Comments on: Bill bails out home schooling program

By: Valerie

Valerie — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 00:40:12 +0000

Russell receives positive review, 6 September 2007, The Register-Guard – Eugene, Oregon

In other action Wednesday, the board, reacting to legis- lation passed in June, agreed to alter its alternative education policy to make an exception for the Bethel area HomeSource program – but not without some members making it clear they aren’t happy with the bill.

House Bill 2040, which was sponsored by Sen. Vicki Walker and Rep. Chris Edwards, both Eugene Democrats, allows HomeSource to continue receiving public education dollars and enrolling home-schooled students through a simple process that releases students to the Bethel School District for referral.

The bill solved a host of problems for the home- schooling resource center, which in the past couple of years had its funding slashed and lost contracts with districts because of more stringent policy interpretations by the Oregon Department of Education.

The center looked into becoming a charter school under sponsorship with the long-supportive Bethel district, but found that it couldn’t meet a requirement to have at least 25 full-time students.

The center’s students attend part-time, supplementing their home-schooling with a variety of courses.

Board member Craig Smith reiterated his philosophical opposition to HomeSource.

“I view this as a voucher system, and it’s been real disappointing to me to see a Democratic legislature and a Democratic governor enact the first voucher system in this state,” he said.

By: Valerie

Valerie — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 22:39:38 +0000

What do I think? Perhaps it’s a cautionary tale?

I tend to see private involvement with public entities as falling more into the alt.ed area than into homeschooling. States and communities can put together whatever programs they like, but riding on homeschooling’s coat tails to do so just muddies the perception of of homeschooling. I guess it’s like sending the children to the school cafeteria for meals and calling it a home-cooking supplemental program. The kids still get fed, so that’s good, but it’s not home-cooking. In any case, your perception of the program depends on whatever your viewpoint is, and whether you think it matters.

By: Cynthia Whitfield

Cynthia Whitfield — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 01:02:36 +0000

Forgot to add — those classes such as karate, horseback riding lessons, swimming and gymnastics were offered by places in the community to homeschoolers through HomeSource — free of charge, except for a rare fee. In other words, they actually went to the gym academy rather than having gym in the HomeSource building, went out to the country to a horseback riding stable, went to local community centers for swimming lessons, etc. That was very attractive to many parents.

By: Cynthia Whitfield

Cynthia Whitfield — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:59:04 +0000

HomeSource is the organization that holds classes for homeschoolers, but they are publically funded. It used to be that just the school districts (by releasing their students in their district to attend HomeSource) were involved. But after some complaints, all these other groups got involved. The founder of HomeSource has seen increasing regulation (testing, etc.) at the center. People also question all the extracurricular classes HomeSouce has offered (homeschooling skating, karate, swimming, horseback riding, etc. Parents teach many of the classes, but some of the teachers were former mainstream school teachers. My two older kids got to take sign language, recorder, karate there, as well as take science classes (such as The Rain Forest), Mammals, Rocks and Minerals, arts classes, history classes with lots of arts and hands-on activities (such as Ancient Rome), etc. Parents also worked as assistants in the class to help teachers help the students. One of the problems is that the state is requiring some classes to be larger (they were usually 8-12 kids with a teacher and up to two assistants. It was a great idea and a good program in many ways — but getting funding from the state, of course, caused problems not encountered when I was in an independent homeschool group. What do you think?

By: Valerie

Valerie — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 22:08:52 +0000

Bill bails out home schooling program
…
–the Bethel district,
–the Oregon Education Association,
–the Confederation of Oregon School Administrators,
–the Oregon School Boards Association,
–the Oregon Department of Education,
–HomeSource and
–The Ulum Group, a Eugene public relations firm that lobbied for HomeSource

The bill bails out “homeschoolers” but there isn’t a homeschooler mentioned in the list of proponents.

Where’s Waldo — in other words, the homeschoolers who were bailed out?

By: Cynthia Whitfield

Cynthia Whitfield — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 21:49:19 +0000

Hi Valerie,
I live in Eugene, Oregon, and I’m not sure what your Where’s Waldo comment meant. Could you elaborate? I’m not currently using HomeSource because I’ve decided to be completely independent in homeschooling my last child. I homeschooled two kids earlier — for awhile independently with a membership in a grass-roots, secular homeschool group and a couple of years later they started taking classes at HomeSource. THe problem was that HomeSource weakened the independent groups — the group I used to belong to is no longer active. I realize that HomeSource provides free classes and experiences, but I feel there is too much compromise because of state and school district involvement. Anyway, what did you mean by your comment?