From first conversation
to first day.
Two minutes to reach out. Twenty minutes to meet. A term built around your child - the right classes, the right pace - not pulled from a template. Grades 2-10; the only baseline requirement is that your child is comfortable using a computer.
Reach out, meet, match, start.
Four steps from form to first term. The first two take half an hour of your time combined. Steps three and four are mostly us.
A two-minute form. Your child's grade, your state, the basics. No essay, no test scores.
A 20-minute intake call, booked for whenever suits you. We learn what makes your child tick - strengths, struggles, the things they keep coming back to.
We design the term: which academic cohorts, which self-directed classes, which enrichment and SEL classes. Built around your child, not pulled from a template.
Family welcome call, schedule locked in, first term begins. Usually within a week or two of intake.
What we actually ask about.
The intake call isn't a screening interview. It's how we learn enough about your child to design the right term. Four things we want to understand:
Where attention shows up and where it doesn't. What they hyperfocus on. Where the day breaks down.
Subjects they've been told they're 'bad at.' Accommodations they've had to fight for. The classes they dread.
Real interests - gaming, writing, music, science, business. We use these to anchor the schedule.
When you're available. When they're sharp. What other commitments - therapy, sports, family - the schedule has to flex around.
What makes an excellent
Recess kid.
Recess isn't for every kid, and that's fine. Here's the profile we tend to do best with - and the kind of family who finds us at the right time.
Bright kids who've outgrown the single-track classroom - bored when it's easy, drowning when the pacing is wrong, somewhere in between most of the day.
ADHD, dyslexia, autism, anxiety, twice-exceptional - these are the profiles we know best. We treat a diagnosis as a starting point for how we design the term, not a ceiling on what your kid can do. Many on our team grew up with the same wiring.
Kids who want to ship - films, businesses, games, books, research, performances. Standard school rarely makes space for this. We organize the year around it.
Parents who've fought enough IEP meetings to know that more of the same isn't the answer - and who are ready to invest in a school built around their child.
Who you enroll with,
and who you pay.
Recess runs the school day. Depending on your state and what your family needs, enrollment itself runs either through an accredited partner school in our network or directly with us. It changes very little day to day, and it changes who holds your child's records and who collects tuition, so we say it up front.
Most families enroll through an accredited partner school in the Recess school network. That school issues transcripts and maintains official records, and you sign its enrollment agreement. Recess delivers the school day. Whether the partner school is also your child's school of record and files state reporting depends on your state. Where it is not, and for families who enroll with Recess directly, your state's homeschool requirements stay with your family.
Where there is a partner school, you pay tuition to that school and it sets the payment schedule. If you are using state funding, timing can also follow when your state's program releases funds. Families who enroll with Recess directly pay us, and private-pay families can spread tuition across 10 monthly installments.
On your call we tell you which path applies in your state, what your financial aid estimate looks like, and how much of it your state funding can cover. Where a partner school is involved, we recommend your aid award to that school and the school confirms your final tuition.