JCS began in a San Diego barn to serve mostly homeschoolers. Today, it is a network of six schools. Photo courtesy of JCS Pine Hills
Editor’s note: This article appeared Monday on The 74.
Rosario Reilly didn’t set out to be an educational publisher — she just wanted to give her kids a classical education that respected their Catholic faith.
In 2009, the mother of five in Manassas, Va., began assembling a homeschool curriculum eventually named Aquinas Learning. Thirteen years later, the program now serves about 160 area students in grades K-12, who show up in uniform to a local center one day a week.
Students partake in a variety of classes, as well as P.E., lunch, and the like. But the other four days of the week they learn at home.
Reilly said Aquinas exploded amid COVID, after “everybody saw what we saw back in the early 2000s.”
Since the start of the pandemic, public school enrollment has crashed — between fall 2019 and 2020, it dropped by 1.4 million students, or 3 percent, the largest single-year decline since World War II, according to federal data released last spring. While educators are trying to figure out how to bring these families back, researchers are starting to find them persisting in unusual spaces. Many are relying on a type of homeschooling made popular when school closures became widespread in 2020.
To continue reading, click here.
All Thanksgiving week, we're turning over our blog to the voices that really matter in ed choice - parents and students.
Across America, millions of families now benefit from charter schools, private school vouchers, home education enrichment programs, education savings accounts and other learning options that didn’t exist a generation ago. Many of those options are “controversial” – yet the voices of students and parents who love them are rarely in the conversation.
We’ll keep trying to change that.
Beginning Monday, we’ll be running a week-long series of guest posts about ed choice – from ed choice parents and students themselves. We asked them to help readers understand how options made a difference in their lives, and, in keeping with Thanksgiving, why they’re grateful to have them.
You’ll hear from:
It’s no coincidence these are Florida stories. In the Sunshine State, 46 percent of all students in PreK-12 – more than 1.7 million – now attend schools their parents chose. Perhaps more than any other state, ed choice has become the new normal in Florida.
We’re grateful to live here. We’re grateful to have this blog to help foster fair-minded debate. We’re grateful to all of you for reading us.
Enjoy the series next week, and enjoy the time with friends and family!
Jason Crawford leads his Pathfinding class at Class Source. The class teaches students life skills and personal development
The idea that pain can lead to a positive change in one’s life left students seeking more answers in Jason Crawford’s class.
One student sat laughing in disbelief. “How could this be?” she asked with amazement.
“Because pain leads to awareness and awareness plus choice equals action,” said Crawford, donning glasses and sporting a beard, as he wrote the formula on the wipe board. “Action turns into habits.”
This was not your typical classroom. Crawford is not your typical teacher. He is a marketing consultant who has a master’s in counseling.
Pathfinding is just one of more than 50 courses students can take at Class Source, a nonprofit enrichment program for home education students in Lutz. The list includes core offerings such as English, Math and Social studies. But it also includes classes that are not normally offered in a traditional school setting, such as life skills and novel writing. Families also find a community at the classes. While students take classes, parents receive mentoring and support from one another.
As the education landscape in Florida continues to shift toward customization, homeschooling is itself becoming more customized for families through a growing network of support and tools. In addition to programs that offer curriculum and instructors, there are mentoring groups for parents. Class Source is one of 10 such programs in the state. Homeschool families have been building networks to support one another and offer classes where students can find what interests them most.
“It gives a child a chance,” said Dina Fox, who founded Class Source in 2007 after observing the inconsistency of co-ops. “If they have a passion, they can log onto that passion. You can take that passion and put it into other areas to help them learn.” (more…)
Rep. Jennifer Sullivan
The House of Representatives unanimously approved legislation Thursday that would limit requirements school districts place on homeschoolers.
Rep. Jennifer Sullivan’s bill, HB 731 , would also increase homeschoolers’ access to dual enrollment and career education courses.
In an amendment filed this week, Florida would no longer require homeschool students to provide their own textbooks when they take college courses through dual enrollment. The bill would also prevent colleges from charging private schools for each dual enrollment course their students take.
The bill comes in response to concerns among parents that districts add hurdles for homeschool registration. That contributed to a decline in homeschooling numbers in some school districts, even though statistics show its popularity is growing statewide.
Florida law requires homeschoolers to register with their local school districts. They have to send a signed notice of intent to the school district office with the students’ names, birthdates and addresses. The bill would bar districts from requiring other information from parents. It would also clarify that a home education program is not a school district program.
In previous years the Legislature considered similar bills. But they have stalled in the Senate, where Sen. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, filed a measure this year. Baxley’s bill awaits a hearing by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The dual enrollment provisions have also gotten a bigger push this year. A separate bill by Baxley, also awaiting a hearing in Senate Appropriations, would address them.
For a growing number of Florida families, back-to-school season doesn't mean a return to the classroom, per se. In the past several years, the state's home education programs have grown faster than most of its school districts.
The top 10 Florida school districts for homeschooling remained the same in the two most recent school years, but enrollment patterns shifted.
That remained true last year, even though growth in homeschool enrollment slowed considerably, according to the latest annual report, released this week by the state Department of Education.
The report is based on data collected by school districts, which help keep track of home education students. It shows the number of students enrolled in home education grew 1.7 percent last school year, its slowest growth rate since 2008. That still outpaced enrollment increases in the state's 2.7 million-student public school system, which grew by less than 1 percent.
And by another measure - the number of participating families - home education grew more quickly.
Statewide, nearly 57,000 families chose to homeschool their children in the 2013-14 school year, a 4.6 percent increase from the year before. There's also some significant variations in homeschool participation in different parts of the state.
Duval County, Florida's sixth-largest school district, has the largest number of homeschool students and accounted for 7.7 percent of the state total. The largest district, Miami-Dade County, is home to less than 5 percent of Florida's homeschool students, and has fewer than some smaller districts like Orange and Brevard, according to the report.
While the top 10 school districts remained the same in both 2012-13 and 2013-14, there were some shifts. The share of home-education students coming from Hillsborough declined, but the share in Pasco increased.
