Fears about non "Homeschool friendly" states - Page 2

[HRC121799]

I'm in Wa state, and because I have no college credits, all I have to do is take a two day course at the local community college (institute for extended learning center) on homeschooling/laws (before my older ds turns 7yrs. I'll be taking this). I spoke to the gal who teaches it and basically it just goes over the different types of hs, ways to do it, resources, and WA hs law. Not too bad. And for the "testing" we'll be filling out a form from the familylearningorganization (link a poster already gave) on basically what we "did" that year and then they'll go over it real quick and send it back. I was worried about it to when I first read the laws, but it's not too bad actually, and we're unschooling. I wish there were NO homeschool laws of course, that would be even better!

[Openskyheart]

Eris,

I'm homeschooling my kids in Santa Cruz. I've e-mail communicated with Diane Flynn Keith of Homefires, who keeps an extensive list of homeschooling groups throughout California. She confirmed that Santa Cruz is unusual in that just about all homeschoolers do so through a public school-supported program. Including us.

It isn't as bad as it sounds. We have no testing requirements (in fact, our coordinator talked my son *out* of taking the test! I didn't want him to, but he was curious). We have no set curriculum. We have the freedom to unschool, or school-at-home or anything in between. I do have to meet with our coordinator once a month, and give her samples or describe to her what we are doing in 5 different areas: Math, Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, and P.E./Art/Music. So far, anything we've done or not done has been perfectly fine.

My kids take classes given by the program regularly, but they are not required to attend. They like them, though, and have made good friends there (so have I!). For example, starting this Thursday, they are going to have a 4 week African drumming workshop taught by a young man from Senegal. We had a family potluck the other night where all of us got to sing and chant and drum with him. It was a blast! Of course, not all of the classes are that enthralling, and my kids are always free to pick and choose.

I've only met a handful of independent homeschoolers here in Santa Cruz, and they have all been doing so for religious reasons, and are all hard-core school-at-homers. I've heard about a center in Boulder Creek or Ben Lomond (small mountain communities just outside of Santa Cruz) which is run by radical unschoolers. If we lived near there, I'd check it out.

In our homeschooling program, there are several of us who say we will leave the program in a heartbeat if they start requiring testing, curriculum, or attendance. Some programs here *do* require those things, but so far, I think TPTB in our group know they'd be shooting themselves in the foot if they did that.

Laura

[Queen Gwen]

Just a reminder that no matter how good or bad laws look on paper, how the local officials feel about homeschooling makes a huge difference. Laws can be twisted one way or another, depending.

We're in Ohio, which some consider to be a strict state. Our district is pretty relaxed, though. Heck, the local school superintendent lives across the street from us, and thinks it's great we homeschool.

[anythingelse]

I was just going to post what gwen said, it is not just the state. we have hsed in 3 states and IME is that things can vary tremendously from district to district as far as climate/acceptance/harrassments