Who Can Start a Homeschool?
Have you ever wanted to start your own homeschool, but have no idea how to even start doing it? Are you getting fed up with the lack of skills and knowledge students have upon graduating? Are you getting tired of exposing your child to the pandemic?
There are may of reasons people want to homeschool their children. Now more than ever, families are looking for a way to educate their children on their own terms and in their own homes, but they have no idea how easy it is. The thought of homeschooling may seem daunting; and school employees try to make you think it is illegal, not because they think they can provide a better education, but because they get paid by the government for the number of warm bodies sitting in the seats of their classrooms.
It is actually very easy to start your own homeschool. You do not need to be a credentialed teacher, you do not have to come up with curricula on your own. All you need to do is register your place of residence as a private school with the state of California.
Our Story
Our homeschooling story happens to be backwards for most people we know who homeschooled their children. Most families we know started out homeschooling for grade school and finished off with high school by the request of their children. We started our daughter’s education by sending her to school, and finished junior high and high school off homeschooling. We didn’t intend on educating her this way, it just happened due to circumstances out of our control, really. After all is said and done, we couldn’t have planned it better.
How the story unfolded
My daughter was 14 when she called home with strong stomach cramping, so we picked her up early from school that day. The cramping persisted throughout the night and developed into a cyclical, nightly occurrence beginning around 8pm ending around 5-6am. Sometimes she was plagued with cramping and the inability to sleep for over 36 hours.
I called her in sick every day, because I was not about to send her to school on 30 minutes of sleep. The school began to protest her attendance within the first two weeks. I was frazzled. Staying up all night long with my ailing daughter, and moving into the next day for weeks without sleep myself was exhausting. About a week into it, I was in the doctor’s office trying to diagnose my daughter, when the school called threatening to turn me into the truancy police. Really?!!!
The school would not allow us to do independent study for more than 2 weeks; and they would not accept a call from home for being ill. Parents are not a valid excuse for the warm body from being absent from the classroom…. it’s all about the ADA money. I was then required to call the doctor every morning, so he could personally call my daughter in sick. Can you imagine having to do that? The doctor was infuriated.
The Final Straw That Broke My Public School Back
I was constantly arguing with the school and begging for their cooperation. We were not allowed to have her on long-term independent study, because students have to attend a weekly meeting on campus in the morning, and mornings were the only time she could sometimes sleep. After weeks of this new lifestyle, I had all I could take. I discussed homeschooling with the school, and they said it was illegal for them to give me her records and release her to me. I never take no for an answer, I knew I could figure this out. As a result, I looked into homeschooling online, and discovered that, to start your own homeschool, is actually pretty easy to do in two steps.
Homeschooling Benefits & How We Did It
Homeschooling benefitted our daughter and our bank account. Our daughter was 14, and in junior high school when I first started the homeschool in January. As a result, we just continued the subjects she was learning to finish out the school year. The following years, we incorporated community college courses with our own homeschooling courses.
Our Role As Homeschooling Parents
As homeschooling parents, it is our job to instill confidence in our students. Allow them to follow their interests and involve them in real life experiences as they happen = unschooling. Allowing students to participate in all aspects of your lifestyle is empowering. It shows them you have confidence in them, provides a wide range of relevant, real-world life experiences, and allows them to explore things they find interesting. With self confidence, they become independent learners.
Positive Affirmation For Success:
A positive attitude goes a long way. Believing in yourself and loving yourself will cultivate great things in your life. A great way to start off the day with your student/s and yourself is to say out loud:
I am smart, I am blessed, & I can do anything
At-Home Education
At home, we taught our daughter about the homestead. She learned how to grow her own food, how to find buyers for produce and harvest for an order, how to start a business, how to obtain organic certifications, how to write grants, how to cook from scratch, how to build things, how to use tools. Because of this direct exposure, she can do anything she puts her mind to.
Unschooling
Unschooling involves more open and free education strategy that does not involve lessons and structured curricula. Our at home education involved real-world learning derived from our off-grid, homestead lifestyle. We, as parents, involved her and taught her about the things we each do on the homestead. Everything she learned about our homesteading lifestyle involves real-world applications of math, science, research, self-guided learning.
