What is My Tech High?
My Tech High is an online public charter school in the state of Utah that reimburses families up to $1400 to homeschool their children. You get the benefit of teaching your child whatever you want (although they will not reimburse religious curriculum, I'll share the workaround for that later on!), you operate just as any homeschool parent would, but you don't have to go through the trouble of getting a homeschool affidavit, your child is technically enrolled in a school, you can choose to do or not do state testing, and you have a "homeroom" teacher that you submit a learning log to each week as a form of accountability.How Does My Tech High Work?
At the beginning of the year, you set a schedule of six "periods" or classes for your student. (We teach more than six subjects, but that is what MTH will reimburse.) You can choose to use an MTH online or in-person course option, or you can choose "custom built" and plan your curriculum and what you want to do for that course. If you choose one of the MTH options, you will not get a reimbursement for that class. If you choose custom-built, you will get $225 per custom-built course.You are allowed to do 4 custom-built courses, which means they will reimburse up to $900 for the 4 classes. You also get a $500 technology allowance each year. This means that they will give you up to $1400 each year to pay you back for your expenses to homeschool.
You can lump your funds all into one pool if you're doing custom-built. What a lot of parents will do is purchase whatever they want for their core subjects using their own money, but then have a custom-built class for PE, and use all $1400 to pay for soccer, gymnastics, dance, ski passes, etc... You get the freedom to spend the money how you want, as long as it fits within their reimbursement criteria.
How Do You Get Reimbursed?
Parents pay for everything on their credit cards and have to save their receipts. MTH will pay you back for things purchased. For this 2023-2024 school year MTH will pay me back for educational expenses made from April 1, 2023, through March 31, 2024. They will pay me back for educational materials, internet bills, Amazon Prime subscriptions, Netflix subscriptions, books, Lego sets, sports equipment, classes, etc... that were all purchased in that window. Starting September 29, 2023, they will open the system for reimbursements. At that point, I upload all my receipts, and two weeks later they will cut me a check for everything I've spent up to this point. I can submit a reimbursement 4 times per school year since we're doing 4 custom-built classes.
How to Get Religious Materials Reimbursed?
Because MTH is a public charter school they technically cannot reimburse you for your religious materials, but there is a workaround. If you do The Good and the Beautiful, you can purchase the PDF versions of their curriculum for a much cheaper price than if you purchased the workbooks. Then you can have the books printed and bound at Office Depot, Staples, etc... and MTH will reimburse you for those printing costs. So you're not getting everything 100% covered, but you're getting the materials at a much cheaper cost than you would have originally.What We're Getting Reimbursed:
There is a wide variety of items that can be reimbursed for through MTH. They have a full spreadsheet of what you can and can not do for reimbursements (like desks and other furniture), but they have a surprisingly long list of things that you can be reimbursed for. At first, I was trying to make it so the things we were reimbursed for weren't going to be for things we were going to purchase anyways, such as internet, but then I realized we could use that money to pay us back for things they wouldn't reimburse, like a desk. So there are workarounds like that, you kind of just have to be smart and play their game to get the maximum allowable reimbursement. These are some of the items that we're being reimbursed for this year:- Materials for science experiments
- Registration for fall and spring soccer
- Fees for a family swim pass
- Canva subscription
- Amazon Subscription
- Internet fees
- Adobe photoshop fees
- Some Good and The Beautiful books that don't mention religious topics (they have a list available)
- Audible subscription
- Monitors
- Books
- Lego Sets (they will reimburse under math and technology!)
- School Supplies
- Keyboard and mouse
- Writing pen for iPad
My Tech High for Students with Disabilities:
MTH can accommodate students with IEPs, 504s, and various disabilities, although this isn't something we're currently utilizing at this time. If Kinsley were to do MTH they would do her speech, physical, and occupational therapies with her online, and she would work more closely with an online teacher to meet the goals on her IEP. This sounds more overwhelming than easy to me, which is why she is still happily attending her public school that has been working well for her for years.
This is the meat and potatoes for how My Tech High homeschool works, how reimbursements work, and how we're utilizing it this school year. If you have further questions, let me know and I'd be more than happy to answer them for you.
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