Home schooling?

Question

I am interested in taking my children out of public school, and I was wondering how to get involved with home schooling. I live in California. Can anyone help me with any information?

Answer 1

The first place to start is www.hslda.com. This site will give you information on the hsing laws of your state. The next place I would check is the library. Alot of hs-ers use the library and the library will usually hold seminars or at the very least have a section on hsing.

Good luck

Answer 2

It has been a long time and I have forgotten the names of the homeschool cirriculum. You should be able call the school office and ask tips from them. You can also call local private schools and ask their advice. There will be homeschooler's groups that you can join. In Yahoo, put in your home town and state and the words homeschool or homeschooling. You should join a group and they help each other. After you choose the best cirriculum, you can search for used books, to save money. You should be able to have your children go to the public school for certain classes, like art, or computer, or music. You will need to be a very disciplined person. Some of the brightest youth in the US have been homeschooled. There is a weath of information to be found on the web about the subject. About 10 years ago I did a lot of research. Good luck!

Answer 3

According to hslda, California is VERY easy to homeschool in, all you have to do is file an annual affadavit with your school district saying that you plan on schooling your kids at home quote "Under § 48222, the individual home school could qualify as a private school by filing an
annual private school affidavit"
There is no certification required, and no testing. You don't have to provide any kind of paperwork, or prove you are using a particular curriculum. You do need to take attendence, but really how hard is that?

I would contact a local homeschool group, primarily to get started, but also for long term support (you'll have plenty of people tearing you down for your choice) and also for social aspects. We join ours on a ton of great field trips and we also get good ideas for trips and projects.


Good luck, homeschooling is a lot of work, but it's so much fun and so wonderful at building strong families.

Answer 4

Before you do anything, you need to check with your state's Dept. of Education to find out just what the laws regarding homeschooling are. In my state, a homeschooling family must notify the state in writing within 10 days of beginning school at home.
Here is a website which has many links to different homeschooling groups/activities in CA.:
http://www.homeschoolclassifieds.com/show_state.asp?st=CA
The Homeschool Association of California would also be a good resource for you:
http://www.hsc.org/

Blessings to you and your family!

Answer 5

That depends on their age. I've been told k-12.com and Abeka have good curriculum. I personally liked the American School of Correspondence and Penn Foster, but those are only for high school. To find out what the laws in your area are, look at www.hslda.org.
Don't listen to those that say your children will be socially damaged. It simply isn't true. I would recommend getting them involved in some form of a homeschooling co-op, so they will still have field trips, extracurriculars, dances, etc.

Answer 6

I used to live in AZ [Yuma] so know just a little bit about CA and the hsing there. The rules are sort of restrictive - you will have someone checking on your progress each month, unless things have changed.

Go to hslda.org and click on CA to find your state organization. They will have a network of hs groups, and if there is one near you, then call the local group to see if you can find someone to walk you through the steps. Also, from now till about May or June many states are having their BIG hs conventions, where thousands of hs'ers come and there are wonderful speakers and lots of vendors. I have actually been to a big one in CA, and it was totally awesome. Every hs convention has a class for beginning hs'ers where they will help you get started.

Answer 7

Don't listen to those morons claiming that home-schooled children are "socially retarded loners". Look at their spelling, and grammar skills! That is a GREAT public school education. (sarcasm)

I would contact the School Department in California to see if they could give you some information. I would also check out http://www.homeschool.com - http://www.k-12.com

Good luck!

Answer 8

Here are a few links to get you started. The first one has links to CA for more local concerns you may have.



1.
http://www.hsc.org/ The HomeSchool Association of California.
2. http://learninks.org/livinglearning/homeschooling/abouths.html
3. http://homeschooling.about.com/od/gettingstarted/Getting_Started_in_Homeschooling.htm

Answer 9

check out k12.com
their curriculum is free through California Virtual Academy, and it's pretty impressive. you can see PDF files for all subject and all levels on their site.

But do lots of research, too. There's a wide variety of options, and the beauty of homeschooling is flexibility. I'm finding the variety too enticing to limit us to just one path, and I'm already learning things that I didn't know before*, and my son's only three!

*Did you know the Antarctic is considered a desert?
Or that the first manned space vehicle was built in Alabama?


the prof's links aren't for home schooling and he knows it. they link to a distance learning MBA site, and this has been pointed out to him many times.

Answer 10

Hi,
I also started homeschooling my son this yr. who is in K. After horrible experiences, with the public school then a charter school, I went for homeschooling and also live in California. I looked on the internet but I knew planning a lessons for each year would be too much for me. I went to the local school disctrict and asked about homeschooling, and they sent me to another school district. Still within close distance though and my son and I are quite happy. He meets with his teacher once a week, and I work with him daily at home.

I would suggest go to the school district and ask about homeschooling options. If they can't offer you one, ask about near by school districts. If you want to go it alone look at this website: http://www.donnayoung.org/