Homeschooling advice urgently needed
Hi all you homeschoolers out there. We are looking into homeschooling our sophmore (currently enrolled in high school in Benicia) through spring when she will take the CHESPE. I'm wondering what we need to do in terms of filing with the state. Curriculum would be a combination of tutoring in math and English, art taught by her father (a working artist/faculty at an art college) and the rest would be an unschooling curriculum. Any advice on how to accomplish this as quickly as possible as we want to begin homeschooling immediately. Thanks!
Nov 3, 2018
Parent Replies
Easy! Welcome to homeschooling. Here's your quick secular guide to homeschooling in CA: http://www.hsc.org/legal.html The quickest path to legal homeschooling with least oversight (and support) is to regiser as a private school: http://www.hsc.org/establishing-your-own-private-school.html 6 minutes and BOOM you're legal. Pull her out same day and don't look back!
We homeschool through a charter school. It's really great. We meet with a supervising teacher once a week (it will go down to once a month after a while) and she helps us with curriculum, materials, etc. She's really helpful. Our son is enrolled in school but we're the teachers. On Wednesdays he attends optional enrichment classes so that he has contact with other students but that isn't required. I find the structure of the charter school to be really helpful. When I used to think about homeschooling, I thought it was only religious whackos who didn't want their kids exposed to reality. I also assumed that very little learning was going on. Now I know better. My son is learning far more at home with us than he ever did sitting in class with 25 other kids. The social anxiety is gone and now he's focused on learning instead of on making it through the day without humiliation.
I was 100% opposed to home schooling but now I'm a convert. This was absolutely the best decision for our entire family. You can send me a message through my user name if you want to discuss this more. Unfortunately we've moved out of the bay and don't have the name of a similar program back home. But I bet that you can find one through searching Google for personalized educational programs. Good luck!
Call your district office and enroll in independent study through them.
you can pull your daughter out of school today!
there is a form you have to send in to the state (I believe) saying you are homeschooling but they ask for almost no info. Sorry I can't give you more details, since I did it over 10 years ago, but I remember being shocked at how little the govt cares what is happening. You don't have to wait for any approval or certification from the state. And my kid's public high school didn't care either. I just called up, said "he won't be attending anymore since we are homeschooling," and that was that.