Homeschooling 101 (November 4, 2024)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
All right, well, hello, hello everyone. My name is gabriel
chris Low. Welcome to sorry, welcome to homeschooling one oh one.
I see a lot of people here in the chat.
This is awesome, so welcome to homeschooling one oh one.

(01:03):
So let me just tell you so, as I already
introduced myself, my name is Gabrielle Critchlow. I am the
owner and director of a Step Ahead Tutoring Services. We're
the ones that are putting on this event for you today.
So let me just tell you what the purpose is

(01:23):
of this workshop. So the purpose workshop slash webinar. Excuse me,
So the purpose of this webinar is to connect parents
to the world of homeschooling and to expose them to
the different types of education that is out there. So,

(01:44):
since since the pandemic began in twenty twenty, there's been
a surge of demand in homeschooling due to either the
lack of remote learning or just the dissatisfaction with the
school system. So, about a couple of years ago, this
is the fifth time that we've done this, but about
a couple of years ago, we talked about the removal

(02:06):
of certain topics from the school system such as no
with critical race theory, Yeah, critical race theory and sex education.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
So now last.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Year it was book banning, health scares and changes in
school policy. So now this year it's school shootings, bullying,
inaccurate teaching of black history or all the other types
of ethnic history, Asian culture, Latino culture, teacher shortages. Although

(02:39):
these are not new issues, but it seems to be
popping up a lot more, especially now that we are
in an election cycle. So whatever your reason for homeschooling,
whether you are new to this or you are seasoned,
this event is for you. So you might have heard
about homeschooling, whether in a post or negative light, and

(03:01):
you just want to know what all the fuss is about.
Right You may be homeschooling right now and you want
more information. You have questions, and we're here to answer
them to the best of our abilities. This workshop is
part of our mission at a Step Ahead to tackle
the academic challenges of all students and the emotional, mental,
and behavioral changes that result from these challenges. And in

(03:23):
doing so, we believe that we will improve our communities
in the process. So you are here, those will be
watching right now. You are here with us in person,
but the replay will be available on our social media
and our website soon. And you're watching this on stream yard,
the replay will be available as soon as we are done.

(03:45):
So whatever you missed, don't worry. You can always watch
the replay and this information will be available to you.
So I do want to caution you guys that the
laws about homeschooling are different in each state and each country.
So I know I have some internationals with us today,

(04:07):
and we intended for this event to be very general.
So while we will do our best to answer any
questions that you have, we encourage you to research the
specific laws of your states and of your country. So
we'll provide you with some resources that will help you
with all of that. All right, so let's get into

(04:29):
the breakdown of today. So let me just tell you
the questions that we're going to answer today. So we
broke up this workshop into six questions, so I'm going
to tell you what those questions are. So the first
question is what is homeschooling. We're just going to write
into it, boom, what is homeschooling? The next one is

(04:52):
what is a homeschool co op? Then it's what are
some teaching strategies I can use.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Then it's what is the.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Paperwork involved in how to standardized testing work? Then it's
how do you choose a curriculum? And we will wrap
it up with how do homeschool children get into college?
So that is the order of our event today. So

(05:22):
all questions we're going to answer at the end of
the program, but feel free to post your questions now
in the chat. This is an interactive program, so post
those comments, give me those emojis, type those questions type
type type of way. We will answer those questions at
the end of the event. And there is a raffle.

(05:42):
There's some cool prizes that are raffling off, so I
pinned the weblink to the top of the chat, so
make sure you check that out and sign up for
our raffle. There's been great donations by my partners, so
make sure you check it out. You may win a prize.
Who knows, so take the time and fill out the raffle.

(06:04):
The link is pinned to the top of the chat,
so make sure make sure you do that. So again,
I just want to reiterate that this event is pretty
general in terms of the laws about homeschooling, so we
do encourage you to research the specific laws of wherever
you are located. This workshop is intended to be very general,

(06:27):
but hopefully you guys are able to take a lot
of information today. And let's get started. Let's get right
into it, all right, So we're gonna start off with
our first question. We are just going to dive right
into it. So the question that we're going to answer
today first up is what is homeschooling? So the panelist

(06:49):
who is going to answer that question for us, her
name is Jalitha Garrett and we love to call her Wally,
so that that is her government name, Alisa Garrett. So
let me just tell you about her. So she is
our first speaker for today, and Wally is a driven
entrepreneur mother of three, as the founder of Affiliate Girl

(07:11):
twenty twenty three, LLC, where she connects people with the
best products through her passion for affiliate marketing. With a
background in sales and a natural flair for marketing, Walitha
has built a business centered around authenticity, trust and creativity.
Known for her candid personality and positive energy, she enjoys

(07:32):
sharing her favorite findes while helping others discover new products.
Through her curated recommendations. Outside of her business, Walitha cherishes
her time with her family spontaneous, spontaneous, into spontaneous adventures,
and the joy of thrift shopping. All right, awesome, awesome, awesome,

(07:54):
all right. So now I'm going to go ahead and
bring Wally to the stage.

Speaker 3 (08:01):
Thank you, I'm good. How are you good?

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Good?

Speaker 4 (08:05):
Good?

Speaker 5 (08:06):
Awesome?

Speaker 2 (08:06):
So you are, You're out of the gate. You're the
first one. All right, yay, let's do it.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
So what is homeschooling? Take it away.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
Homeschooling. People may remember this, or maybe you may not.
Back in the day, people did not have choices of
schools or they live so far away from schools. So
guess what they had to do. They had the homeschool
and some of their parents didn't have a lot of education.

(08:42):
But you know a lot of people made sure they read,
they knew how to do basic math, things of that nature.
That is basically homeschooling. Homeschooling now is so prevalent and
now its not frowned upon that people now are saying,
hm hmm, this is not a bad idea. So homeschooling

(09:03):
is when you take your child either from the time
they were born and you keep them home to school them,
or they have done part of schooling inside of a
public school, maybe a private school. My children came from
a charter school and decided at some point we're going
to bring them home to school. So homeschooling used to

(09:27):
be kind of like a stigma of either oh, that
child and their parents think they're so smart they can't
mingle with us, or really, are they really learning because
you're not a certified teacher. But really that's what it's about.
It's about you taking your child out of traditional school

(09:49):
and putting them in school like home. Now, each person
is different, so I'll use my children as an example.
They came from a charter school. They've been going to
school all the way from pree K up until about third,
fourth fifth grade of charter school. And so when I

(10:09):
went through a situation, which was a divorce, I decided
to move back home. When I moved back home, it
was in the middle of the summer. I'm the top person.
I like to vet my schools. I like to make
sure my children are going somewhere where I think it's safe,
and not only safe, but also has a great educational piece.
So it was gonna take me more time to vet
the schools. So I said, you know what, let's try homeschool.

(10:31):
I just did a quick google, had no idea what
I was doing. I'm gonna let y'all know that, and
we went out. We went out on it, and so
I patted my homeschool in that first year after their
schedule from the charter school. That was great, But I'm
gonna tell y'all that was so stressful. I thought I

(10:51):
was going to pull all the rest of my hair out,
and they too, because I was running it just like
a traditional school. Okay, seven thirty, we're doing this. Eight thirty,
we're doing this. And I was thinking, really, is this
really what homeschool's about, you know, because I could have
just throw them out a school, I guess at this point.
So I did some more research. I am in Florida,
so I found out that Florida's more relaxed with their

(11:13):
homeschool laws, like you don't have to be so specific,
you don't have to necessarily take such a stringient attendance.
And so basically in my county, you know, I have
a certain way that I have to approach them each
year about my children in school. And that's it, and
so I decided last year to start unschooling. Unschooling is

(11:36):
where you let the child just kind of drift along
and you pick subjects for that child. And so when
that child loves science, then you gear towards science. You
may have more science projects, you may make math to science.
You just kind of pick something to where they're more
interested in, and then you pipe in the subjects there. Like,

(11:58):
for instance, my son loves science and he loves math,
so I tend to give him more math to do
as far as farther along than my girls. My girls
are like me, We are not math people, and that's okay,
but at least they would know the basics of math,
but they may not move on to algebra, trigonometry and
such like my son. Okay, so that's one aspect you

(12:22):
can mix homeschooling. You can do online schooling, and you
can also do homeschooling. So you can take what your
state has and do like a virtual online and then
do what you want at home and mix it together.
Or you can just pick a curriculum that someone is
going to talk about later and pick a school that

(12:43):
will be like your head school over you. But they're
still homeschool, and I find that there are so many
benefits that outweigh the cons and homeschool because now children
in homeschool can participate in public acactivities. So my son,
for inscidance, started football and he is playing in a

(13:05):
community league right now. But when he turns sixteen and
does high school, then I can put him in the
high school that we're zoned for and he can play
for that public high school while still being homeschool. My
girls are also in gymnastics, and so I can keep
them in gymnastics, and one that's on team now, she
could possibly go to college and do gymnastics and get

(13:26):
a scholarship. Homeschool is what you feel that your children need,
not what you feel that the state thinks that they need.
Is what you believe they need. Because guess what parents,
you are, the principal, the teacher, the cafeteria lady, the
bus driver, the everything. And so with that being said,

(13:48):
pick something that is going to help you and your
children be successful in school. Don't pick what you think
would work, pick what you know that works. As I
have unschooled this season, this has been the best, the
best year so far since I've been homeschooling, and not
only that, I have joined a great homeschooling group in

(14:11):
the area. They do a lot of activities, a lot
of field trips that even have winter dances from end
of the school year, party things of that nature. So
then they don't feel left out, they don't feel like
they don't have a social life. They actually felt like, Hey,
I have a group of kids that I can relate to,
just as if I was in a building. Remember, school

(14:33):
is about here and here. You don't have to be
in a building to have school. I know a lot
of times we're outside doing school. Some days, like today,
I had no school. Why because we have been running
so much between football and gymnastics. Literally the past three weeks,
we have been going from in the morning until nine

(14:55):
o'clock or so at night without a break of anything.
And so I said, you know, today everyone gets a
lazy day. Okay, that's the privilege of doing homeschool. You
don't have to do eight to five, you don't have
to do Monday through Friday. And I do school y'all
year round, so we don't even have necessarily a stop day.

