Northwest Cary YMCA Homeschool Hub

The mission of the Y is “To put Christian principles into practice through programs that build a healthy spirit, mind and body for all”, and we take the “for all” very seriously. Our Mission compels us to embrace, reflect and celebrate the richness of diversity within each other and the many communities we serve. In that Christian principles are caring and inclusive, we are respectful of various expressions of faith and serve families and individuals from all traditions, backgrounds and perspectives. Together, we work to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to reach their full potential with dignity at our YMCA. 

All Homeschool Hub classes utilize secular curriculum and activities to ensure all students feel like they belong.

Students must enroll for half-day blocks of classes. On Tuesdays or Thursdays, students may sign up for just one class in either the morning or afternoon. Because our Monday/Wednesday classes are only 1 hour long, students must sign up for two or four classes on these days to meet the half-day requirement. This policy is to reduce the number of transitions in and out of the building each day to protect the safety of our students.

For the safety of our students and staff, we do not allow any adults to be in our program spaces unless they are a Y employee or officially registered as a Y volunteer. In general, we do not allow parents to participate in classes with their children or observe during class time. Parents are welcome to use the public lobby of the Northwest Cary Y while their children attend classes, and Y members may use any membership area while they wait. 

We occasionally need volunteers for specific projects/activities.

Our program is designed to be flexible and to meet the needs of as many different types of learners as possible. While our program is not a “special education” program, we serve students with many different strengths and challenges.

Students in our program must be able to remain with their class, communicate with their teachers, and cannot exhibit behaviors that are dangerous to themselves or others. Students should be enrolled in classes that are a good fit for their developmental age. This might mean that an older student enrolls in a class for younger ages. It also might mean that a younger child who is chronologically old enough to join our program may not yet be developmentally ready. 

During the 2024 - 25 school year, our program served around 340 students across our 4 days of programming, but we typically have between 120-180 students present at any given time. Individual age cohorts vary in size and this year we served about 60 students between the ages of 4-6, 108 students between ages 7-9, 97 students ages 10-12, and 77 ages 13-18. We expect these numbers to increase next year, especially in our oldest cohort.

Our program operates out of the Crosspointe Church building, which is attached to the Northwest Cary YMCA. All of our classroom spaces are reserved for our program, and no other adults should ever be in our areas during program time. When we use space outside the Crosspointe building, students are supervised by our staff and kept in separate areas from members.

All of our staff are employees of the Y, and are fully trained in Y safety protocols. Our classroom spaces are all within hallways that require badge access, and only Y staff and approved/trained volunteers will be in these spaces with students.

Our teachers are chosen based on their love of the subjects they teach and sharing that love of learning with students. Many have experience in public or private school settings, and all have experience teaching students in a group setting. All teachers are trained in supporting the needs of all students, including those with a variety of neurodivergencies.

Students who enroll in a full day participate in a supervised Lunch/Recess break between 11 a.m. and noon.

Students will be with the same teachers and group of students each day, and these groups are determined based mostly on student age to ensure that students are interacting with developmentally similar peers during this time. 

We do have some limited space available for half-day students to join our Lunch/Recess hour for a small additional fee. 

We do not have the facilities available to provide lunch to students.

The goal of our classes is student engagement and a love of learning, and we therefore do not use grades or required assignments. Families are responsible for assigning grades to their own students if they determine this is necessary in their own homeschool. Teachers will share weekly what students are working on in class, and parents are always welcome to ask their child’s teachers about their learning in class.

We want our classrooms to be a good fit for everyone, so we offer a two-week drop/add window at the beginning of each semester. Until this date, students can withdraw or transfer to other classes that have openings. These changes will result in a loss of the $25 administrative fee/deposit paid for the original class.

Because our classes are intended to be semester-long and knowledge is built from class to class, we do not accept additional registrations after this two-week window. To protect the financial sustainability of the program, we are therefore not able to offer refunds after this time and families are responsible for the full class tuition for the remainder of the semester, even if their payments are set up as a monthly draft.