I started a micro-farm, got organic certification, and she participated along the way. As an herbalist, I make plant medicines and body care products for the family, and she made them with me. We raised organic hogs as a food source and she raised them with us. We do not eat processed foods, she learned to cook from scratch.
Her dad is a contractor and has built the homestead where we live. Our daughter learned how to build and use tools from her dad. She also learned how to tend to bee hives and harvest honey with her dad.
Our daughter was involved in yearly ballet productions, and an exchange program with a French ballet school. As a result, we were able to host a French ballerina at our house and we stayed with the same ballerina in France.
Using a Community College to Supplement
The next year, we went to our local community college to get her assessed for mathematics and English levels. Our local community college allows K-12 students to enroll in no more than 11 units of courses for $15/semester, meaning that her tuition for a year was $30!! Huge Bonus, even with the 11 unit limitation.
Each semester long course is equivalent to a year long high school course, so one year at community college is equivalent to two years of high school courses. We enrolled her into math, English, history and an elective.
Important Note:
You must be the principal at your registered private school to approve your student’s attendance at the community college.
I was her at-home support for her college classes. Her second year at the community college, she was invited into the theater arts program and was on track for earning her Associate of Arts degree. By the time she finished all the lower level community college courses, she graduated homeschool.
Gem Drop:
Graduating your student as soon as they finish the lower level course work is crucial. Universities will not transfer the units if the student is enrolled in high school concurrently.
Benefits For Our Daughter
My daughter was 17 when she graduated with an AA in Theater Arts and was eligible to transfer into any university as a junior. When she applied to universities, she did not have to participate in SAT testing because she was a transfer student — another Bonus.
We supplemented with and used the community college to prepare her for attending a university. Each semester long class, including summer school is equivalent to a year of a high school class. Classmates are young adults, serious about their education. As a result, there is zero class time lost to discipline and other distractions.
Online classes also offered situational experience for her, allowing her to become responsible for self-guided learning and following a syllabus with assignments, due dates, and exam dates. We took advantage of showing her how to communicate with instructors during office hours. We guided her to make appointments with counselors. She learned to discuss her educational plan.
When it was time, she transitioned with ease into the university environment, and she was confident learning on her own. She was comfortable communicating with professors during office hours. She was accustomed to planning her schedule with counselors. We were able to avoid the stress around standardized testing throughout her high school years and college entrance exams. My daughter was accepted into a CSU as a junior transfer student and graduated with a BA in two years at 19 years old!!
How to start your own homeschool with no teaching experience
There are all sorts of free homeschooling programs and resources online. There are also homeschooling courses for purchase or online. No matter how much you want to be involved with teaching or creating a learning path, there are many options. Once you start your own homeschool, the decisions are yours. Most important is that we expose our children to their options and provide them with skills.
Here are a few links to free homeschooling options and resources:
K12.com—CA Homeschool | K12.com Official Site
Homeschool Resources | Free Homeschooling Activities
12 Best Free Homeschool Programs in 2022 – DollarBreak
You’ve got this!! Go Start Your Own Homeschool and submit your Private School Affidavit.
Three Easy Steps to Start Your Own Homeschool:
1. Open a private school through the California Department of Education by submitting a Private School Affidavit at the following url: http://www3.cde.ca.gov/psa. This is an annual filing that covers the period from October 1 through September 30. You may submit and start your own homeschool anytime of year. I opened our School in January.
Be aware that this requires yearly renewal, so renewing as close to October 1 is best. Here, you get to name your school, so have fun with it. Involve your student. You can even make your own logo. A logo is not required, but it is a fun way to involve your student/s. Designing a logo is another learning opportunity, and it looks great on the diploma.
2. Officially withdraw your student from the school. Write a letter to the school registrar, requesting all records they have. note: if your student is not enrolled in any school, step 2 is irrelevant.
3. Choose and implement your school’s educational format, and implement your plan.
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