By Guy Page
Applications to home school Vermont children are up by an estimated 75% over this time last year, an aide to Vermont Agency of Education (AOE) Secretary Daniel French said Tuesday.
“Last year by 7/15 we had about 900 applications. As of 7/15/2020, we have about 1,600,” AOE Director of Communications and Legislative Affairs Ted Fisher said.
Home schooling has long been popular among parents whose educational, societal or religious views make them wary of public schools.
On June 17, AOE issued Health Guidance for Vermont Schools, a 25-page document outlining stringent testing, hygiene, social distancing, and masking requirements. In particular, all students, staff and visiting parents will be required to wear masks on school buses and inside school buildings: “All staff and students are required to wear facial coverings while in the building, as well as outside where physical distancing cannot be maintained. … Adults doing drop-off and pick-up should wear facial coverings.”
Home schooling has long been popular among parents whose educational, societal or religious views make them wary of public schools. However, stringent new Covid-19 guidelines apparently have pushed hundreds more Vermont parents to consider the home schooling option.
The AOE oversees home study. Aug. 1 is the AOE deadline for the Minimum Course of Study (MCOS) home study application. Home study information and application can be viewed on the AOE website.
A former Vermont state senator who is an outspoken opponent of aggressively secular, socialist curriculum in the public school system is recommending concerned parents check out a website called Public School Exit.
“Parents act like they have no choice, but the reality is there are lots of options,” former Sen. Mark Shepard (R-Bennington) posted on Facebook today. “The issue is not a lack of choice, but misplaced priorities. If your children are a top priority, you will not send them to be educated for 13 years in schools that operate with wrong-headed curriculum. The curriculum problems are well documented for decades now, only wilful ignorance can explain why people do not know.”
Read more of Guy Page’s reports. Vermont Daily is sponsored by True North Media.
I’m in NH and we are on this same page here.
Some recent headlines at our granitegrok.com
“Homeschooling interest rises as public schools/teachers unions make it plain they’re ignoring their employers: Parents/Taxpayers.”
“Explosive interest in Home Education”
This one is from Michelle Levell from Granite State Home Educators.
She says they are consistantly adding 40 people to their Facebook group each week.
I do hope that parents will continue to move over to home education.
And Learn about Home Schooling. I highly recommend Vermont’s own Ben Hewitt’s Book “Home Grown” to learn about Unschooling- which teachs you to roll education right into the life you are living, and how to live a more Learning Lifestyle when raising kids.
Following the public schools curricula at home is not “home schooling” per se. It’s your Right as a parent to educate your own children in a way that you feel works best for them that aligns with your own value system and the world as you see it to be.
There are pictures now of schools placing plexiglass around childrens desks- they look as though these kids will actually be in these fishtank like enclosures! It’s Nuts!
We were already dealing with high suicide rates and mental health issues from social media and multiudes of issues.. we should all be worried about how now this will then add to the top of that crisis that already was going on.
Schools are now no place for our children.
Covid-19 has a “silver lining” in the fact that thousands (millions?) more families will be homeschooling and not returning to the socialist government schools. http://www.exodusmandate.org
Thank God! People are beginning to awaken. This is a start, but we must all continue. #DefundPublicSchools!
Thank you! Public School Exit is an amazing resource!
I hope everyone keeps in mind that ‘home schooling’ doesn’t restrict their children’s curricula, who teaches them, and where and how they are taught. In other words, ‘home schooling’ doesn’t mean parents must sit at home with their children and teach them the multiplication tables – although that, in itself, isn’t a bad practice. We used placemats in the kitchen with the math tables on them and our kids learned arithmetic almost by osmosis. And because we read to our children when they were young, they could read before they went to kindergarten.
We also set up classes with other families and their children, hired our own teachers, used ‘virtual classrooms’, and met physically as a group at each family’s home (when practicable) at least once a week. Field trips were a weekly norm.
Was there an educational benefit, as well as a convenience and safety benefit? You bet. In the public school English class we replaced, for example, the students wrote one paper in a semester. That’s right – just one. In our class, the students wrote 17 papers in the semester, including three drafts of each submittal.
The economic model was interesting too. I calculated that a teacher, acting privately, could earn $100K per year at the rate we paid our teacher for their services and that the net cost of the program was still half the cost per student at the public school we replaced.
Does this model work for everyone? No. Of course not. But it surely will work for most families, IF they take some responsibility for their children’s education. After all, there are more homeschool organizational services available today than ever before and I hope this trend continues. Our future depends on it.
One of the best places to teach kids about math is at the grocery store.
I give them the budget and a list and say “Figure it out!”. They love it.
There’s weighing things, reading labels and figuring out servings and cost per servings.
There is tons of math and opportunity to teach in just everyday tasks.
I find that it’s no trouble at all to teach my kids like this because of the context that they can plainly see..they are not reading something in a book and wondering how this will fit into their lives.
They are in a grocery store with the clear need to budget and feed the family. They see this as very real and meaningful, they see the need to learn and understand this.
I think that makes a huge difference in teaching kids. They absorb this like sponges, it’s effortless.
Absolutely! It’s called an ‘integrated curriculum’ and public school teachers can’t/won’t do it because they’re limited by inside-the-box, one-size-fits-all, ‘Common Core’ standards.
And this is just the tip of public education monopoly iceberg.
Thank you True North for reporting this news! Almost a 100% increase, but I am sure the numbers will go up more!
Vermont home school applications up 75%, to 1,600 I thought it would be higher
and I agree if you want your kids to get a real education and not an indoctrination,
home school.
It will be higher because parents are just finding out now where I live that their children are required k thur 12 to wear mask and many parents are changing their minds because they do not want their children wearing mask all day. The deadline is not up yet!