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We are going to start homeschooling my son next year and I'd love to hear from people that think their town is a great place to homeschool. I'd appreciate hearing about why your town is a good place for homeschooling families, the availability of co-ops and support groups, access to extracurricular activities and umbrella/cover schools in your area as well as. Thank you!
I think it depends on a few important factors. But your reasons for homeschooling are #1. We are in Houston and homeschooled for 4 months (got the kids into private school for this coming year). Here the homeschool scene is heavily dominated by people who do it for strong religious reasons. That wasn't us, and we didn't fit into that group. Then there was the minority of "crunchy moms" who homeschooled in a very different way. Again, not us. I was homeschooling because my kids both didn't thrive in public school, and to the point it was damaging them. I didn't have strong religious or philosophical reasons for doing it. Just an average mom disenchanted by the "teach to the test" schools do here.
The great thing about homeschooling in Houston is that there is a huge wealth in places to visit and to learn about. You could go on a field trip every day to a new interesting place every day of the year if you wanted. Also in Texas, the rules are very liberal about homeschooling. No need for any real accounting for your activities, by law you don't have to tell them anything. All you have to do is write a simple note saying the kids will be educated in x, y, z and that it is a "real" curriculum, not fake. lol.
The down side was we didn't fit into any of the co-ops or groups. *And* it was ******REALLY****** looked down on by so many (especially professionals like doctors, therapists, etc). Although I think you might run into that in a lot of places and so having a strong homeschool support network to insulate in a bit would be best.
You might find more info by looking for online forums that are dedicated to homeschooling in your philosophy and see if people have advice there.
Thank you for responding! We've been thinking about Texas because it's one of the states with the least restrictive homeschool laws. I'll check out some online homeschool forums
We homeschooled our daughter (now in grad school) in Nevada. Again, there are no restrictions other than to register your intent with the local school district each year. They do not check your curriculum or require testing. There are quite a few active groups and co-ops. Also, you can enroll your student into extracurricular activities and a few classes each year without having them in the public school system full time. For instance, our daughter wanted to take French in middle school. So the school we were zoned for had to accept her for just French, and nothing else. She also took advantage of the Gifted and Talented program for field trips and social experiences. It is a nice mix available to anyone. In addition, our own state capitol has a lot to offer onthe history side and Sacramento is only 90 minutes from Reno. San Francisco is just a 4 hour drive and has all of the museums and cultural opportunities that anyone could want.
I will also say that we met plenty of people in the homeschooling community who have no idea what they are doing. Those parents are going to end up with a bunch of kids who are not prepared for the adult world or college at the age of 18. I've noticed that most of them tend to live out in the rural areas and are more interested in self-reliance, etc and are following the "unschooling" movement. It was only noticeable and distracting during field trips with the local homeschooling group. These children tended to be less socialized and lacking common courtesy and manners. There will also always be the folks homeschooling for religious reasons. In our area those families rarely utilized the co-op classes for fear that something might be taught that conflicted with their views. Generally, we found most families to be homeschooling for other reasons. Nevada is known to have a poor public school system and families are easily frustrated by it, seeking charter schools and homeschooling if they have the resources. Our student was academically gifted and not challenged at all by the public school system. Though they have GT programming it was a pull-out program one day/week and she spent most of her day on a bus to another school, so she got about 3 hours of GT each week. The rest of the week she was bored out of her mind. Ironically my husband was a high school teacher in the district. He left teaching after 10 years to go back to the private sector.
and you might be able to find information on programs available in your area.
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