Seton Home Study School offers both curriculum resources for Catholic families and online courses. Seton’s Home Study School is an accredited school offering diplomas to high school students. Seton Home Study School is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. They are also internationally accredited by AdvancED (of which SACS is a member), and they are on the list of approved home study schools in Virginia. They are an approved Proprietary School with the Virginia Department of Education and have been accepted as a member of the Virginia Council of Private Education (for Private Schools).
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Cons: extremely narrow-minded/Eurocentric content; way too religious in a weird, heavy-handed way; dogmatic; not fun
Grades Used: 5
When COVID-19 hit, we needed an immediate plan. Our child is in her public school’s Gifted Program, loves to learn, and had been curious about going to Catholic school. So we took this as an opportunity and asked several friends who had homeschooled for recommendations. Seton came recommended with reservations (by devout Catholics), but seemed the best choice that we found. We’re not Catholic, but my experiences both teaching in and working with West Coast Catholic schools had given me a positive impression, so we signed up.
Well, were we in for a shock! This curriculum skews towards male-dominated, white nationalist and pro-military in ways that I did not know existed in 2020 education. Examples: History–World War 2 does not mention the Holocaust. The textbook emphasizes war and battles without going into why conflict happened. 1960s chapter does not mention Martin Luther King Jr, the Civil Rights Movement or the American Indian Movement. Not much about women outside of the home. Instead, women are always portrayed in supportive roles, not as leaders. This goes against the teachings I experienced in Catholic schools. Like other reviewers have said, there is way too much emphasis on certain religious aspects (why are there paintings of suffering in the Math book?) and not in the way that makes kids want to join the church.
Also, the parent’s guide calls non-homeschooling “an anti-family social agenda which is pushed at the children through the teachers and textbooks. Homosexuality and ‘same sex marriages’ are being discussed in many schools as an optional alternative” (1). We do not support this kind of homophobic thinking. Ironically, we found that the Seton curriculum does exactly what it claims not to–it certainly has an agenda that it pushes onto the children. As my child said, “What if this was all that kids were exposed to? That would be terrible.”
So we cherry picked. We liked the grammar and phonics (though the sentences were heavy handed about war, sin, and religion). Important academic skills are taught–diagramming, how to sit and work at a problem, how to memorize, reading, some different Mathematical thinking. We followed the Composition lessons and the Handwriting. We supplemented Maps with more modern on-line resources. We thought the Math was spot on. Interestingly, the Science curriculum was also good but basic.
We tried the Art and Religion, but the heavy-handedness of the content drove us away. We chose not to do the Reading Skills book after noticing that the stories included shaming a child’s emotional outbursts and Dad locking the child in the cellar.
All the pictures in the books are of White people. Interesting choice, considering that Catholicism is practiced in Central and South America, the Philippines, and other places where People of Color live.
Lessons can be skipped if child quickly grasps concepts. Lessons are designed for repetition, which is good for mainstream learners, but not the Gifted mind. This meant that we could progress quickly. Worksheets provide structure and are ways to practice concepts–sort of like “bootcamp” fitness. It does work. But it gets boring.
Can I recommend this curriculum. Not really. Am I thankful that we had it to tide us over? Yes, but not for reasons that the Seton team probably intended. If we need to homeschool again, we’ll look for a different curriculum.
Cons: More bias towards catholoscism than neccessary, historical innacuracies, painting any kind of secular historian, scientist, author etc. in a bad light.
Grades Used: 1-7
I was brought up using the Seton Homeschooling program and while it was fun to use, looking back I have some harsher critiscisms. When I was going through middle school I was not taught any form of reproductive health or Sex Ed at all. I knew THAT something would happen to my body, i had no idea why and was completely unaware of how the menstrual cycle worked or why it happened. I also found the amount of religeous tie-ins to be almost suffocating as a child. When learning english nearly every sentence example was about “John goes to church” or “St Ignatius blessed the sinners” etc. All literary examples, books, or passages were heavily religeously affiliated, and honestly more than is neccessary. A child using this program already is taking the religeous courses and learning the religeous history, adding this extra level of almost smothering examples of good catholics seems redundant and almost programming. Children with this program get almost no break from constant saints, God or children praising God, and as much as i love the baltimore chatechism and the religeous segment of the curriculum, sitting through 14 courses a day all with religeon constantly pushed at them is agony as it slowly kills creative thought and individualism. The art program is also highly flawed and growing up, the worst part of my work was “art history” in which only catholic art was taught and no actual art was completed. as a sixts grader, trying to sit through symbolism was downright torture and each year was a game of Russian Roulette of whether I would get an actual art book or a book I dreaded and resented each week.