(15:15):
I just give them a break like Christmas time. A
little break in the summer, a little break for spring.
Like I do little breaks, but we still do school
year round, and I try to make it fun. I
try to have my son help my daughters with math,
things of that nature. So look at it as a
school outside of a building that is going to benefit

(15:39):
not only yourself in the end, but your children because
you're going to learn later in the program, they can
still go to college. There are a lot of curriculums
out there. I will tell you this past year, I
used a lot of old school books. I went to
the thrift store and got books just so they would
actually read more versus being on the computer. So this

(16:01):
time I'm going to switch it around. As we start
in January, I'm going to do more computer with less
books because I feel like reading is so important in
every aspect. But just think of it like this. There's always, always,
and one of the top is his co ops. That's
a good, good subject. There is always a group that
you can connect with. There are a lot of groups

(16:23):
in your areas, but pick the group that's gonna once
again benefit you and your children. Remember what you know
as a parent, your children need to know. If you
ever need professional help. You can actually hone in on
resources in the community. You know, Huntington has a lot

(16:46):
of centers, Sylvan has a lot of tutors. You can
even go to these schools now and ask for tutors
that are high schoolers or college age tutors. And so
don't feel like you're left out there just to try
to figure it out. Just know there's always someone that
knows a little bit more information than you. And I'm

(17:06):
gonna tell you, I love learning, so I'm always asking
questions like what else can I do to make homeschooling
more fun and more beneficial, to make it more to
where they're ready for the outside world. Just because they
haven't gone to a building all of their life for
schooling doesn't mean they're not ready. It just means they

(17:27):
got a little bit more one on one attention, smaller smaller,
smaller classroom attention, and that they got to be at
home in the parks on a school trip with others
in the same boat that they are in, so they
don't feel like an outsider. But yet they can still
participate in different things as I mentioned before, such as sports,

(17:51):
so it's not that they're left out anymore. Homeschooling is
not what it used to be. Homeschooling is actually believed
it or not. I think that more people are jealous
of because I have a lot of parents that are like,
oh my gosh, can you teach my kids? I would
love for them to be homeschool And you know, as
much as I love my children, I'm gonna tell you

(18:12):
right now, my children are enough for me. So I
just always say, hey, try to find a co op,
which someone will speak about again later in the program.
But just know that homeschooling is now very much needed.
I feel like we need more children homeschool and I
feel like we need more education on it. And the

(18:34):
more education that, you know, I think a lot of
people will embrace it more. And so just know that
homeschooling does not mean that you're stuck at home and
you have to be in those four wall schooling. It
just means that you are going to take your child
out of traditional learning, out of that building, and put
them in a world of their own where they can

(18:55):
learn on their own and with their own family, and
to know themselves a little better in regards to they
will have more attention. Some children thrive at homeschooling, some
children thrive more in traditional learning. I tell everyone do
what you feel as best for your child, and I

(19:17):
feel for my children at this age. I have a
thirteen year old, eleven year old, and ten year old.
They are better off homeschooling. They get the same type
of teaching, but I can take more time. I don't
have to rush. That's another thing with homeschooling. You can
take your time. You don't have to rush. You don't
have to have them. They have to be at this

(19:38):
is this certain point you can go back and review
and you can again reach out. I cannot express enough
about resources and I love to talk and Gabrielle knows that,
so she better put a time on me because I
will talk all day of homeschooling. And I hope this

(20:02):
helps you to decide if this is for you, and
I hope it is. And everyone that knows me, and
I'll let you know. If you don't know me, you
can always reach out to me and ask questions. I
will be glad to answer them, and if I don't
know the answer, I will be glad to reach out
to someone that does. Thank you for this opportunity, and
I hope you all have an amazing rest of your day.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
Awesome, awesome, Wally, thank you, thank you so much. Where's
where's my sound effect? Let me get my applause sound effected?
I have to break up the sound effect. All right,

(20:46):
So thank you Wally so so much, and thank you
for the segue because the next question is about a
homeschool co op. All right, so thank you again. Put
you backstage now, all right, you guys, So I hope
you guys took a lot from that. She gave you
a wealth of information right out the gate.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
All right.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
So we're going to segue into our next question, which
is what is a homeschool co op? So we're going
to get into that. So as Wally was talking about
the different types of homeschooling that are out there, this
is another version that you can do. So we're going
to get into that. So the speaker who is going

(21:31):
to answer that question for us, his name is Darren Jones.
And let me tell you about Darren. So Darren Jones
has worked at the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, which is
commonly known as HSLDA since nineteen ninety six, first as

(21:52):
a legal assistant and then as an attorney in various capacities.
He has defended homeschool families in court, sued overreaching government officials,
and worked with legislators around the country to improve homeschool law.
Most of his time in the last five years he
has spent advising homeschool groups on everything from child protection

(22:13):
policies to statements of faith. Darren and his wife Sarah
homeschool as a team and have graduated three out of
their four children. He enjoys board games, teaching Sunday school,
and speaking at homeschool conferences around the country. Fabulous, All right,
I'm going to go ahead and bring.

Speaker 2 (22:34):
Him to the stage.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
I Darren, Yeah, are you I know you're I know
you're not.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
You're a little under the weather.

Speaker 6 (22:44):
Now it is what it is.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
Yep, all right, take it away.

Speaker 6 (22:51):
Thank you so much, Gabrielle. So yes, I thought it
was great having an introduction to homeschool and especially to
talking about all of the different kinds of homeschooling that
are out there. And so this next section is going
to be talking about homeschool co ops and specifically how you,

(23:13):
as a homeschool family can choose a co op that
works for you or also, I know a lot of
people who are in contact with Gabrielle are the entrepreneur type,
Like we just heard from an entrepreneur, and so maybe
you're thinking of starting up some homeschool co op to
help homeschoolers. As far as a definition, a homeschool co

(23:39):
op is really just a way to homeschool in a
group setting where it's not just one parent teaching their
own kids. There's no state law that defines homeschool co
op even though they have been around for decades. I
was homeschooled my last couple of years in nineteen eighty
nine to nineteen ninety one, and I was in a

(24:02):
homeschool co op both of those years, so this is
not a new thing. However, there are new versions that
I've been seeing in the last fifteen years or so,
so we'll talk about that in a little bit. But also,
as Gabrielle mentioned, my wife and I have homeschooled our children,
and at various times through the years, they have also

(24:24):
been involved in homeschool co ops of different kinds. So
if you have a co op that is homeschool in
a group setting, how do you tell kind of what
the differences are. Well, here are some of the things
you might look at first of all, what is the
purpose for the group, or maybe what's the focus for
the group. So when I was being homeschooled, our homeschool

(24:48):
co op had classes, and some of those classes were academic.
For example, my first year, there were four of us
high school kids who are all about the same age,
and we are doing algebra two, and so that was
one of the classes. We got together with one of
the grandparents of the kids who was really good at math,
and he helped us understand it better. And then we

(25:10):
had another part of the co op that was learning
how to use word processors and computers and spreadsheets, which
back in nineteen ninety that was pretty cutting edge stuff
for a home school co op. We also, in my
senior year, we wrote and staged and put together and
then put on a play. So we did a drama

(25:33):
production the entire spring semester. That was what a lot
of the kids were working on for one hour of
the three hours that we would get together. There are
some co ops that focus specifically on enrichment activities. They
don't really have classes. They might do more like a
cooking get together or sewing. They might do field trips.

(25:56):
A lot of parents I have found don't necessary feel
adequate to plan out field trips for their kids. Now
I'm one who enjoys that, So I've never joined a
co op just to get field trips, but I know
a lot of parents who have, because then you just
kind of show up with your child and you go

(26:17):
on the field trip and you don't have to do
that planning and setting up and contacting the place beforehand.
Some other homeschool co ops really focus on advanced classes.
So I know some that will have a calculus classes
or biology with a lab component to it, because a

(26:38):
lot of states now the public schools are requiring in
order for you to graduate, you have to have the
lab with your science. And so these homeschool co ops
are saying, well, you know, we're not here so much
to do the field trips in the park days and
to get together. We are here to provide the academic
classes that you, as a parent might do feel is

(27:00):
confident to teach. So that's one way of distinguishing homeschool
co ops. Another way of distinguishing them is how many
days and hours do they operate. So it used to
be that homeschool co op generally meant one day a
week possibly too. The one that I was in my

(27:21):
first year, all of those seven families were brand new
to homeschooling. This was a new thing they were trying out,
and so they decided two afternoons a week, Monday and Wednesday,
all seven families would get together and they do these
classes and enrichment activities. And after one year we figured
out that actually, it's kind of hard to get together

(27:43):
two days a week and keep up with your homeschooling
on the other days, and so we just did it
every Wednesday afternoon. It became a once a week thing.
And that is still very common. When someone says, oh,
I go to homeschool co op, it's probably going to
be one day a week. However, that is not always
the case nowadays. I have this fault, been going to

(28:07):
a lot of homeschool co ops in the Northern Virginia area,
which has been a lot of fun and some of
them the co op itself operates perhaps three days a week,
but the students can take their classes there a la carte,
So one student might be there every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,
taking one class or two classes, or maybe even three,

(28:31):
or they might just be showing up every Wednesday from
ten to noon to do a robotics class. The co
op has rented out the church for those times, and
then it provides a menu basically for the homeschoolers to pick.
Another kind of co op that really developed much more

