16-week 20-hour Spring Semester course

• a 28-week 35-hour full-year course (spring content builds on fall content)

• either a 12-week Fall Semester or a 16-week Spring Semester course

• both a 12-week Fall Semester and a 16-week Spring Semester course (spring content is independent of fall content)

Daily Schedule

In-person classes meet once a week on Fridays with four class periods. (We are experimenting with a fifth period for 2023–2024.) Online classes are scheduled to meet once a week on a day other than Friday.

Class periods are 75 minutes long (1 hour and 15 minutes).

Instructors should arrive at class prepared to teach, begin class on time, teach for the full class period, and end class on time.

• Setup Period: 9:00 AM–9:15 AM (15 minutes)

• First Period: 9:15 AM–10:30 AM (75 minutes)

• Room Transition Period: 10:30 AM–10:35 AM (5 minutes)

• Second Period: 10:35 AM–11:50 AM (75 minutes)

• Room Transition Period: 11:50 AM–11:55 AM (5 minutes)

• Lunch Period: 11:55 AM –12:25 PM (30 minutes)

• Room Transition Period: 12:25 PM–12:30 PM (5 minutes)

• Third Period: 12:30 PM–1:45 PM (75 minutes)

• Room Transition Period: 1:45 PM–3:05 PM (5 minutes)

• Fourth Period: 1:50 PM–3:05 PM (75 minutes)

• Cleanup Period: 3:05 PM–3:20 PM (15 minutes or until it is done)

• Experimental fifth period: 3:15 PM–4:30 PM with cleanup completed by 4:45 PM.

There is a 5-minute break between class periods. Instructors and students are expected to work together to ensure that there is time to both clean up from the prior class and set up for the next one.

• If you need more than 5 minutes for setup, you should plan on teaching either first or third periods.

• If you need more than 5 minutes for cleanup, you should plan on teaching either second or fourth periods.

• If you need more than 5 minutes for both setup and cleanup, you should let our co-op’s Lead Volunteers know via your Instructor Detail Form.

There is a 30-minute lunch break between second and third periods (40 minutes if you include the 5-minute break before and after lunch, but that time is needed for cleaning up classrooms and setting up the fellowship hall for lunch and then for cleaning up lunch and setting up classrooms for third-period classes).

Course proposals must specify:

1. Which class periods an instructor prefers.

2. Which class periods an instructor can make work.

3. Which class periods are not an option for an instructor.

If you are submitting multiple course proposals, be sure to tell us:

• How you would prefer your courses be ordered.

• Which class periods you most prefer in case not all of your proposed courses are offered.

Instructors teaching multiple courses will (almost always) be assigned consecutive class periods. Some instructors request to have a scheduled break between classes. There have been a few unusual situations in the past when an instructor has been asked if they can accept a break in order to make the entire schedule work out.

Prospective new instructors typically start by teaching a single course per semester, although exceptions have been made to fill specific needs, offer options for both middle school and high school, or provide complimentary courses.

Minimum Student Number

Please consider your minimum number carefully. This is not your ideal number of students but the smallest number for whom you are willing to teach this course.

The most common minimum number is 4 students.

Maximum Student Number

The most common maximum number is 15 students.

Most of our classrooms won’t comfortably seat more than 15 students plus an instructor, and our smallest classroom will comfortably seat only about 8 people. The Fellowship Hall is reserved for courses needing space for significant student movement, such as fencing, dance, and theater.

Minimum Student Date

If you do not specify a Minimum Student Date, your deadline will be assumed to be 2 weeks prior to the start of classes.

We create our course schedule based on the interests indicated by our current members, but sometimes, for a variety of reasons, that interest doesn’t translate into actual class registrations. To allow both students and instructors time to make alternative plans, courses that have not enrolled their Minimum Student Number by their Minimum Student Date will be canceled. Cancelation is automatic. If your course does not reach its minimum registration number before midnight on your Minimum Student Date, all enrolled students will be automatically unenrolled.

Instructors are encouraged to monitor their registration numbers as any requests to adjust minimum enrollment numbers must be made before their Minimum Student Date. If it appears that your course will not meet your Minimum Student Number by your deadline:

1. You may opt to lower your Minimum Student Number, but you are also then committing to teaching the course with that lower number.