Grades Used: 9-12 (some earlier grades to catch up)
Used Seton’s special education for high school. The suggestions regarding the curriculum were dead on! We went back and plugged the holes in reading and that immediately reduced his frustration.
The algebra books were so systematic that he couldn’t believe he’d made it through the course. It was wonderful that he could go at his own pace, AND I worked full time while home schooling him.
Cons: math books need illustrations to go with what they are learning, one counselor was flipping out on me
Grades Used: K, 1, 2, 3, 5
We have used Seton for 3.5 years for 2 children.
K (half the year)
1st
2nd
3rd
5th (half the year)
Through the years all of the counselors at Seton have been wonderful, except the one I spoke with today. (We’ll get into that later.)
The curriculum for math is very good, although I wish the books were more colorful. Each book only has one color, along with the black ink, such as orange, green or blue. However, the progress and steps involved in learning at each grade is very good for math. My K daughter loves her math book.
All of the books are wonderful when it comes to the proper steps and progression of learning the actual subject matter. However, the artwork and images are more adult, than something most children would enjoy. I do wish there weren’t stained glass images on so many pages and adult looking artwork. That’s great for history or religion, but it doesn’t really fit with the math books. It’s nice, but children really would enjoy cartoon type characters or photographs and maybe images that didn’t look so… depressing or sad… Maybe images that have something to do with math, you know, what they are actually learning about. Even if they are amazing works of art, it doesn’t fit to put it into some of the books, such as math.
So, this brings me to why we stopped using Seton. I do highly recommend it. I also highly recommend speaking to anyone from the Clark family. They have all been amazing.
However, today I had a different experience with one of the counselors. (Not going to say her name.) I called because we needed to withdrawal in the middle of the year, after the 2nd quarter. My kids are not growing as much as I’d like with lack of activities that we can pay for right now, such as art, music lessons, physical education and other activities they would love to do. So, I decided we would continue to use the Seton books we bought, and sign up with a charter school and get the money we pay into the government for our own children. So far, I realized if they get $2,700 per year, our family has lost $16,200 ever since my oldest daughter was in the 1st grade! That is incredible! Why in the world should I continue to waste the tax dollars we are entitled to? So, I decided to switch to a charter school. Well, the counselor freaked out on me today and told me, “Do you realize that it’s socialism?” Oh, she also pointed out in a sarcastic tone that I lived in “California”, which was actually really mean. It’s not like the more conservative people here aren’t already drowning in disrespect. She was angry that I wanted to continue to use the Seton books, but turn in non-religious samples of my children’s every 20 days to the
charter school, so we could get our tax dollars. This was unacceptable to her. She wasn’t listening to me. (I actually couldn’t even talk for a while because I started crying in response to her negativity.) On the other hand, another very nice counselor spoke to me last week and she was kind and offered to pray for our situation, since she thought it was also smart to use this money, while using the Seton books. It was like night and day. God bless the kind heart of the first lady I spoke with.
Over all, I like Seton. Just be careful about who you are talking with over the phone, since that’s part of what you pay for. If they situation gets strange, just get off the phone.
The only reason why we aren’t going to get the Seton report card anymore is because we need to register for a charter to get the funds, otherwise my kids will be bored in the house all day, at the park or at church… They kind of need music lessons, art and other things besides just what I can give them. I’ve tried for years, but I just can’t do it anymore.
I do recommend Seton, just be careful about who you talk with.
Grades Used: K, 3-6
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Seton! It allows the majority of the pressure and planning to be taken off the parents. With assistance during working hours from certified counselors, and administration and staff that works for YOUR family. We’ll be enrolling for the 4th consecutive year 2011-12.
Focus seems to be mainly on the 3 R’s. We supplement history & science during the year, and spelling and vocab during the summers.