(28:52):
since twenty twenty is a lot of private schools either
shut down or really had to alter they were doing
things during the code pandemic, and so in order for
these schools to keep operating, they kind of had to
recast how they were doing things, and a fair amount
of them decided to go instead with what they were

(29:14):
calling a homeschool co op route and what I would
call more a private school trying to operate under the
homeschool law route. And this works great in some states,
and it works terribly in some other states. And if
you are interested in joining a co op that's operating
five days a week, i'd encourage you to call at

(29:34):
a celier and see how that operates in your state. Again,
for some states that might be perfectly legal and for
some others not so much. Another way that you might
look at co ops and kind of how they're different
and such, who the instructors are. So when I was
being homeschooled. The instructors were almost all parents, except there

(29:57):
was a grand parent in there as well. One of
the homeschool dads taught at a local Christian Bible school
for college students, and so one of those students taught
us a co op class, but it was all volunteer.
Nobody got paid for it. That has really changed in
the last fifteen years or so. It is much more

(30:18):
common now, even for co ops that are only operating
one or two days a week, for the instructors to
be non parents and also to be paid. So those
are some things if you are a parent looking at
homeschool co ops thinking well, what's out there, those are
some things you might want to explore. Are you, as

(30:39):
the parent, interested in teaching a class, then you don't
necessarily want a co op where they hire all their
teachers unless you're going to go through the hiring application process.
But if you have a background in teaching, for example,
I know right now a lot of public school teachers

(30:59):
have withdrawn to start homeschooling their own kids, Well, maybe
joining a co op where they hire their teachers is
exactly what you want if you want to teach that class.
So the first thing to do is whether you are
thinking of joining a co op or and now I'll
bring back in talking to the entrepreneurs among you. If
you're thinking of starting one, figure out what your purpose is.

(31:23):
Some co ops are designed basically for kindergarten through fourth grade.
They want young kids who are starting out. They want
sometimes kind of a montessory like approach, hands on exploration.
I know some co ops their entire reason for being
is to get the kids outside, especially at young ages,

(31:46):
and so most of their classes are held outside, not
in a classroom. So figure out what your purpose is.
If you are going to be starting this group. Let's
say that you want to focus on providing high level math,
science and writing classes for homeschool high schoolers. Well, one
thing you're going to need to do, of course, is

(32:07):
make sure that you are in an area where that
target market is big enough, or else you might just
get three students and that's not really enough to support
what you're looking for. Perhaps, if you're thinking of joining
a group, make sure you understand what the purpose of
that group is. There are some homeschool co ops that

(32:28):
exist to help families who are teaching kids with special needs,
and there are other homeschool co ops who put right
on their website, we aren't set up to handle children
who have special needs, and so if your child has
a diagnosed learning disability or somewhere on the autism spectrum,

(32:50):
here are some other co ops that might be more
helpful to you. So make sure, parents, if you're looking
to join a co op, what the purpose of that
co op is. Now Again, if you're starting a co
op yourself, some of the things to think about are
some of the policies that you want to have in

(33:10):
place for your co op and parents. If you're thinking
of joining a co op, here is some of the
things that you might ask them about to find out
more about how does this group operate, what kind of
homeschool is it? So, First of all, most co ops
that I have talked to have some sort of membership policy.

(33:31):
There are some very loose really maybe not even homeschool
co ops because they aren't cooperatively teaching anything. That meet
together at the local parks every second Friday, and just
anybody who wants to show up and have your kids
play together. That's great.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
That one.

Speaker 6 (33:48):
You probably don't need a membership policy. But if you
are putting on a co op where you're meeting every
Monday afternoon and there are four slots for classes during
that afternoon. You need to have some sort of membership
process where you know who is coming and what kind
of skills do they have, and how many kids do

(34:09):
they have and will they be able to make it
there every Monday afternoon. There are groups that have three
page applications. They want a reference from your pastor. And
if you don't go to church and don't have a
pastor to give you a reference, don't even bother trying
to join that group. There are others who want you

(34:33):
to describe in a paragraph or two your homeschool philosophy.
If you're new to homeschool, then you might not yet
know what that homeschool philosophy is. That might be a
good chance to dialogue with the group and figure out
what they're looking for. Are they a group that focuses
mostly on unschooling, as we heard about earlier, or are

(34:55):
we going to go with much more a teacher directed
Here are the assignments. So a membership policy, and that,
of course will also explain how the group can make
you leave. Because unfortunately, I talk with co ops on
a regular basis where there's been some communication broke down

(35:18):
or maybe some conduct issues. And so that's part of
a membership policy is how to separate ways. Not fun
to think about, but if you're starting the co op,
you had absolutely best to think about that. Also, you
want to think about financial policies. Co Ops by and
large are not free. The one that I was in

(35:39):
that first year, it was free. There was no money
changing hands. We were meeting at the church where all
seven families went, and so they didn't have to write
the church. But that is extremely unusual nowadays. Even the
small co op that I went to last week down
in Tennessee, they've got something like I think eighteen families

(36:02):
or fifteen families, and they have to pay a rental
fee to rent out a gym, and so these if
you're going to have to have money, well then you're
going to need to have some financial policies. You might
want to set up a bank account that might be
in the group's name or somebody else's name, And if

(36:22):
you want more information about that, you are welcome to
call and talk with me about this. The last policy
that I'll talk with is if you are setting up
the co op or if you are thinking of joining
a co op child protection policies. Some states require background
checks for paid staff of homeschool groups. Some states are

(36:44):
going to require that you do certain training of your
volunteers if they're working with kids who are not their own.
And then just basic concepts of safety, like always having
two adults when kids are there. Co ops have faced
problems in the last few years. Most of these problems

(37:05):
come about when they're operating four or five days a
week and the parents aren't there, and their local city
or town looks at them and says, you look a
whole lot more like a school than a bunch of
homeschoolers just getting together. So if that is the type
of co op that you are thinking of joining or
thinking of starting, please call HSLDA and talk with me,

(37:28):
and I may be able to help you figure out
how to avoid some of these difficulties. And I will
end by saying this. I was homeschool for two years.
Many of my best memories of homeschooling were from the
homeschool co op that our family was involved in. I
got to help put together a yearbook. I found out

(37:51):
that I liked getting up in front of people and
speaking because that was one of the classes in our
co op. I found out that I was not very
good at remembering people's names when after three weeks in
the co op I still couldn't remember all the kids' names.
And I still have that problem to this day. But
a lot of the good memories that I have for

(38:13):
homeschooling they were a homeschool co op. And so I
encourage you, whether you're new to it or have done
it for a while, whether you're thinking of joining a
co op for your own kids or maybe starting up
a co op to help others, this is good. I
think homeschooling works best when it's done with a group

(38:34):
of some sort, and that might be lots, and it
might be a little So Gabrielle, I'll turn it back
over to you. Now, that's what a homeschool co op is.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
Awesome, Darren, thank you so much. Let me give you
your round of apply awesome. Thank you so much for
that information. Alrighty, all right, I just want to before

(39:09):
I move on to the next one, I just wanted
to highlight a very important resource. So, as I mentioned earlier,
Darren is from the Home School Legal Defense Association. So
that website is www. Dot hs l d A dot

(39:29):
org that is a great resource for you guys to
learn about homeschooling, specifically the laws in your state or
country if you're international. But this is a great resource
for you guys any you know, any legal issues that
come up or I think there's a list of co

(39:49):
ops that are there as well, so very resourceful. HSLDA
dot org. Just wanted to give them a quick plug. Oh,
slash group. Okay, so Darren just gave me another resource.
So HSLDA slash groups. So that is where you can
see the list of co ops. Let me just put

(40:11):
that up real quick. Let me just get this banner
up here. Give me one second. I'm just gonna put
this banner up and there you go, HSLDA slash Group.
So there's a list of co ops there. So whatever
your state is, I think it's just the US. I'm
assuming Darren, wherever you are, there's a list there HSLDA

(40:37):
slash Groups. Make sure you check it out. Yes, just
the US, So just the United States. There's a list
of groups that are there on the website, so make
sure you check it out. So if you happen to
be looking for any that is one resource that you
can check out all right, beautiful, all right. So moving along,

(41:00):
we're gonna go on to our third question of the day,
which is what are some teaching strategies I can use?
So so we talked about co ops before, so now
we're kind of going back to it in terms of
if you are doing the homeschooling yourself, we're going to

(41:22):
talk about what are some strategies that you can use
in teaching those subjects. So we're gonna get into that.
Excuse me. So the person that's going to present that one,
her name is Jan sixth, and let me tell you
about her. So, excuse me. Have you tried to explain

(41:44):
an assignment to your child only to find that your
explanation wasn't understood? Did you lose your child's attention? Did
both of you just walk away frustrated? Were your child's
needs still not met? Here comes our speaker, Jan sixths.
So she has written two books, Teach your Child to
Learn a Parent's Guide, Simple and Tested Techniques that Work

(42:06):
that's one and the other one is Teach your Preschooler
to Learn a Parent's Guide Preparing a Toddler for School
that's the second one. So on her YouTube channel, we'll
have all this information at the end, but on her
YouTube channel, she has created resources that help both students
and parents. This includes over twelve hundred targeted educational videos

(42:28):
for ages preschool through the twelfth grade in a variety
of academic subjects. Parents learn how to teach basic foundational
concepts calmly and smoothly while helping with school work. Her
philosophy homeschoolers learn best with a well organized curriculum that
pair strategy with efficiency. Final point, Jan has been a

(42:49):
teacher and private tutor for over forty five years. That
is a long time. All right, without further ado, I'm
going to bring Jan to this stage. Hi, Jan, how
are you doing today?

Speaker 7 (43:03):
I'm doing well.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
Thank you, awesome, awesome, all right, take it away.

