Getting Started

4. Home Schooling Regulations

Make sure you find out what the home schooling regulations are in your area.

A really good place to get a good idea of the regulations is from other home schoolers. They should be able to warn you of anything to be careful of in your area.

Also, check with your local school authorities (school board), and/or your local government that controls schooling where you live, but be careful of what school authorities and the government tell you. Many beginning home schooling parents have had the bad experience of being misinformed. Most officials won't intentionally mislead you, but things can be too obvious to them, which can cause communication errors between them and you. And some people have found school authorities that strongly discouraged them from home schooling. Just make sure you double check your information.

Legalities

In some places, home schooling is actually illegal. In these areas, there may be people doing underground home schooling, but I don't advise you to break the law.

Where home schooling is legal, usually you have to let the local school authorities know you are home schooling your children. You may have to fill out quite a bit of paper, and jump through a lot of hoops, or it may be fairly easy. It varies a lot from area to area.

Even in areas where home schooling is legal, I have heard there are home schoolers who are underground, who don't register their children, who just keep them at home and educate them. An advantage of not being underground is that it's easier to connect to other families, when you don't have to worry about getting caught. And, you don't have to break the law in front of your children, which wouldn't set the best example for them.

If you are concerned about the regulations being difficult where you live, you may also want to contact the

Home School Legal Defense Association, www.hslda.org

and ask them about problems and assistance in your area.

Funding

A few areas offer some school funding to home schoolers. If you live in one of these areas, you will probably have to jump through a few hoops to get the funding, but you will want to find out about it, and make sure you talk to other home schoolers in your area about this, to find out how to get the funding and if it is worth the trouble.

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