159428~Getting legal help with homeschooling your children—I
received a frantic phone call about homeschooling this morning.
Now, frantic telephone calls about homeschooling are nothing new.
Most of them, over the years, have been of the
”
I want to homeschool my child, and I don’t know how to do it
”
variety.
Wow Cynthia, this is a really interesting point you bring up. As homeschoolers, we’ve been so used to being afraid, that now that there is a completely legal way to homeschool in CA, we’ve let our guard down, haven’t we?
Thanks for bringing this up. It reminds us that homeschooling parents, and really every parent, has the responsiblity to know the laws and options for educating our children. If we decide to homeschool our children, we should be a good model of learning by researching the legal way to go about homeschooling, and to get involved with the community in such a way that we can honestly say that we made an educated choice.
One last comment I’d like to make: HSDLA is only one of the many ways to have “peace of mind”, in the legal sense. First, knowing the law and our rights is the most important way to know we are doing the right thing. Also, joining a state-wide organization such as the Homeschool Association of California (HSC) or the California Homeschool Network (CHN) is a wonderful way to know that no matter what happens, we have support. HSDLA has a limited selection of who it considers to be worthy of helping. HSC and CHN will help anyone who asks. Also, by joining HSC and/or CHN, we support efforts in our state specifically, to keep homeschooling not only legal, but with as minimal intrusion as possible, without any kind of political involvement except for the betterment of every single homeschooler in CA.
Thanks for writing your great column.
Tammy Takahashi, editor for the California HomeSchooler magazine (for HSC) and member of CHN
http://www.hsc.org