Speaker 8 (43:09):
I'd glad to And every single year that experience gets
a little longer and longer, but I've enjoyed every bit
of it. I did classroom teaching in fourth and fifth
grade when I did my teaching in school, but that
didn't last very long as my husband and I moved
around the country quite a bit, so I was always

(43:29):
trying to break into a school system. After several weeks months,
sometimes did substitute teaching a lot, and then I decided
to throw an add at the paper and tutor that
was the niche. From then I never went back into
the school setting. I've been a private tutor for all

(43:50):
these years, so I have developed certain techniques that I
have used with many students of all ages preschool through
twelfth grade. Sometimes I've even tutored some college classes that
were in my purview. So this is why this is

(44:11):
the fix for you're getting confused and not being able
to explain something to your child, or the child is no, no, no,
I don't want to hear this, and the child might say,
well everybody gets this except me. You know, you're dealing
with a lot of emotion with some children.

Speaker 7 (44:32):
So the fix actually.

Speaker 8 (44:35):
Is, in my opinion, simplifying fundamental building blocks of learning.
This is what gives real lifelong learning because really, as
a parent and a tutor, I would think that what
we really want for our children is that they have
a capacity to learn for their lifetime, not just to

(44:59):
get past the assignment of the day. Also, if you
arrange the content of what you're of these basic skills,
you transition them into other subjects. For example, uh, my
wall is kind of busy looking I did this on

(45:20):
purpose so you would see some some manipulatives or illustrations
that you might do with your children, even as a
as an art assignment. So you're marrying the math in
this case with art. If you can notice that the

(45:43):
basic place values for math I have illustrated as little
houses where three columns fit into one house that can
go in both directions into your decimal numbers and into

(46:05):
your higher numbers. It's a pretty simplistic way to show
the place value, but it translates itself into metrics because
the metric actually follows the place value of the ones
column tens, hundreds, thousands, and so forth. And then building

(46:25):
on this or remember we're arranging our content so the
basic building blocks can grow and step into more complicated concepts.
The top one, the top top there is where I've
shown the base ten. Each column is a power of ten,

(46:49):
So we have the ones column as ten to the
zero power, and as we go along it's ten to
the first ten, to the second ten to the third power.
In the other direction, we're taking on a high school
concept of the power of ten to the negative negative one,
negative two, negative three, and those are your decimal columns.

(47:11):
So got to get too far into the weeds on this.
I started out with a basic structure of the ones column,
the tense column, the hundreds, but that is usable now
in science when we convert to the metric system. It
transfers into some upper math concepts high school level, middle

(47:36):
school and high school level concepts. But it all started
out with a simple house that showed the ones column,
the tens column, and the hundred's column. So we're taking
our simplifying our fundamental building blocks, and these are in
all subjects, arranging the content so the basic skills can

(48:00):
transition and support more difficult subject material. Then here's another
key that I've learned when I link the complementary skills.
So you might have a reading comprehension, so that's in
the reading column in the reading subject area, but we
have reading comprehension in story problems. In math, and many

(48:25):
children can do the calculation of addition and subtraction and
so forth, but they do not recognize that they need
that operation when they get into the story problems. So
we have I've been able to link three disciplines by
teaching story problems, and that would be the grammar from

(48:46):
English with punctuation marks. Those designate what numbers are grouped
together within the problem, and also vocabulary. So a word,
maybe a problem doesn't say add these numbers, boy, that
would be easy.

Speaker 7 (49:03):
But if it.

Speaker 8 (49:04):
Says that in all or all together, or how to
how in total? Those words are not particularly math words,
but they do suggest the operation of addition. It's like
that with subtraction, multiplication, and division. So let me go through,

(49:26):
and I hope you have some just a piece of
paper that you can jot some notes, because I'm going
to tell you what I have found to be what
I call the pivotal skills. These are skills in each
subject that can pivot into other subject disciplined areas. For spelling,

(49:47):
I teach phonics, so that would be the pivotal skill
that you would you would be teaching. If you taught phonics,
you were actually going to be able to use that
in spelling, but you're also going to be able to
use it for reading comprehension because the phonics can help
their child pronounce the words. For grammar, I teach parts

(50:12):
of speech. These are building blocks. I liken them to
like the lego bricks that kids like to use. You
have four holers and six holders, and two holers and
wheels and all kinds of things. And in the grammar,
the parts of speech act like those building blocks where

(50:34):
you can put those four holers and two holders together
and make a bridge, and you can use those same
parts to do a building, or your same parts to
do an airplane. So we're going to take the nine
parts of speech, and some textbooks only think of eight,
but at any rate, the nine parts of speech can

(50:57):
be rearranged in a number of ways, and that makes
our sentence structures, so that incorporates the reading and the writing.
Pivotal skill for writing. After we get those parts of
speech under control, those are the ones that build our

(51:17):
sentence structures. There are lots of different kinds of sentence structures,
but I teach three basic ones because those are the
most usable and the most versatile. Simple, compound and complex
sentence structure really does the job in most cases and
gives your child the ability to express what your child

(51:39):
is thinking. Pivotal skill for reading. You have to have
a purpose for reading if it's a story.

Speaker 7 (51:51):
Let me backtrack for just a minute.

Speaker 8 (51:52):
I got I wanted to show you with the spelling
I've could put together what I can spelling organizers. Organizer
that uses these parts, these phonics for all of this
also is available on that YouTube channel that I have

(52:15):
here Jan sixth, Tutor one. If you go and access
those twelve hundred plus videos, I have demonstrated how to
use the charts that I'm about to show you and
some of the philosophies and teaching techniques to.

Speaker 7 (52:32):
A greater extent.

Speaker 8 (52:33):
I only have about ten or fifteen minutes with you
this afternoon, but that those videos are grouped in playlists.
If you watch the playlists from the beginning to the end,
you would actually have us the technique presented to you.

Speaker 7 (52:50):
And the videos are about three to.

Speaker 8 (52:52):
Five minutes long, so you're not going like, oh my gosh,
I got the wrong one and I just had here
for twenty minutes. No, it's very quick. I've also labeled
all of them with what the content of those short
videos are, so you could match them with perhaps the

(53:12):
subject material and whatever you're teaching. If it's simple sentence structure,
you could watch just those simple sentence videos. You could
watch them and build up your teaching technique, or you
sit with your young child and watch them together and
see how your child is reacting to the information in there,

(53:35):
or if the child is able to be on their own,
the child could just watch the videos themselves and then
do the workbook page. Okay, back to my pivotal skills.
So the reading, you need to have a purpose for reading.

(53:56):
If it's if it's story driven, I use a story plotline.
This has really been valuable for invaluable for me. It's
right directly to the point where we're getting the actual
I'm backwards her the exposition. We have rising and falling

(54:17):
action in the story, and all of this is explained
also that are in those videos.

Speaker 7 (54:23):
But if you even just put this.

Speaker 8 (54:25):
Chart in front of your child, this is what they're
looking for when they're reading, to do those book reports
and answer the kinds of questions that are in reading comprehension,
even if you personally are not giving them tests and
quizzes in your homeschooling setting, when they get into perhaps
act or SAT review classes, or that's also on those

(54:49):
videos that are on YouTube. I've made prep work for
those college entrance tests. They all they have sections where
there's reading comprehend This helps a lot. If it's story driven.
If it's if the rating purpose is more into science

(55:10):
or social studies. This is where I teach note taking,
and that one of the easiest ways I can show
you for note taking for new vocabulary in stories or
in specific vocabulary that would be in science or social studies,

(55:33):
I do what I call flash cards and baby flash cards.
In this case, a flash card is made from the
from a vocabulary word. Perhaps we have bird, and perhaps
we have reptile, and in this case will be into

(55:54):
a science maybe a science unit. What's the difference between
a and a reptile?

Speaker 1 (56:01):
All right?

Speaker 7 (56:01):
So the textbook or the.

Speaker 8 (56:06):
Online textbook that you're using might have very specific things
the reptile is, and it'll explain it in sentence structure.
But your child will be picking out the important facts
from it and putting it on the back of the
reptile card, and the same way with the bird. This

(56:29):
is the learning process. When the child is understanding what
these vocabulary words are, then I asked the child to
make a small or a baby flash card. So here's
the flash card itself, front and back, and the baby
flash card is made. When the child thinks that they

(56:53):
know it well enough, they're going to put the flash
cards flat on your table with the with the information
side up and then try to match the baby flash card.
This should be done on a flat surface with either
with the one that represents this this word. This is

(57:19):
again explained in much more detail on the videos on YouTube.
But when you can visualize sometimes twenty or twenty five
different vocabulary words, it could get pretty confusing.

Speaker 7 (57:36):
And this takes the takes.

Speaker 8 (57:39):
The worry out of the learning vocabulary. Okay, so our
reading is you need a purpose for it, am I?
Over time, Gabriel, I'm gonna send good you pop in there.

(58:02):
And I was wondering, Okay, so the science and the
social studies, biology health class, something that's the facts oriented.
I asked the children to take notes. This is a skill.
It's a lifelong learned skill that could just be used

(58:22):
for many, many.

Speaker 7 (58:24):
Different areas of life.

Speaker 8 (58:26):
And having note taking from your textbook puts the information
in the child's the child's way of understanding it, and
that can then be used for your writing exercises. Again,
I'm double, I'm always doubling and trying to trying to

(58:48):
understand and use techniques that can be universally used, not
just for that one specific discipline. In math, all right.
There's lots and lots of categories for math that are important,
but I have found that the pivotal skills in math

(59:09):
wrap around the operations of addition, subtraction, multiply, multiplication, and division,
with the caveat being if you don't know the addition
facts or the subtraction facts too well, you can kind
of bump along with fingers and marks on a paper

(59:29):
or something. But not knowing the multiplication tables really hinders
a child. They cannot easily migrate to the to harder
subjects in math, harder concepts if they don't quickly retain that.
So I spend a lot of time on the multiplication tables.