2. You may opt to extend your Minimum Student Date but you are then also extending both “the last day that those registered for the course may ask to cancel their registration and be guaranteed a full refund” and your “Payment Due Date.”

3. You may opt to adjust your age range, if applicable, within the PHS age range of 10-year-old middle school students through 19-year-old high school students.

4. You may accept that the course is quite likely going to be cancelled due to low enrollment (but may still be saved by last-minute enrollments).

5. You may not ask to cancel a course prematurely as co-op volunteers will have been spreading the word about your course to the local homeschool community, including your Minimum Student Date, and interested families may be depending on being able to time their decisions based on that information.

Requests for changes must be emailed to our co-op’s Lead Volunteers before your Minimum Student Date.

PHS Registration Historical Data

• 33% of registrations happened the day registration opens
• registrations dribbled in at a fairly steady rate after that
• 75% of registrations were completed by 4 weeks prior to the start of classes
• 80% of registrations were completed by 3 weeks prior
• 85% of registrations were completed by 2 weeks prior
• 90% of registrations were completed by 1 week prior
• 10% of registrations happened during the week immediately before classes begin
• a small number of registrations happen the week (or two) after classes have begun

Payment Due Date

Tuition and supply fee payments will be due the day after your Minimum Student Date. This policy helps instructors avoid paying fees on tuition refunds.

Class Registration Deadline

Instructors also set the last day that students can register for each of their courses. If you do not specify a Class Registration Deadline, it will be set to the day prior to the second class session (meaning that late-registering students may miss the first day of class but no others).

Students may continue to register for (non-canceled) courses after the course’s Minimum Student Date until the course reaches either its Maximum Student Number or its Class Registration Deadline.

Pro-Rata Tuition

Instructors set their own policies for adjustments to tuition for any late registrations made after the first day of class. Because one of our co-op’s Lead Volunteers will need to make any adjustments to automatically-created invoices manually, instructors are responsible for informing our co-op’s Lead Volunteers of any invoices needing adjustment.

A note about displayed registration dates

Since instructors who are not also PHS members do not register for courses, your website account will be assigned to a non-registering section. That means that you may see “Signup for this class will open on 12/31/2999 at 12:00 AM CST." Rest assured that class registration will open on time for co-op members. (It is a long-standing feature request with Homeschool-Life for the non-registering sections to instead display no date.)

Refund Policy for Late Cancellation Requests

Instructors set their own refund policies for cancellations that do not drop the course below its Minimum Student Number after the course’s Minimum Student Date.

You can offer no refunds, partial refunds, or even full refunds. You can refund the supply fee but not the tuition or the tuition but not the supply fee. You can offer to refund only if a replacement is found. Etc.

Instructor Refund Policies for Late Cancellations

Tuition

Tuition is typically between $8 to $12 per student per hour.

Tuition should reflect the instructor’s educational qualifications, expertise in the subject matter, and experience with teaching.

When setting your tuition and supplies fee, also keep in mind the economic reality that homeschool families tend to be single-income families with limited budgets.

PayPal’s fee structure is subject to change. It is each instructor’s responsibility to check PayPal to determine whether or not the above numbers are still accurate.

Tuition adjustments

Should you ever have a reason to offer a student an adjustment to their tuition or a supply fee credit, you have two options:

1. Request that a replacement invoice be generated to reflect that change if the student fees have not yet been paid.

2. Request that an adjustment be made to the student’s account if the student fees have already been paid.

   • Refunds are not issued automatically; instructors must log in to their PayPal accounts and manually issue refunds!

     Refunds are not recorded automatically; instructors must notify our co-op’s Lead Volunteers of any refunds issued. Please provide the date of the refund, the amount, and the PayPal transaction number.

The most common reasons for tuition adjustments are to waive tuition for the instructor’s own children, to offer reduced or waived tuition to students acting as classroom assistants (such discounts are not required as leadership opportunities can be part of the educational experience), and to adjust the supplies fees for students who paid for some or all of the supplies during a prior semester.

Supplies

Instructors may charge a separate supplies fee in addition to tuition. Supplies fees will be invoiced with tuition when a student enrolls in the course.

Supplies fees must reflect the actual value of the items to be supplied to students (incidental expenses are covered by tuition). Instructors must include information about what supplies are included in the fee and how supplies will be distributed.

