Home schooling isn’t always what people think

    They don’t wear pajamas all day – although they could if they wanted. They don’t spend all day, every day inside their homes, only surrounded by their parents. And they participate in normal activities like playing sports, dancing ballet and just hanging out with their friends.

    These are just some of the myths and questions that home-schoolers get asked by others who aren’t so familiar with how it all works.

    Amanda Lawrence, 18, a recent home school graduate, said once she even was stopped by a truant officer on her way home from the post office.
 
   Lawrence was just one of the 2,538 students who were home-schooled in Delaware last school year. There were more than 340 home school students in Capital and Caesar Rodney School Districts alone.
 
   Vicki Fjelsted Fields, the Department of Education employee who registers all non-public students, said the number of home school students has kept pretty steady, growing at about the same rate as the overall population.

    Even though the number of home school students isn’t increasing much, many home school parents say acceptance of home schooling has grown.
 
   Cheryl Thomas of Clayton has five children and has home-schooled each of them. She said when she first started more than 15 years ago people thought home school kids weren’t socialized.
 
   “That seems to be lessening, people are more exposed to home school kids,” she said.

    In fact, home school parent of three Lisa Boyles of Wyoming said she finds home school kids are more comfortable around a greater range of age groups because they don’t just socialize with their immediate peer group.

The upside – and downside
 
   Part of the attraction to home schooling for many parents is flexibility. There’s flexibility in the schedule, which is still 180 days long, but some students work in the morning during a typical school year while others go to school four days a week year-round. There’s also flexibility in what parents teach, with direct control over the material and how it’s taught.
 
   Betsy Lawrence, a Woodside home school parent of three, said she liked that her children could be very individual in their learning.
 
   “They learn to think without that group mentality,” she said.

    One misconception she runs across is that people think home school children are taught inclusively, which isn’t the case at all. Her daughter Amanda took classes at Delaware Technical & Community College while in high school, and Lawrence has heard of other students taking classes at schools like Dover High. Sharing teaching among parents in home school organizations such as the Kent County-based Family Learning Academy helps relieve the load as well.

    Home school students also are used to working independently, which actually makes it easier for many of them to transition to college, Lawrence said.

    In addition to flexibility and independence, many parents also feel home schooling helps build a sense of character, community and family. There’s a closeness from being around each other all the time, said home school parent Monica Slater of Wyoming.
 
   Thomas agrees that it brings families together.

    “The best thing about home schooling is that it builds families, and families are the bedrock of our society,” she said.

    However, home schooling has a few downsides as well. Slater said the students don’t have anyone to compare with, while Lawrence added some children perform better when learning is competitive. However, she feels the biggest disadvantage she faced was only having one household income.
 
   Boyles also said recently home schools have been reclassified from private to independent schools by the state, which means they aren’t eligible for some free services like speech therapists.

A variety of types

    Just as public schools vary in size and how they are run, home schools differ as well. Some students are taught independently while others belong to umbrella organizations or semi-private schools.
 
   Thomas belongs to a Catholic home school support group of 10 to 12 families that meets once a month. Thomas said they are just like other home school families, but religion is such a part of their everyday life that it does have an effect. Other than everyday activities like family prayers and devotion, she said an example might be history lessons that focus on the saints.
 
   Other home school families belong to larger umbrella organizations like the Family Learning Academy, which is beginning its 24th year. Last year more than 70 families belonged to the organization.

    The group acts as liaison between individual families and the state. FLA has a library where families can check out curriculum rather than buying it, and gives those starting out a chance to contact seasoned home school moms, Boyles said, adding that their website is www.familylearningacad emy.org.

    For even more support, there’s groups like the Blessed Jose Louis Academy, which is just starting out in Smyrna. The co-op will meet once a week with different subject teachers as a support for parents, “rather than the mom having to do everything from soup to nuts,” said Sue O’Hanlon of Clayton.

Email Jayne Gest at jayne.gest@doverpost.com