Speaker 7 (59:52):
Doing so, you.

Speaker 8 (59:54):
Might find charts like this where you have numbers across
the top, down the side, and as you go across
and down you find the right answer to it. This chart,
I find scares most children. Oh my gosh, I'll never
know all those I get little use. I've cut it

(01:00:15):
down to this chart. This one overwhelms a child. This
one does not. If you're in the process of teaching
your child multiplication, there's some really really good ways to
do it.

Speaker 7 (01:00:34):
On these videos.

Speaker 8 (01:00:36):
I actually mostly use a deck of cards and the
kids think we're having some good fun. Okay, So operations,
those are a pivotal skill and this one place value.
That's why I did all my place value charts there.
That's really really helpful for learning a lot of different

(01:00:58):
concepts of men. And when you get up into the
to the high school level where you're working with algebra
and polynomials, it again goes right back to that place value.

Speaker 7 (01:01:13):
Okay, and that would be the place.

Speaker 8 (01:01:17):
Value would be those townhouses that I was talking about before.

Speaker 7 (01:01:26):
Okay.

Speaker 8 (01:01:27):
Now the subject material is important, of course, but as
a homeschooling parent, I am just so anxious to have
you understand that you also really need to teach organizational
and study skills. This is really going to help your
child the most with It's got far reaching complications things

(01:01:51):
like budgeting time. So if your child doesn't know time yet,
if you're really catching a young child, I suggest that
you teach the analog clock with the digital. This would
be the digital one. The analog would be with the hands.

(01:02:11):
If those are taught together with your child at the
same time, your child will be able to be able
to read the digital or the analog clock.

Speaker 7 (01:02:23):
Very important.

Speaker 8 (01:02:24):
But knowing and understanding the time is going to be
able to get your child to be able to budget
his or her time, which is a lifelong skill. So
if they have an assignment that perhaps they have to

(01:02:44):
do all maybe twenty problems in math. You've assigned that,
and that's what their assignment is, I would want I
would ask my tutoring students when I work with children,
I say to them, how long do you think that's
going to take you to do that? And they might say,
of forty five minutes, And then I'll say, all right,

(01:03:07):
put that down in the estimate column. Now let's pay
attention to when we started. You start it and see
if it really takes you forty five minutes. So boom,
they might finish it off and see that it's only
taken them twenty Now that was really overestimated. So the

(01:03:28):
next time they get another assignment that's about twenty math
problems of a similar type, they might go for maybe
a twenty or a fifteen minute, always challenging themselves.

Speaker 7 (01:03:40):
To be accurate with speed.

Speaker 8 (01:03:44):
The accuracy is the most important part, but the efficient
amount of you know, working with time is.

Speaker 7 (01:03:52):
A skill that.

Speaker 8 (01:03:55):
Can be used all the way through school and adult
and the adult life. I'm not only going to be
budgeting the time for assignments. You're going to want them
to understand that if you have to leave somewhere for
an appointment, let's say a doctor's appointment, they can't start

(01:04:15):
ten minutes before to take showers and get ready. They're
going to have to budget something else. Or if you say,
you know, dinners in fifteen minutes, your child might say, hey,
I can knock off my spelling in that amount of time.
So there's there's always this, there's always this thinking process

(01:04:37):
of estimating budgeting efficiency with accuracy.

Speaker 7 (01:04:45):
I will close. I think I'm just about our time.

Speaker 8 (01:04:48):
I'll close by telling you that the two books that
Gabrielle mentioned at the beginning was for the Preschooler.

Speaker 7 (01:04:59):
And this My Tutoring Techniques.

Speaker 8 (01:05:03):
They're both available on Amazon under jan sixth, you can
find them there. They're short books because I know that
you're busy, and I get right to the point, and
they also explain what I've just gone through in breakneck speed.
If you a reader and you like to have it

(01:05:23):
with the page that turns. Other than that, I think
that the best thing that I can offer you right
now are those over twelve hundred videos that are on
YouTube channel. When you go to the channel, hit playlists
and you'll see all of the different things that are
available and the videos are ordered it.

Speaker 7 (01:05:43):
In that case, thank you. I'm sorry.

Speaker 8 (01:05:46):
I'm going to not be here for question and answer.
I have to start working. My students will start pretty soon.
But I'm so glad I had a chance to talk
to you today.

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
Thank you, Thank you, Jans oh much. Thank you for
giving you know what little time you can appreciate it.
All right, let me give you your round the awesome all right,

(01:06:19):
thank you, Jan.

Speaker 7 (01:06:20):
You back go parents. You can do this.

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
Yes, you can do this.

Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
Awesome, awesome, bye bye, all right, Jan, thank you so
much for that, so so such so much information you guys. Right,
you know, if you can put them in a co
op if you want to.

Speaker 2 (01:06:41):
I don't want to.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
I mean to outsource the homeschooling, so to speak. If
you choose to do it yourself, there's all those different
ways that all those different materials that you could make
yourself or or purchased outside.

Speaker 2 (01:06:55):
So there's a lot of different ways that you can
do it, all.

Speaker 1 (01:06:59):
Righty, So moving right along, we're going to go to
our fourth question of the day, which is actually a
two parter, it is what is the paperwork involved? And
how does standardized testing work? So we said a lot

(01:07:20):
right about how to do it, but now we're going
to get into making that first step, getting your foot
in the door, starting the whole shebang, right, and we're
going to talk about that right now. So the panelist
who's going to answer that for me, her name is
Tamaraw's Somerville. Just looking for her banner. There's her banner,

(01:07:41):
all right, So let me just tell you about herself.
Tamara is a working homeschooling mom. She co founded the
Facebook group Westchester Homeschoolers to connect homeschooling moms like herself
to other homeschooling moms in Westchester County to foster relationships,
increase socialization, increase socialization among their children, and navigate the

(01:08:07):
daunting paperwork for homeschooling in New York State. She also
co authored the book African American Families, y We Homeschool,
which is now available on Amazon, which we'll talk about
later on. And full time, she works with Classical Conversations,
establishing weekly homeschool communities to equip families to successfully homeschool

(01:08:29):
through high school. Fabulous. All right, I'm going to go
ahead and bring Tamara to the stage.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
Hey, how you doing?

Speaker 1 (01:08:40):
Hello there, hello, hello, all right, I'm going to give
you the floor, so take it away.

Speaker 9 (01:08:49):
Thank you, thank you. So it is this is what
is the before you get into the day to day
of the curriculum and where do I go and who
do I talk to? There is typically the forms to
complete to send to your local school district to say, hey,
our family is going to be homeschooling. And typically you're

(01:09:11):
gonna you're gonna if you're in a state that does
require reporting, you're gonna get some paperwork, which seems like,
oh my gosh, this is a whole lot of information
and what do I do? And so I want to
help you out on that front. Let you know that
number one, it's just paper, that's all. There's a couple

(01:09:31):
of pieces of paper. And in some states there is
nothing to fill out. Put in the chat. If you
are in a state outside of New York or if
you're outside of the US, so put that in the chat.
If you're in a state outside of New York, or
if you're outside of the US, put that in the chat.
So i can see where people are coming in from.

(01:09:54):
New York is one of the states that seems hsld
A on their on their website, New York is read
it's like warning, Morning Warning, but it is literally just
paperwork that is that is to be completed. And you
may live in a no or low regulation state like
New like New Jersey, Connecticut. Uh, those are are low

(01:10:20):
low states with low regulations or paperwork or requirements. So
I'm going to start with some of the bigger ones
like New York, because some of the other states have
similar similar requirements. Usually the requirements are like the requirements
include reporting that you are going to be homeschooling, sending

(01:10:41):
in an instruction plan, like what what is the curriculum
going to be using, what is the what is the
who's going to be teaching? That kind of things. Are
usually some form of a document with an instruction plan.
There's maybe some quarterly reports, an annual assessment. Like I said,

(01:11:02):
there are some states that have nothing to nothing to
either send in at all. Typically if your children are
below the age of six, there's nothing to send in.
So it does vary by state. So I do recommend
the information I'm going to give you will cover some
of the states in the northeast, so I will not
specifically be covering Alabama or Florida or Illinois. Great to

(01:11:26):
see you guys here though, and so you do want
to check in. Darren mention this in his presentation. Check
out the website for the specific regulations for your state.
Some states also do require immunization records. Some states have
some teacher qualifications, but in most cases, in every state,
it is legal for parents to educate their children, so

(01:11:50):
you do not have to have There are some options though,
as to what type of homeschooling option you want to
choose in your state, so there may be different requirements
based on your choices, so you definitely want to check
out check out your your states, your state specific requirements.
I do want to help you to say, please keep
it simple. I have gotten into my very first year.

(01:12:13):
This is my twelfth year homeschooling, and in years one, two,
and three I sent these gigantic reports because I wanted
to really prove I realize now I was trying to
prove to myself that I was doing a good job
and that I had done enough enough things to really
show that my student was being was being educated properly.

(01:12:33):
But even in a high documentation state like New York,
Pennsylvania's is another state that requires a number of documents.
Even in a state like New York, they only ask
for some sort of some sort of quarter report, and
they gave no specific guidelines that I have to follow

(01:12:53):
well being educated here in New York myself, I remember
about third or fourth grade, my report car that came
home had the.

Speaker 3 (01:13:02):
Letters N E.

Speaker 9 (01:13:05):
For I'm sorry, n I for needs improvement, ME for
each expectations, EE for exceeds expectations. Those were not grades,
those were not numbers, and so really it was an
arbitrary system of how we were being assessed based on
the teacher decided was going was going to be there.