Don’t forget to take into account PayPal fee deductions when setting your supplies fee.

How are instructors paid?

Instructors at Planet Homeschool are paid (1) directly by the individual families whose students enroll in their courses (2) via PayPal (3) through a Homeschool-Life-generated invoice. *

Payments must be made through the Homeschool-Life invoicing system to be automatically recorded. Instructors are expected to email our co-op’s Lead Volunteers to promptly notify them if they receive any payments outside of that system.

Payments cannot be classified as “Friends and Family” transactions and PayPal fees will be deducted, so those deductions should be taken into account when setting your tuition and supplies fee.

PayPal currently takes 3.49% +49¢ per transaction, but that information is subject to change and should be confirmed with PayPal. You can use a PayPal Fee Calculator to determine how much you’ll receive.

You do not need an invoicing system, just an account at PayPal. PHS needs to know the email address you use for that account. Invoicing is then handled by our website host, Homeschool-Life.

Co-op-Wide Cancellations

Should weather conditions make travel to or from our co-op inadvisable or make conditions at Faith UMC unsafe, our co-op’s Lead Volunteers will strive to make a decision about whether or not to hold in-person classes by 8:00 AM. Please read our full inclement weather policy.

While Faith UMC strives to not interrupt our schedule, they may ask us to cancel classes to accommodate a funeral or other important community gathering. This is very rare, but it has happened. It is also conceivable that physical conditions at Faith UMC, such as a heating or plumbing failure, may make meeting unsafe. In those unlikely circumstances, our co-op’s Lead Volunteers will first strive to find an alternative meeting location before making the decision to cancel classes.

In the case of a co-op-wide cancellation, instructors are not expected to issue partial refunds to cover the missed day but are encouraged to provide alternative ways to keep students on track such as providing students with a plan for independent work to cover the material for the week or hosting an online class meeting if students are willing and available.

 
Inclement Weather Policy

Class Cancellations by the Instructor

If you, the instructor, need to cancel classes due to illness, family emergency, transportation failures, or other unforeseeable circumstances (for unforeseeable ones, see planned absences above), you may set your own policies for how you wish to handle this.

Keep in mind that your students will still be at PHS even though you are not.

Some options to consider:

1. Finding a substitute instructor, if possible. In the past, instructors have had colleagues, advanced students, former students (graduates), or an experienced parent, guardian, or caregiver step in to facilitate a class.

2. Providing students with a plan for independent work to cover the material for the week. You’ll want an adult volunteer to monitor the kids in the classroom.

3. Holding a makeup day on an alternate day, either online or in-person at an alternate location, if you can schedule one that works for all your students.

   • PHS’s leased space is not available for use outside of our co-op’s scheduled days and times.

4. Issuing a partial refund for the missed day.

Onsite Storage

Instructors should expect to transport the bulk of their materials and equipment to and from PHS weekly.

Onsite storage is limited. If equipment or supplies need to be stored onsite, email our co-op’s Lead Volunteers a detailed description of what needs to be stored and how much space will be needed so that they can determine if adequate space can be made available.

Entrance to the Building

Instructors, students, volunteers, and visitors should enter Faith UMC using the south door at the back of the building. This door leads directly into the ground-floor classroom hallway, so it is also the most convenient door to use.

An exception is made for instructors bringing in and removing supplies for classes in the fellowship hall and kitchen, who may make use of the closer east door for loading and unloading purposes only. However, supplies must then be carried down a half-flight of stairs, so you may find it easier to use the south door and roll your supplies down the hallway.

The east door may also be used as an accessible entrance for those with disabilities. There is an elevator to the classroom level, which may only be used by those who need that accommodation.

A co-op volunteer unlocks the doors at 8:45 AM and another volunteer makes sure the doors are locked again at 3:20 PM — or as soon as cleanup is done.

Room setup

Students are responsible for setting up the classrooms according to instructor preferences. Setup for the day begins at 9:00 AM. Students will set up classrooms for their first class but also make sure that any additional tables and chairs needed for the second, third, or fourth periods are in the room (folded up and tucked out of the way).

While Onsite Volunteers will be on hand to direct setup, instructors are encouraged to remind any students sitting in their classrooms before the start of the first period of this responsibility.

