Welcome perspective and returning homeschoolers!
Spring is here! The grass is green, the sun is out, and for home educators, thoughts turn to questions about Fall. Many home educating families, from traditional schoolers to unschoolers, wonder about what choices to make for the following year for their children and their families as a whole.
When families choose home education, the first step is to choose a school board to register with. The school board does not have to be the local one, but can be ones that are far away but actively register and "supervise" home education families. Each school board offers unique services and resources, but they are fairly similar in the types of programs they offer as well as funding. Every family needs to decide what they value in terms of curriculum, classes, visits, funding and how education is delivered. There is a school board for every home education student.
The decision should be made by September 30th of the beginning of the school year in order to access home education funding for the year.
The goal of this blog is to provide transparent, helpful, evaluative information about your school board and help and support about homeschooling to help new or renewing families make their choices. Please be respectful, factual and specific in your comments. You may complain about specific actions, policies, and programs, of the board, groups, but please do not personally attack people. The best format for evaluation is the sandwich model: something you like, some area that needs improvement and something you think they do well. You may post about your experiences and questions on homeschooling in general, specific curriculum or school boards, as well as comment on others' experiences if you wish.
Thank you for helping assist your fellow home Educators. It can be very overwhelming for them. I have posted a link for several articles on beginning home education and also a link to some of the available home schooling school boards in Alberta.
As creator of this blog, I will introduce myself: I'm Judy Arnall, a veteran homeschooler for the past 11 years in Calgary. I have been with most of the Southern Alberta home education school boards and we have done a smattering of many educational philosophies - unschooling, traditional, blended, bricks and mortar school, on-line, correspondence, private school and play. I have five children, ranging in ages from 8 to 19 and I'm proud to say that two of my sons graduated high school this June 2010! Each child needed a different program at different stages of their interests, development and maturity level and we found homeschooling school boards that would meet each child's unique personalized learning needs. Some years, we were registered up to four different boards!
Welcome to the wonderful world of homeschooling and I hope this blog will be helpful in your decision making.
Judy
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