(01:13:25):
So I decided one year, out of sheer laziness just
to put on my son's quarterly report a one, two,
three or four. I gave them a rubricks for what
that meant, and no one said anything. So it really
is sometimes we get all worked up about what is
what is required put in the chat if you have

(01:13:47):
children under the age of six that are homeschooling, so
your if your homeschooling a pre K student, a pre
K three, four, or five student. Put that in the
chat because the great news and that in almost every
state you don't have to send it anything, so there's
no testing required, there is no paperwork to fill out.
So put that in the chat and give yourself around

(01:14:07):
to applause. There's nothing for you to do. Go ahead
and put that in chat. For the letter of intent
or typically you're noticed to homeschool, it is literally sometimes
one sentence, one sentence that says I'm going to be
homeschooling my child. Fill in the name of the child,
or off names of the children and put that. Put

(01:14:28):
the name, the year for the school, the school year,
so twenty four to twenty five, so I'll be homeschooling
Bob for the twenty twenty four to twenty five school year.
That is usually as as much of a lot of
intent as is required in most states, and like I said,
some don't even require any like in New Jersey. Your

(01:14:50):
instruction plan. This is where you do want to make
sure you read your regulations and whether you're in a
high state regulation or a low or no or low regulation.
Please read over the regulations each year because sometimes they
change based on grade. And yes, sure I believe in

(01:15:10):
saying your name, my serie. You can pull your child
out of school at any point in time. So what
I actually started homeschooling myself two weeks before school started.
I've had people who joined our community, our weekly communities.
Sometimes the last few weeks of the program in April,
in May, a lot of people sometimes will drop. I

(01:15:34):
will pull their kids out of school around the Christmas
break and start homeschooling. Then I see some older kids,
a couple thirteen, fourteen, and sixteen year olds. Please be
mindful that the oftentimes the subject matters that you are
you need to report on in your individual instruction plan.

(01:15:54):
Those will change for middle school and high school, so
be mindful that you're including all of those subjects in
the younger years. They sometimes we'll ask you to include
things like health safety and fire safety, bicycle safety, things
that we don't even think about now that most schools
don't even do because many of our regulations were written
back in the eighties. But we're thankful they haven't changed them.

(01:16:18):
We don't want them to change some of them because
they may change something we don't like. So the instruction
plan is usually going to include either a list of
textbooks or your plan of instruction. In many states, they
are required to give you a form to complete, but
you are not required to complete their form, and so
there is there, particularly in New York, there is no

(01:16:38):
specific format you need to follow, so that's another plus
for you. And they're giving you guidelines or tell you
what to include, but they're not You're not typically obligated
to use their form. HSLDA has plenty of forms on
their on their website, and in your state, if you belong,
your state probably has a state home school group that

(01:17:00):
can support you with documentation as well. Congratulations, Angela's homeschooling
for two years. Now let's see how however many how
many years have you all been homeschooling this year, first
year or have you been doing this for a while,
because some of you may already have been doing this
and have already completed some of this, and maybe you're
just putting way too much information and getting stressed out

(01:17:22):
like I was in my first few years with having
to write your reports. If they are required. Districts that
do require a quarterly report, it's pretty much like a
report card. Again, I mentioned all the things I was
writing down, what field trips we took, what lessons we
were teaching, what science experiments I did, what history I

(01:17:43):
was teaching. It was a lot and none of it
was required, not a single look of it. And I
was writing this two to three page report every year,
and then I just broke it down to what does
my report card look like? It was one piece of
paper that had four columns for each for each year.

(01:18:04):
And so I did that again, because here were the
professionals giving me this very simplified information with not a
lot of context. I didn't know. No one ever told
me what portion of the curriculum that actually got covered
in the year. No one said how much was supposed
to be covered. If my child got an eighty, what

(01:18:25):
does that mean? What can they do because they have
an eighty grade? What do they know with that eighty?
None of that was over there. And so I was
doing a whole lot of stressing. And I want to
help you if you walk away with nothing else, I
want to help you to de stress about this situation
that the professionals are out here with their certifications and
their continuing education and they do not give you that

(01:18:46):
much information as a parent. So let's not stress ourselves
trying to give it back to them, we are doing
a good job because there's no one that cares more
about our child's education than us. So we are doing
our level best to get that to to ensure that
they are being educated properly. They're being educated thoroughly, and

(01:19:08):
we're gonna keep them because we don't have a clock
telling us that we have to stop teaching. If it
doesn't get done because uh Mary had a had a headache,
then okay, there's still tomorrow, there's the weekend school. School
work doesn't have to stop. There's no required break that
you have to take on. One of our previous panelists

(01:19:29):
mentioned that she homeschools year round, so do I, but
we take off from Thanksgiving till three Kings Day, so
so we don't do school then. But we do start
school in August as well, even though we live in
New York. Because we wanted to keep our school schedule.
In New York, you are required to tell them like

(01:19:50):
what dates do get the reports? And because we are
required in New York to submit that schedule, I I
line up my school calendar with my sister's family because
our kids around the same age. I wanted to make
sure when her kids were on break. My kids were
on break, so we can go on vacations together. And
so we start in August because they start in August.

(01:20:11):
We finish in May because they finish in May. So
it's a lot of the stress and stuff we're putting
on ourselves. Like I said, I want you to walk
away with there's there's it's not that serious and it's
just paper. So there's the quarterly reports. Here's where we
get into the big questions about well, what about assessments.

(01:20:33):
Number one, you are not required to do whatever state
exams that the local school district district is doing. You
are not required to do that. You can if you like,
if you don't want to think about it and you
just want to send them to the district and has
them take the test. Be mindful there may be some
some some forms will have you fill out because now

(01:20:54):
you're in their realm and you're taking their tests using
their facilities and their resources, So there may be some
things that they may require of you. In New York,
you are not required to start doing an official You
are required to do an annual assessment in the first
beginning of first grade, but a state standardized test, a

(01:21:16):
standardized test not a state not a state test, a
standardized test beginning in the fourth grade. You to do
it every other year up until the eighth grade, and
then every year nine through twelfth grade. But even that
there's like I said, I use New York as a
benchmark because we are one of the one of the
stricter I can't say stricter, but higher, higher requirements than

(01:21:39):
other states. And we have a list of I think
they're over at least more than a dozen tests that
you can choose, so the parent you're choosing to test
your child takes I'll tell you a funny story my
daughter our first year that I did decide to test her,
not that it wasn't required this year, but our family

(01:21:59):
wanted to do it. Really, my husband wanted to do it.
And she was in third grade and she had she
was in We got together a number of other homeschool parents,
We had proctors for different grade levels, and the other
kids finished the test and she's like, oh, I guess
it's lunchtime, and so she handed in her report. She
didn't finish near half of that test, but she thought, oh, well,

(01:22:22):
it must be time to go because everybody else is
using is us is going. I never submitted that test
because she never finished it. But I realized I needed
it was best for me to test her at home,
and so we did a paper and pencil test each year.
We used a resource called a past exam. It is
a test created by homeschoolers. But I wanted a paper

(01:22:42):
and pencil test. I didn't want them to have to
take the test on the computer. As as my daughter
got older, should we switched to. This was after eighth grade.
We switched once she had learned how to type. We
switched to a computerized test. So we use a California
Achievement Test. My son now uses that too. That on
its online. I still do an untimed test because I

(01:23:04):
found out what works best for my children, and I
realized the clock just stressed them out, so I didn't
time them. But this is something that you can do.
You can choose the assessment you do. You can choose
whether it's paper and pencil. You can choose whether it's online.
You can choose whether it's timed. You can choose whether
it whether you use, you do it at home, you
do it in your local school district. Some tests do

(01:23:26):
require a proctor who is a college graduate to oversee it.
So like bju's Stanford ten. BJU is Bob Joe's University
that you can order this Stanford ten exams through them.
It does need to be a proctered exam proctored by
a person with a college degree. So I have a

(01:23:49):
college degree, but I didn't I didn't want to use
their test because their test is also timed. So just
take a look at what options are available, what will
best fit your child, and remember or that it is
a snapshot of what your child has been exposed to.
And remember and some children just don't do well with
standardized tests, and use it as a tool, not as

(01:24:12):
a not as a weapon against you or your child
to say how well they're learning, how intelligent they are,
or anything to that effect. I mentioned some of the options.
There's the Iowa Test, the California tests. Some of these
exams are used by local school districts. But again you
can many of them have options. You can take it

(01:24:34):
at home, and you can do timed or untimed. Some
assessment tips I mentioned check out consider the setting, whether
you want to do a group testing or home any
procter requirements. Like I said, the BJU test does have
a bachelor's degree requirement paper or online. Like I said,
I wanted to let my children take a paper test

(01:24:56):
until they're typing skills and computer usage skills up to
par where they weren't also being tested on how to
use a computer in order to take their test, Whether
you want a time to untimed option, and whether you
even you can take There are many, like I said,
there are many states that don't require There are few

(01:25:16):
states that don't require these formal assessments until a certain
grade level. But you may choose to have your child
take them. Said in second grade, we weren't required in
New York to do it, but I did it because
my husband requested it. So just consider that as you're
taking as you're taking taking these assessments or utilizing these assessments.

(01:25:38):
I am looking at the HSLDA website, so I remember
some of the states that were mentioned. Alabama and Mississippi
are both low regulation states, whereas Indiana, I think that's
all Illinois. Somebody grow Chicago, there are no is no
notice in very low regulation. I saw Massachusetts, which Massachusetts,

(01:26:03):
New York and Pennsylvania are the three high regulation states.

Speaker 3 (01:26:09):
I know.