To facilitate setup, room layouts are provided in each room’s cleanup kit that shows how tables and chairs are to be placed for the first class in the room and what needs to be stowed in the room for subsequent classes. Instructors are expected to work with our co-op’s Lead Volunteers to ensure they have the information they need to create these layouts and to email them about any necessary revisions.

In general, preschool-sized furnishings are moved to the side and stacked to free up floor space. Then standard-height 6-foot x 2½-foot folding tables and standard folding chairs are brought from the storage closet in the back of the Fellowship Hall and set up according to instructor preference.

Any additional tables and chairs needed for subsequent classes are also brought to the room during the setup period. They are stowed folded up and out of the way. This is done so that will be no need to disrupt classes in the Fellowship Hall to obtain them later.

Sample room layouts

Room Cleanup

Students are also responsible for cleaning up the space between classes and at the end of the co-op day.

While an Onsite Volunteer will be on hand to direct cleanup, instructors are encouraged to remind students of this responsibility at the end of the fourth period.

Students will wash whiteboards, wipe down tables and chairs, return folding tables and chairs to the closet in the Fellowship Hall, vacuum carpets, sweep floors, return church furniture to the church’s preferred setup, and empty waste bins. Cleaning supplies are provided.

Accessibility

All classrooms are located on the ground floor. The Fellowship Hall and kitchen are a third-floor lower than the classrooms but there is a ramp between the two levels.

Doors are not automatic or power-assisted and door handles are old-fashioned knobs rather than levers.

There is one single-occupancy restroom (plus one single-occupancy restroom with preschool-sized fixtures). Another restroom offers two stalls and two sinks. A third offers one stall, one urinal, and one sink.

Pronouns

Planet Homeschool serves many transgender, gender-fluid, and gender non-binary students, and we are committed to creating a safe and respectful space that makes them feel seen, included, and cherished. If you misgender someone (that is, if you use the wrong pronoun or noun when referring to someone), offer a very short apology, correct yourself, and move on. For example, “If you stand there and she stands, excuse me, if he stands there, then we can ….” Similarly if you are corrected after misgendering someone, offer a short apology, correct yourself, and move on. For example: “Is she still in the hallway?” “They.” “I’m sorry. Are they still in the hallway?”

We encourage you to let your students know what pronouns you use for yourself and to ask your students what pronouns they use for themselves, but we understand that not everyone wants to announce their pronouns. You are in control of how and when you share this information. You may also change your pronouns at any time.

Communicating with Families

Instructors are expected to provide students and their parents, guardians, and caregivers with an email address where they can be reliably reached. This email address will be included on member-only portions of our website (login required to view) and will also be provided to prospective members if they have questions about your course that they would like to have answered before deciding whether or not to sign up.

Providing a phone number for students and their parents, guardians, and caregivers is optional but encouraged.

Co-Instructors

Each instructor will have their own instructor profile with their own contact information, photo, and bio.

Co-Instructors and Shared Website Accounts

If you are teaching with a co-instructor(s), you may share a website account. If you wish to create separate website accounts, there is a single $10 annual fee for each additional account (this is a per-account fee, it is not per course and not per semester).

If you choose to share your website account, it may take some fiddling to get your names to display nicely because Homeschool-Life assumes that each account is associated with two adults sharing the same last name. The best option is to use this format:
  First adult’s last name: Your business name
  First adult’s first name: Your full name (First1 Last1)
  Second adult’s last name: [blank]
  Second adult’s first name: Your co-instructors full name (First2 Last2)

This will get formatted on various parts of the website as either
  “Business Name, First Instructor & Second Instructor” and as
  “First Instructor & Second Instructor Business Name.”

If you have three co-instructors sharing an account, use this format:
  First adult’s last name: Business Name
  First adult’s first name: First1 Last1, First2 Last2
  Second adult’s last name: [blank]
  Second adult’s first name: First3 Last3

Impact of COVID-19 on Enrollment

In order to sustain a full schedule of 25 courses per semester, our co-op needs around 60 member families, and historically our co-op has averaged between 60 to 65 members (with occasional lulls and surges). Unfortunately, COVID-19 originally cut our membership numbers in half and this resulted in a higher-than-usual number of course cancellations due to low enrollment. Fortunately, our co-op has made strong progress towards rebuilding our membership numbers with increases in new signups every year.