Another Tuesday, another set of questions for a [Smrt] homeschooler to answer.
Lynda writes, “I don’t know anything about homeschooling. How hard is it to get into? How do you make it right with the state? Are there tax deductions?”
A year ago, I didn’t know anything about homeschooling either. Some might say (and by “some,” I mean “I”) that I still know next to nothing about homeschooling. Of course, Officer Daddyman is fond of saying something about knowing you don’t know being one of the higher forms of…I don’t know what, actually, but we’ll just pretend it somehow implies that I have this all covered, shall we?
I’ll break the questions down a bit.
How hard is [homeschooling] to get into?
Emotionally/mentally? Both impossibly hard and surprisingly easy. I never wanted to homeschool. I took a certain degree of anti-hippie pride in having that one area of my life where I wasn’t even remotely crunchy. I swore that homeschooling was fine for other people, but not for me (sound like arguments you’ve heard before, in other areas?). I could never, ever, ever do it. I liked sticking Captain Science on the bus every morning, at least until he started having such a miserable year. At that point, I started dreading every school day nearly as much as he did, and pulling him out of public school suddenly was on the table.
Practically, homeschooling wasn’t that difficult, but I had the benefit of an experienced mentor with a child very much like Captain Science in both intellect and temperament. Patchfire (whose daughter, Eclectic Girl, is Captain Science’s age and has been homeschooled from the beginning), was happy to sit down and let us pick her brain for advice on methods and materials. She also never pressured me or tried to convince me we should homeschool. We initially emulated much of her curricular and scheduling choices, though we’ve made changes and customized it since we’ve begun homeschooling.
There are also countless resources out there to help someone get started. I think that reading The Well-Trained Mind (by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise) should be a first step for every potential homeschooler. The Well Trained Mind forums also offer a great sounding board for curriculum questions and plenty of advice.
Admittedly, finding resources to educate rigorously and secularly can be difficult, but that’s one reason I started this blog. I hope that secular classical educators can see that it’s possible and they aren’t alone!
How do you make it right with the state?
This answer will very widely (and wildly) based on your state, but in Georgia, it’s exceptionally easy to homeschool legally. Here is a summary of Georgia’s homeschooling laws, but they boil down to a few basics:
1. Complete 180 school days, of at least 4.5 hours per day, within a 12 month school year.
2. Keep attendance records and mail them to your county’s school board superintendent once a month.
3. Send a declaration of intent to utilize a home study program to your county’s school board superintendent within 30 days of beginning a program or by September 1st every year thereafter.
4. Keep records, even though they can’t actually ask you to provide those records, for at least three years, including a progress report at the end of the year (btw, I am using this blog as part of my record keeping!).
5. Have your student take a nationally standardized test at least every three years from third grade onward, though you don’t have to provide anyone else (school board included) with copies of those test results.
Pretty easy, right? You can’t be forced to turn your records over, either. You can be asked, but not forced.
OPINIONS OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
REQUIRING PARENTS TO PRODUCE EVIDENCE OF COMPLIANCE. –While responsibility for the enforcement of the statutory requirements pertaining to home study programs rests in large measure upon local school superintendents, a local school superintendent does not have the power to issue subpoenas, require the production of documents, or to otherwise require parents to affirmatively “produce evidence” of their continuing compliance with the law in the operation of home study programs, and while the local school superintendent is free to “request” such materials and statements, the superintendent has no compulsory process which can be invoked to secure such information other than in connection with a pending legal proceeding. 1986 Op. Att’y Gen. No. U86-19.
Are there tax deductions?
Currently, there are no federal tax deductions or credits for families who homeschool. Three states — Illinois, Minnesota, and Louisiana — offer some amount of state tax credit to homeschooling families. You’ll actually find that many homeschoolers strongly oppose any tax credits at all, period. These homeschoolers worry that it would lead to government control of curricula taught or view it as an unnecessary intrusion into their personal/family lives. Of course, some of those homeschoolers are also the same homeschoolers who eschew public school because of the evils of evolution science and the potential for President Obama to brainwash their children into Muslim communists through use of the school intercom system. For other, perfectly reasonable parents, the fear of exemption leading to oversight leading to interference may be a valid one, especially in some states that already have a tighter degree of regulation over homeschooling.
I am firmly in the camp of wanting an optional tax credit or exemption for anyone who is registered through their state or county (based on their state’s requirements) as a homeschooler. In a scenario where you could choose (or not choose) to claim your homeschooling status on your tax return, I don’t see how offering homeschooling parents the option of reducing their expenses automatically means reducing their freedoms.
I don’t resent paying taxes. If I were a homeowner and paid property taxes, I wouldn’t resent a portion of those being applied towards funding the county’s school system. I typically vote in favor of SPLOSTs for school projects. It would be nice, however, to receive some small offset to the amount of money I have invested into curricula, especially since the inadequacy of our zoned elementary school to meet my son’s needs was a major reason for us homeschooling to begin with. While some homeschoolers have found ways to do it for free, I have yet to find entirely free curricula that really provide the depth and breadth of education that we require.
Even if you can’t get a tax benefit from homeschooling, you may find benefits elsewhere. Many businesses do offer educator discounts that they will give to any homeschooler, which can go a long way towards saving you money on homeschool materials. All you have to do is bring in your declaration of intent document (I keep a signed photocopy of our in my wallet, just in case Captain Science is ever questioned about “not being in school”) and you’ll get a card at Borders, Barnes & Noble, and many other businesses. We’ve put that to good use already! We’re signed up for the free Borders Rewards program, and routinely get 30-40% off coupons, which we use to order materials online and then have them shipped (for free) to our area store for pickup.
And that’s how a [Smrt] homeschooler gets started!
Do you have a question you’d like to Ask a [Smrt] Homeschooler? If so, email me at smrtmama@smrtlernins.com!