Speaker 9 (01:26:09):
Pennsylvania, I think requires a portfolio or of some sort,
so you definitely want to take a look at the
take a look at the at the regulation specific to
your state and what they actually require. There are a
few states that do require immunization records, depending on the
option that you're choosing for homeschooling. And yes, sureie some

(01:26:30):
states do allow you to participate in utilizing the public
the public school resources, particularly when it comes to testing.
Not to be very mindful that they may not include
sports or art or things like that, but for testing,
some school districts will allow you to do it. And yes,
you can participate in dual enrollments as a as a
homeschooler in general, as a huge boost for homeschooling. Our program,

(01:26:55):
Classical Conversations, has a a program where our students can
graduate our c C program with up to with if
they take if they take one one side of summer classes,
they can graduate with up to their associate's degree and
still be doing all their CC work. The differences. They'll
be submitting some of that work to to the college

(01:27:16):
for college credit, So there's lots of options to get
to get college credit while they're being homeschooled, while they're
while they're home with you and have that leg up
because there's no reason to keep them back. You just
it's some some some Some people ask about grades you
determine if you know what grade level your child your

(01:27:38):
child is in. If you, uh, the school district doesn't
require that. If your child is six, they have to
be in first grade or in kindergarten. That's that's up
to you. Decide where they are because you can graduate
them early if you like. I want to say this
again as I wrap up, whether you're whether you are
in a low regulation or high regulation state, please read

(01:28:02):
your regulations, the better you know them. If ever you
are questioned about what you are doing, the best, the
best comeback is you knowing the regulation. Twice, I've lived
in three different school districts. One school district sent me
notice one year that I had to provide a standardized test.

(01:28:25):
I literally just copied and paste the regulation with the
link for him and sent it back, said I'm not
required to do so. Another another school district, required that
I send in a copy of my student's birth certificate. Again,
I sent the best, sent the link back with the
copy of that portion of the regulation, sent it back
to them. But The reason I was undaunted by their

(01:28:46):
questions or their requests was because I knew what the
regulation said. The second school district, when we got down
to it, the real the real issue was that their
system had no way. She didn't need the certificate. What
she wanted was the year. In New York, you're only
required to give them the age of the child. But

(01:29:07):
they had no way of actually entering the age of
the child without entering the birth date, and she needed
to put the year there. So I gave it to
her because it wasn't her fault. She wasn't trying to
be malicious or just requiring extra stuff, just that their
system was antiquated and she needed a way to record it,
and so I gave that to her. But the best
your best defense is knowing your regulations. Like you don't

(01:29:29):
feel you don't get stressed simply because they asked the question,
And you don't get stressed when it's just paperwork. Like
I said, in New York, they said, when you send
your notice to homeschool, they send you a packet that
includes at a written packet of the entire New York
state regulation and some forms to fill out from your
school district so it's a pretty it can be a

(01:29:50):
pretty thick pack of paper. That again, it's just paper.
It's not meant to intimidate. It's meant to it's meant
to inform and to give you a formatt to use,
but not that you're required to use it. So the
better you know that, the easier your life will be.
You can go back to the fun of your co ops,

(01:30:10):
your field trips, your resources, whether you're unschooling classic doing
classical education like we are Montssory, go back to the
fun of homeschooling and enjoying time with your child, and
let the paperwork fall fall by the side because you've
got a system for doing it. I would suggest like
knowing the dates and just having that on repeat, getting
it set up so as you have your time to

(01:30:33):
schedule it. Give yourself time as well. If you're doing
your quarterly reports, give yourself time before the time you
say your quarter ends and the time you're actually gonna
submit the paperwork. Don't make it the same day.

Speaker 1 (01:30:46):
All right.

Speaker 9 (01:30:47):
That concludes this presentation. Again, have fun, have it is
a beautiful time to homeschool. Don't let the paperwork it
in your head, all right, Gabrielle, beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:31:00):
Wait while I have you here. As you were talking
about the map, I pulled it up here, so let
me just pull it up on the screen here for
people to see. But I'm left here, right. So we're
talking about the So this is the United States, and
you were talking about the different areas. So as you

(01:31:25):
see here, this is the the key here at the bottom. Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:31:31):
So the state's in red.

Speaker 1 (01:31:33):
It's I think Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Yeah, Island.

Speaker 2 (01:31:40):
Rhode Island.

Speaker 1 (01:31:41):
So yeah, So this little corner here is bright red.
That was hilarious when I saw that. So that is
the highest of regulations. And then the dark blue is
moderate regulation, and then the light blue it was low regulation,

(01:32:01):
and then the green's no notice low regulations. So the
green states are the most lacks of the entire country.
It's just hilarious. And then you know, and then there's
various love varying degrees of strictness when it comes to
regulations and paperwork.

Speaker 9 (01:32:22):
So yes, and regulations. I want to stay again. Regulations
it just means paperwork. It's not a you don't need
to move out of New York because they have more
regulations in New Jersey. You can stay right here. I've
been homeschooling in New York for now twelve years. It's
literally just paperwork. And I know you said, Gaby, there's Gabrielle.

(01:32:44):
There's some more. There are some people who if you
were international. Classical Conversations does have communities in fifty seven countries.
So if you go on our website, Classical conversations dot com,
you may be able to find some homeschool support that way,
if you are outside of the US, where you won't

(01:33:04):
have a state regulation or maybe not have a country
homeschool group to help you out. If you are outside
the US, we do. We do support international communities as well.

Speaker 1 (01:33:15):
Awesome, awesome, And as we're on international communities, it's another
thing I pulled up. I don't think I could. I
thought I had it. Oh, I'm gonna reshare it.

Speaker 2 (01:33:26):
But on the same.

Speaker 1 (01:33:30):
I'm just gonna pull it up.

Speaker 2 (01:33:34):
Let me do it, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:33:35):
But on the same the same website, there's there's a
drop down box for international authors. So pull it up,
all right, give me. I'm gonna share the screen again
just so you guys can see. Uh So, for those
of you that are outside of the United States, this
is the HSLDA website where it breaks down homeschooling and

(01:33:58):
other country So okay, so it looks like the dark
blue is where homeschooling is allowed. I'm assuming that's what
the color coordination means. Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:34:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:34:13):
So there's a drop down list of countries, so you
find which country you're in and then you will see
the regulations when it comes to that. So this is
another resource for those of you outside of the United States.
HSLDA dot org, slash lego, slash international. I just wanted
to point that out, all right, Tamara, thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (01:34:34):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:34:38):
Oh sorry, did you want to say something else?

Speaker 9 (01:34:40):
No, I said, always a pleasure.

Speaker 1 (01:34:42):
All right, awesome, Oh I'm sorry if you your sound effect?

Speaker 2 (01:34:56):
All right, beautiful, all right, I thank you, thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:35:01):
All right.

Speaker 2 (01:35:02):
So moving right along.

Speaker 1 (01:35:06):
So the next question is how do you choose a curriculum?
So we talked about the types of homeschooling that you
can do. We talked about doing it yourself, We talked
about the paperwork involved. Now we are going to talk
about should you decide to do it yourself right, how

(01:35:30):
do you do it right? How do you organize it?
And we are going to get into that and I
will be the one to discuss that. So let me
tell you about myself before I pull up my PowerPoint slides.
All right, so how do you choose a curriculum? I'm

(01:35:50):
the one that's going to answer that question. So my
name is Gabrielle Critchlow. So I am a passionate advocate
for equal access to education. So during my time in
graduate school, I witnessed the academic challenges based by working
class families, particularly those who were people of color. I
recognized that the limited tutoring hours provided by existing companies

(01:36:14):
were insufficient to meet the needs of those families. Additionally,
I noticed that many children in these households struggled with
undiagnosed learning disabilities, and they lacked basic literacy skills. Motivated
by my desire to make a difference, I came up
with a brilliant idea. I decided to establish my own company.

(01:36:35):
Drawing from my experiences working at various tutoring companies, I
gained valuable insights into effective tutoring methods and discovered my
passion for helping students succeed. I also inspired other tutors
to join me in this mission. So in twenty thirteen,
I turned my vision into reality and founded a Step
Ahead Tutoring Services. Since then, I have provided high quality

(01:36:58):
tutoring services to students in need. Through my company, I
continue to empower and support students, ensuring they receive the
educational opportunities they deserve. All right, So that's enough about me,
all right, So let me get my PowerPoint slide. So
I am going to share my Let me see I

(01:37:22):
can get it. Where are you? Give it a tap?
Share my entire screen? Hold on, Okay, give me one
second as I try to pull this up. Ah, there

(01:37:42):
you are, alright, Okay, slide show from the beginning. Okay,
all right, so how do you choose a curriculum?

Speaker 3 (01:37:58):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:37:58):
So what do parentcy to know about selecting the rights
curriculum for their homeschool? So let's get into that. So
first we're going to start off with a recap. So
first we started off with what is homeschooling? Right, we
got into what that is? Then it is what is

(01:38:18):
a homeschool co op? That was the next question. Then
we talked about what are some teaching strategies I can use?
Then we talked about what does the paperwork involved? And
how does standardized testing work? So now we're going to
talk about so how do you choose a curriculum? So
that is my task for today. So seven days before

(01:38:44):
your homeschool starts, right, so you have all of your
school supplies. You have your desk, you have your chair,
you have your cute storage. Well, you need your children.
Of course, you have you filed your letter of intent
or your affidavit. You communicated with the district already. But

(01:39:05):
unfortunately you are completely shattered. While you have all of
the materials for homeschooling, you don't know what you're going
to teach. You need a curriculum. So what is that?
What is a curriculum? So think of the curriculum as
a roadmap. It assists you, who is the teacher in

(01:39:27):
this case, in planning what your child is going to learn.
So it includes things like the materials, your methods, the goals, assessments,
all these things to make teaching effective. And it serves
as a guideline to how you're going to structure your

(01:39:49):
educational struct how you're going to structure your environment, the
way that you teach. So that curriculum is sort of
like like a it's like a the way that you
structure your classes. That's how you're building your homeschool around it.

