This year marks the start of S.A.G.E. Co-op’s seventh year!  What an amazing adventure these last few years have been!  I continually stand in awe at all God has done in and through this wonderful co-op.  What a privilege it is to be the Administrator of such a great endeavor.  It’s a God-given position which I don’t take lightly.  

This year 40 families with 90+ kids will come together on Mondays to share both the burden and the blessing of homeschooling.  Each Monday, we’ll pull together our resources and talents to provide 35 classes ranging from preschool through high school.  In addition to all of the academic classes going on around the co-op, we also have a sweet bunch of little ones aged two and under to love on in the nursery.

I don’t believe I’ve ever posted much co-op information here on the blog other than the random mention of a few classes or projects here and there.  Since it’s a HUGE part of our lives (during some seasons it’s nearly a full time job for me), I decided I should write a post giving a bird’s eye view of S.A.G.E. Co-op’s journey.   

In 2005, while I was President of the Montana Coalition of Home Educators, two friends and I had the ginormous task of being the lead organizers for our state-wide home educator’s convention. Of course, we couldn’t have done it without about 30+ of our closest friends!  It was during this convention (not just the convention itself but the whole process from initial organizing to final assessments) that God placed the seeds of S.A.G.E. Co-op in my heart.  Specifically, the children’s program was AMAZING and I began to ponder the possibility of doing something similar as a weekly co-op.  Additionally, I was blessed to have the distinct privilege of not only meeting the authors of Tapestry of Grace curriculum, Scott and Marcia Somerville, while they were here as our convention’s keynote speakers, but I also had the opportunity to sit down with them to discuss at length their curriculum, co-ops, and more!

For a couple of years prior to the convention, a friend and I had been discussing the possibility of getting a group of friends together to study art and music history but we were having a hard time pulling the ideas together sufficiently enough to launch anything.  Now, having been introduced to TOG, I began to see the possibility of implementing our ideas for studying art/music appreciation via a chronological history curriculum which already incorporated such things and more.  

The biggest obstacle appeared to be the notion of wanting to organize a preschool through high school co-op or class where we would come together for projects, hands-on activities, and discussions about subjects students studied at home prior to getting together.  In other words, I didn’t want a co-op that necessarily “taught” the subjects nor one which was primarily assignment driven.  Instead, I wanted something where we would all agree on a particular theme or subject but the extent to which each student studied and the particular materials they used would be left up to the parent.  I had no less than a half dozen or so well meaning people tell me my ideas were “impossible” which to my personality type is like saying “sick ’em” to a dog!  I even had a group ask me to be the Administrator of their already established co-op instead of going through the work of starting my own.  I declined because I knew God had given me a very specific vision for something and I wanted to at least give it a try.

However, I also wanted to be wise about listening to the advice of some who thought my ideas wouldn’t work. So, I decided to first start something smaller while trusting that the bigger thing God had given me a vision for would eventually come to fruition.  We started with one topic (science) meeting only every third week with each mom taking a turn heading up a day of activities for varying grade levels.  A few months into the science co-op experiment, I could tell this model was working well (very well, in fact) and I began to approach others about the possibility of expanding to include not only science, but also history, art, music, literature and writing. We also began to discuss the possibilities of meeting more regularly.      

Several of us spent the next eight to twelve months praying about and formulating plans for this new co-op.  There were discussions about merging with other co-ops and whether or not there was a need for another co-op in town, meetings to flesh out our ideas and begin to put specific plans in place, and there were many dialogs with families who were interested in joining us.  And, of course, there were still those who said the idea of a preschool through high school co-op with an “enhancing/reinforcing” format instead of a “teaching” format wouldn’t work.  So, it was with great anticipation and some trepidation that we launched S.A.G.E. Co-op in September, 2006 with 25 families, 52 kids and 20 classes!  

While the first year went very well, all things considered, we identified some things which needed to be adjusted or completely revamped.  We tweaked those things and proceeded with plans for our second year.  As it is with any brand new work, I figured there would be a few kinks to work out the first few years.  However, I completely underestimated some of them and because of my lack of foresight in this regard, the co-op nearly imploded somewhere between its 2nd and 3rd year. Thankfully, God’s grace is sufficient and the co-op survived that tumultuous time and by the 5th year had hit its stride.  We continue to refine things a bit from year to year, but for the most part we’ve hit on a good combination of classes, schedules, and teams, etc. and things seem to be going along in a very nice rhythm now.

Our Mission Statement nicely summarizes what we do:

S.A.G.E. Co-op has been such a blessing to our family these last seven years that it brings me great joy when we are able to create a schedule which allows us to give as many families as possible the opportunity to join us.  This is one of those years when we’ve been able to expand making room for a large number of new families.  I look forward to getting to know each and every one of them this year as well as having the opportunity to continue to strengthening friendships with those who have been in co-op a number of years.

Stay tuned!  I hope to share more of our co-op’s activities here on the blog this year!

Gift #26 – S.A.G.E. Co-op