CHE Student Membership
This membership is only available to students who are enrolled in Colorado Homeschool Enrichment. The fees for this program are paid in their entirety by a student's CHE campus and all hours accumulated are taught by a CHE Certified Instructional Specialist (CIS) and are qualified for the state's required extracurricular hours. Classes in this membership consist of only CHE students and cannot be joined by any student that is not enrolled in Colorado Homeschool Enrichment and has filed a Notice of Intent with a school district in Colorado. Campuses are billed directly by the Valley Co-Op and no fees are due from the parents upon registration.
Our CHE classes are designed to give students a greater understanding of a variety of activities as well as hands-on practical application in those disciplines. Students will also engage in longer-term classes designed specifically for our CHE students in a variety of subjects. Students learn and practice how to interact with others in a positive manner while working together to accomplish community goals. Students are broken into two classes by age (typically an Elementary-aged class, and a Middle-School and High School Class combined) and benefit from learning collectively with their peers.
This membership meets three times per month--twice for class days at the Orchard Church, Carbondale, and once off-site for a field trip. CHE field trips usually occur on Tuesdays.
Membership Fee: $850/Student per School Year (August 2026-May 2027). This fee includes entry to included events for one chaperone per family. Family members that are too young to register for CHE are welcome to sit in on classes but are responsible for their own supplies and entry fees to field trips. Tickets for family members to field trips are available through the Valley Co-Op. Some of our CHE classes occur at the same time the Valley Co-Op offers a Future Member Membership and younger students are welcome to enroll in the Valley Co-Op Future Membership, but the younger students' memberships cannot be funded by CHE.
Class Days
Class Days consist of four classes, beginning the day with our Nature Studies and Collaborative Critical Thinking before students are divided into their individual classes by age. Class Days are the first and second Tuesday of each month, August through May, and take place at the Orchard Church in Carbondale, CO from 9:00am until 2:00pm. Students must bring their own peanut-free lunch. Parents are REQUIRED to take part in the Co-Op. Parents are scheduled to assist in various capacities during Co-Op for four class periods (2 months), then the next two class periods (1 month) parents are able to drop children off during Co-Op and either leave or bring your coffee and relax with the other parents who are not scheduled to assist. This schedule revolves during the entire school year and can vary based on parent responsibilities and student registration.
CHE students are required to commit to the entire year when enrolling in our CHE Student Membership, but the individual classes and field trips are optional (though students do NOT earn enrichment hours for classes/trips that they do not attend). ALL STUDENTS MUST RSVP for class days and field trips they DO plan to attend through the member portal. We need an accurate headcount for class supplies and field trip tickets.
Our class days vary in content, but the schedules typically follow the below format:
Nature - Our Nature Study class is guided by a dedicated teacher who provides students with supplies and learning prompts. Students are encouraged to learn at their own pace and focus on areas of the natural world that interest them by utilizing nature as their classroom. Each class period includes a portion of outdoor time, regardless of the weather, so please plan accordingly! Students are to practice peer-mentorship during our Nature course-older and younger students are grouped together to foster a sense of belonging and community as well as develop leadership and collaboration skills. Teaching assistants as well as the leading Certified Instruction Specialist (CIS) may divide students into smaller groups for workshops and focus areas, but students will not be grouped by age.
Collaborative Critical Thinking - Continuing to foster relationships between older and younger students, our collaborative time includes games and puzzles that require good communication and logical thinking to complete. Facilitated by a Certified Instructional Specialist, students are encouraged to take the lead while working together to practice clear communication and problem-solving skills in variety of student-directed learning opportunities.
Students break into their respective age groups for the following classes. The class schedule provided at the bottom of this page is subject to change based on teacher availability, but if a class does need to change, we do our best to replace it with a class in the same discipline.
Activity - This changes each week and is a hands-on learning experience from a variety of teachers around the Valley who are overseen by a CIS or are a CIS themselves. Our goal in this class is to give students a taste of different activities and extracurricular opportunities around the area that they can pursue further on their own. These classes typically do not build on each other. Activities are all experienced based education and range from cooking and art to animal science and STEM classes.
Class - Some subjects are more beneficial for students when they are taught over the course of several weeks. To enable us to teach these types of classes, each semester we have 1-2 multi-week classes. These classes are scheduled in blocks and, within that block, classes build on the previous class. We do our best to set the entire class schedule before the school year begins, but occasionally changes do occur. The official calendar of classes can be found on the member portal and is kept up to date, though the posted schedule below is NOT changed throughout the year.
CHE students are NOT able to sign up for CHE-only class days or field trips separately. If your student would like to participate in the CHE-only events and earn extracurricular hours, they must enroll in the full CHE Student Membership. CHE students are welcome to enroll in our other memberships, but they will NOT earn extracurricular hours for any events sponsored by the Valley Co-Op outside of this membership.
Field Trips
Field Trips typically take place on the third Tuesday of each month. Our field trips vary from month to month and usually are in different locations each month. One parent or guardian is REQUIRED to attend every field trip with their student. At the end of each semester, our Field Trip day takes place at the Orchard Church and instead of an off-site field trip we host a Co-Op-Wide Christmas Party (in December) and a Co-Op-Wide Exhibition (in May) where your student can walk for graduation, showcase a science or art project, or perform for family members. CHE students are NOT able to earn hours at Co-Op-Wide events, so to allow our CHE students to gain an appropriate number of hours at our end of the semester field trips, the Valley Co-Op will host a CHE-only event PRIOR to the Co-Op wide event. Details for this event will be available through the calendar on the member portal.
CHE Funding
The Valley Co-Op typically begins programming in August and ends in May. We plan to continue this practice in the 2026-2027 school year, HOWEVER, as CHE is waiting for information on whether or not they will be granted a funding extension for this school year, the first two class days in August will be Co-Op-Wide events. This means that even if CHE funding is available, students will NOT be able to count hours for the first two class days in August (as these events will take place with non-CHE and CHE students combined). If the Department of Education does not grant CHE the ability to fund programing in the 2026-2027 school year, ALL of the Co-Op events will be combined for the school year of 2026-2027 and will still follow the below schedule. If CHE is unable to operate, that means that all students will be private pay and the Co-Op will distribute available donations differently, so the enrollment fee for students will be different than what is listed above. Parents of members will be emailed with the relevant information and fee structure as soon as that information is available.
2026-2027 Schedule
Below is the planned CHE Class Schedule for the 2026-2027 school year. There is always the possibility of this schedule needing to change based on teacher availability and weather, but below is what you can expect for your CHE student to participate in at the Valley Co-Op in 2026-2027. All of these Valley Co-Op events qualify for CHE hours, but to obtain the hours, your student must actually attend our events. Attendance is taken at each event and emailed to the student's CHE Campus leader at the end of each month. If your student is NOT enrolled in Colorado Homeschool Enrichment, please click here to view other Valley Co-Op memberships that are available to them. Other memberships have different schedules and classes. CHE students are able to also sign up for other memberships but canNOT earn enrichment hours for CHE with any other Valley Co-Op Events except for our CHE Teen events. Memberships that are not CHE exclusive with the Valley Co-Op must be paid for privately, without CHE funding.
Click Here for a PDF version of the 2026-2027 Schedule
