How To Home School: A Guide For Black Families – Part 3

You’ve Decided To Homeschool Your Child! Now What?

You’ve weighed up the pros and cons, and made the decision to jump into the world of homeschooling, so let’s get started!

There are just a few areas to work through before you actually start buying glue sticks and turning the spare bedroom into a full blown elementary school. First, let’s lay out your legal responsibilities. This is the area that is often the most worrying for parents and guardians. It’s easy to feel like you’re doing something wrong, when you’re attempting to swim upstream in the river of public education. I want you to feel totally assured that you are not doing anything wrong, you are well within your rights and the law supports your decision to home school.

The Georgia Board of Education in Atlanta handles the administrative side of homeschooling. This link will take you to all the pertinent information for starting to homeschool and explains what you need to do each year to satisfy the legal requirements. When I first began homeschooling, there were monthly attendance reports that had to be submitted. Now, lucky you, there is no such requirement. There are six requirements that you need to be aware of.

Requirement Number 1:

Withdrawing from Public or Private School. The process is simple, but can be unexpectedly stressful. Some parents experience only the simple process of requesting a withdrawal form from the admin. office and a quiet goodbye to public school. While others have changed their mind at this stage because their admin office has called for back up from teachers, counselors, and even, the principal. I have been told by some parents that offers to give the student special accommodations, such as a smaller class, a transfer to the gifted class or additional help for a struggling reader, have come during this stage in the hope that the parents will change their mind about withdrawing little Kami or Kamal. My point of view has always been, “When they saw your child struggling or excelling or being bullied, etc., why weren’t these offers forthcoming then?” So, stay strong and remember why you decided to make this change.

Requirement Number 2:

Informing the Board of Education of your decision to homeschool. This requires the completion of a Declaration of Intent Form. This form is notification to the Department of Education that you intend to homeschool your child(ren). There is a deadline of September 1st or 30 days after you have established your homeschool to submit the form. The form is online, fillable and you can submit it instantly. Be sure to allow popups during this process. You also need to be sure to print a copy of the form as soon as your “36 character digital signature” is generated. Please keep this form with your important documents. If you child needs to complete a work study or get their driver’s permit, you will need to be able to put your hands on it.

Requirement Number 3:

Deciding on a “teacher”. Legally, a high school diploma or GED is the prerequisite education level for the teacher.

There may be a parent or guardian who is the perfect choice as the teacher of the family. Perhaps dad is a former college professor, or Aunty Maxine is a retired teacher. When I started on this journey, it was only with a love for my children and a great respect for the field of education. I was not a qualified teacher, and I had zero experience teaching. I think I was just being given the opportunity to do what I had been born to do – teach. There is always the option of becoming formally trained to teach at a later date, but this is not necessary unless you plan to grow your homeschool. In later blog posts we will discuss “cottage schools” in detail, as they open up even more options outside of the family.

Requirement Number 4:

Starting at grade three, you should administer a standardized test to your child every three years, for your records only. There are test administrators locally that will perform this service for you if you do not qualify to administer the test (this is a topic for another day).

Requirement Number 5:

Your school day should be at least 4 and a half hours long with 180 school days each year.

Requirement Number 6:

Your homeschooling program must include “reading, language arts, mathematics, social studies, and science”.

How you choose to teach these subjects, your reference sources, amount of field study, pace and direction are entirely up to you. So, Columbus Day no longer needs to be a time that your child is erroneously taught about a so-called American “hero”, for example.

You are also free to include other subject areas that you feel are suitable and of benefit to your children. In my school, we include sewing, Spanish, tennis, piano, art, and P.E. In other words, don’t feel limited by how tradition schooling is structured. One of the reasons you are doing this is to be free from these constraints.

The legal requirements for homeschooling in Georgia are not overwhelming at all, especially compared to other states. These are six areas that you can work through quite quickly to get you ready for the real homeschooling dilemma – the curriculum.

Read Part 4 of this series to start making the curriculum decisions that will allow you to plan the day to day activities of your new homeschool.