Why did you decide to homeschool?

Mama of 2 asks:
What made you decide to homeschool your children and other children?
Also do you have a teaching degree or do you need one to homeschool?

My husband and I decided to homeschool Tony after we saw the instability of the nearby denominational school. (K-12 240 students, the largest denominational school in the state) I had taught there for year and found it be very miserable. A new principal had just been hired after spending his entire career in a large Texas public school system, and he had a massive recruiting effort among the Hispanic community. The result was a huge number of kids (he practically doubled the enrollment), but provided no ESL or bilingual language services. For this and other reasons, in the aftermath of that year, my husband and I decided to look into other schooling options for our son. Several families in our church congregation homeschool, so we gave that a try and found that it works very well.

My husband and I make the homeschool decision on a year by year basis. I know some families who say, "We're homeschooling the entire time," but we don't feel comfortable doing that. We decide yearly on what we think will be best for our kids. In fact, we just had the conversation again this week and for now will stay par for the course.

In my state, parents do not need a teaching degree to homeschool their own kids. There are several levels of accountability set up by the state; if a parent has no college degree, the curriculum has to be approved by the superintendent of education for the district, and quarterly report cards sent in. If a parent has a degree, than only quarterly report cards sent in. If there is a teaching degree involved, than no reports are needed except the yearly report of intent to homeschool. In all cases evidence of a standardized test needs to be shown (but results do not need to be submitted).

I do have my teaching degree.

The decision to teach other kids came about almost accidentally. During the 99-2000 school year, my congregation decided to close the small school we were operating due to unreasonable city demands and nearby road construction. The decision, unpopular though it was, placed several families (including the ones mentioned above) in a tough educational predicament and most all turned to homeschooling. One family couldn't afford to do that, nor felt comfortable with that option, since they are Russian immigrants. Within hours after the decision (which also affected my job as a part time teacher, I offered to homeschool Rachel and Paula. The family were very grateful for the offer and took me up on it. So, for the 01-02 school year and the following year I had Rachel (then a Kindergartner and Paula, then a fourth grader).
After two years, the kids went to the same large school I taught at (their first year being the year I taught there) and after three years, the family came to the same conclusions I did. They were unhappy with all the problems they encountered. So, the kids came back to me.

Because I am a degreed teacher in this state, I am allowed to teach others. My fellow congregants who homeschool are not allowed to teach (as in keeping the records) other kids as they are not degreed teachers.

As an aside, my dad asked me the other what Tony thinks of homeschooling. I told him that for Tony this is normal. All his friends at church homeschool, he has classmates in his house, all the kids at co-op homeschool, and so for him, this is reality. The weird thing for him are the kids who go to school.

Thanks for asking. Feel free to ask anymore questions.