Homeschooling

What is Homeschooling?

Homeschooling is when parents or guardians take charge of a child's learning instead of sending them to traditional school.

People homeschool for so many different reasons. Often they are driven by their own educational philosophies, or they are unhappy with aspects of the available schools, or they are just excited to have that experience or life style with their children.

Regulations differ across the states. New Jersey has no restrictions at all, Pennsylvania is one of the strictest states. But the steps are not difficult. I've supplied links below to explain what one must do in order to homeschool their children.

I began to homeschool my son because of the fourth grade experience he was facing,. My approach was "even if he only read books for a year he'd be better off than what he was facing." But then I fell in love with homeschooling. It happens!

A Threat to Parents

They fear their children will hate them.

Homeschooling is very threatening to many parents. They question if it’s even possible they could teach their child and then, for many, the fear arises of what it will do to their relationship with their children; their children will hate them for making them do all this schoolwork.

"But honestly when I started homeschooling it only took me a few weeks to settle into this idea of okay, so what’s homeschooling going to look like? And then realizing that wait, they love their teachers and their friends, and they hate schoolwork. And now they are going to be at home without their teachers and their friends doing schoolwork. Which is what got me searching for doable ways to homeschool. And that’s how I found unschooling."

how to homeschool in PA

You need to fill out an affidavit for the children you are going to homeschool and get it to the school district by August 1st. You also have to attach a list of objectives you have for each child. The objectives can be quite general and the askpauline link below has examples of objectives. You must have a qualified evaluator to meet with your child and verify that you have worked towards your objectives, who will write up an evaluation for you at the end of the year. A portfolio of work is to be assembled and standardized tests must be taken in 3rd, 5th, and 8th grades. It may sound overwhelming but it is pretty easy to manage.