(01:40:10):
So it's like like a sort of like a guide
or a window as to how you are going to
set up your homeschool. And it's also like a collection
of learning experiences that you can customize to your family's needs.
So you are creating a lesson plan for your child

(01:40:30):
that is best for your child growth and success. And
you decide how you want to do it. You decide
how many hours in a day, you decide which classes,
you decide what teaching methods, what you're going to what
you're going to do, how are you going to do it?
And you will do it in a way that benefits

(01:40:53):
your child the most. All right, So, of course with
all homeschooling, you need subjects, right, So what are those subjects?
So you need your arts, right, drawing, graphic design, you know,
this is the creative aspect of homeschooling. You need your

(01:41:15):
language arts, which includes reading and writing. Of course, you
need math, you need that ooh evil math. But you
need that math, you guys, you can't avoid it.

Speaker 5 (01:41:26):
You need math.

Speaker 1 (01:41:27):
Physical development that could be any kind of exercise classes
or gym, but you need your physical development. You need
your science. That's biology, chemistry. You definitely need your sciences,
social sciences right, that can social studies, right, geography, so
you'll need that. Technology. Technology is helpful to things like computers.

(01:41:53):
You maybe want your child to develop an app, for example,
so coding is very huge, so that might be something
you may want to add to your homeschooling. So social
emotional development, this is really four pre K, So that
could be things like play dates, role playing, storytelling, pretend play.

(01:42:16):
It could be a time where you talk about feelings,
community service, so things like that where you're developing emotionally
and understanding understanding the different types of feelings that you
may have social interaction. So this is a very critical
period for that and you may want to have that
for your homeschooling. So Health and safety, so this starts

(01:42:41):
from kindergarten up, so that could be things like that
could be things like first aid training, good hygiene practices.
There's actually apparently if you go to some firehouses, they
offer some safety classes as well, so that might be
something you may want to look into for your homeschool.

(01:43:04):
All right, So the philosophy of homeschooling, So these are
some things you may want to think about in terms
of how you want to set up your homeschooling.

Speaker 2 (01:43:13):
So you may want to, well, this is a question.

Speaker 1 (01:43:16):
You should ask yourself. Excuse me, So what type of
homeschool do you have right now? Or do you think
you would like to have right So that's something So
when putting together your homeschooling, that's a question you want
to you want to answer for yourself and your family.
So in what ways do you or would you present content?

(01:43:39):
So how would you teach those subjects that we talked about,
would you do it yourself? Would you outsource it? How
would you conduct the homeschooling? So that's another thing that
you would want to think about. And lastly, what guidelines
or methods should you adopt to fit your home? So
what type of method would be beneficial for your child? Well,

(01:44:00):
what methods would be beneficial for the way you set
up your home for example, or if you're outsourcing, excuse me,
should you choose to outsource the homeschooling? How what do
you look what type of homeschooling environment are you looking for?

(01:44:21):
Should you choose to outsource it? So, whatever your philosophy,
the important part is that it's entirely up to you,
you decide how you want to do it. Whatever you decide,
you want to find something that your child would be
engaged in. So the whatever materials that you use or

(01:44:43):
the curriculum that you use, you want to make sure
that it matches your philosophy. You also want to make
sure it matches your goals. You also want to make
sure it matches up with your child, and it aligns
with your child. So you don't want to pick something
and your child hates it or you find that they're
not really learning well from it, right, So you want
to pick something that will best benefit your child and

(01:45:07):
your family.

Speaker 2 (01:45:10):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:45:10):
So here there's different types of homeschooling philosophies that you
can consider. So there's things like we talked about the
Montessori method, which is it's more like a hands on
learning experience. It's more independent freedom, so there's not really
a structure to it. It's more to engage in curiosity

(01:45:34):
and exploration self discipline. You may want to consider the
Charlotte Mason method, which relies more on books and studying nature,
short focused lessons outdoor exploration. We talked about unschooling earlier,
which is more of like a free flowing way of schooling.

(01:45:54):
So there's different types of ways that you could set
up your homeschool. School at home is another one that's
pretty much like the way you set up the way
public school is set up. Maybe you you know what
you want to the way that they do public school.
You want that at home? You know that's up to you, right,
So that's another way that you could do that. But

(01:46:15):
these are the different types of ways that you can
you can set.

Speaker 2 (01:46:19):
Up your homeschool.

Speaker 1 (01:46:21):
So who's the teacher? So in homeschooling, the teacher is you? Right,
So you are the teacher. That is very very important.
So you are the teacher. But let's say you don't
want to be the teacher, right, what are your other options? Well,
still you, right, but with an assisting tool. So what

(01:46:42):
do I mean by that is maybe you want to
There are like curriculums that you can buy that you
can purchase that have everything kind of laid out for you.
So you can either do it yourself where you create
your own materials, or you can use pre planned materials

(01:47:06):
or prepackaged materials, so you can do that as well.
You can also hire a tutor. Right, So depending on
your state, you are allowed to use tutors. For homeschooling,
you can use an online academy, so there are there
are online academies that are out there. So maybe your

(01:47:27):
child is more into computers and you find that, you know,
interacting with people might be difficult, so it may be
helpful to find something virtual. So there are online academies
that are out there that everything is just laid out
for you, so you could just leap just let them
do all that, right, and then we talked about it earlier,

(01:47:50):
but homeschool co ops is another excuse. Homeschool co ops
is another resource for you, so you can just kind
of drop them off at a co op, right, And
there was a question but before about joining multiple co ops.
You are allowed to join multiple co ops, but you

(01:48:12):
may want to just let them know right that you're
in multiple co ops, but you are allowed to do that.
So a co op is another another resource for you
if you yourself don't want to do the teaching all right,
So if you are looking for curriculums that are religious
based or religious centered, here are some options for you.

(01:48:36):
Easypas is a popular one. I see that pop up
a lot in Facebook groups. There's also Sunlight the Good
and the Beautiful BJO Press. So these are some options
for you if you're looking for more of a religious
influence in the curriculum for your child. So if you

(01:48:57):
are looking for curriculums that are more ethnic based, so
maybe you want to find materials that focus on Black culture,
that focus on Asian culture, that focus on Latino culture.
So what I have here these are some examples of
African American culture, so Kamalia Academy, Liberated Minds Institute, These

(01:49:19):
are some examples of Native American curriculums. So these are
the ones that are out there that I managed to find.
But there are prepackaged curriculums that are ethnic based depending
on your ethnicity, and so if that's what you want
for your child, they are out there and these are
some examples of that. So very limited resources if you

(01:49:44):
are looking for So that's sorry, okay, so very limited.
My slide is not moving. I just want to check something.
I was told. My slime is not moving. Just just
doing some so just doing some okay, side screen one second, okay, okay,

(01:50:16):
hopefully you can see that.

Speaker 2 (01:50:19):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:50:19):
So we were talking about Yes, Asian American homeschool, Asian
American homeschooling, there are out there. There's very limited resources.
Correct me if I'm wrong, you know, put it in
the chat if you know of any ethnic based curriculums

(01:50:40):
that are Asian American focused. But there's limited resources that
are out there for those of you that are of
Hispanic descent. These are a couple of resources that are
out there for you as well. So lemonhass is one
and Nova's Passam is another one. So there are some
examples for you that you can do.

Speaker 2 (01:51:03):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:51:03):
So another thing you may want to think about in
terms of your curriculum is do you want something do
you want like a physical part of it, like would
you want a textbook?

Speaker 2 (01:51:15):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:51:16):
Or do you want something online? So this is one
of the things that you want to think about in
putting together and putting together your curriculum. So do you
want something more like hands on something that your child
can touch, so a series of books, workbooks, things like that,
or do you want to do everything on the computer? Right?
Do you want something virtual or on hand? So some

(01:51:39):
kids do better with the books and the textbooks, some
kids do better on computers. Right, So that's something that
you want to factor in when choosing your curriculum and
whatever you decide. Oh sorry, I almost missed this part.
There's some out there that are blended and that some

(01:52:03):
are printed and virtual at the same time, So that
could be another option for you if you're looking for.

Speaker 2 (01:52:10):
A mixed batch.

Speaker 1 (01:52:11):
But either way, this is something that you want to
consider when finding the best option for your child. So
now one of the things that comes up a lot
is can you afford it? Right, So that's one of
the things that pop up for me a lot is affordability. Right.

(01:52:35):
You know how much this homeschooling costs. Well, there are
free materials that you can use, so not everything involves
spending money, right, So you can look this stuff up, right,
There's all of these websites and worksheets that you can download.
There is so much free resources that are out there,

(01:52:56):
so it involves some research, right, So this is where
you would have to search for it, right, So you
could talk to friends and family in the homeschooling community.
Social media is a big one. There's all these different
Facebook groups that you can join. But all of this
stuff is out there. So for those of you that
are worried about having enough money to get the materials,

(01:53:21):
there are free and low cost materials that are out there.

Speaker 5 (01:53:28):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:53:28):
Con Academy is one that is free. I Excel, well,
I Excel as a paid subscription, but they give you
some questions that are free. I think Kuda software is
another free one. So I think methods dot Com is
another one. E E. Reading worksheets is another one. Right,
So there's all these resources that are out there for

(01:53:50):
free if you are concerned about affordability and saving money.
But there are resources that are out there. It will
take some research on your part, but it is out there,
all right. So here's a little more information for you guys.

(01:54:11):
So the oh Miya Academy is an example of those
online academies I'm telling you about. A cell Us Academy
is another one. There are academies that are full there's
there are accredited and non accredited as well. There's a
bunch of different websites here. So all of this stuff
is here. All Spectrums another one so Spectrum is is workbooks.

(01:54:36):
So I personally like the Spectrum workbooks. They don't really
explain the concepts. It's really more for practice, so it's
really more of a supportive tool. But that might be
something you may want to consider spectrum I believe follows
the common Core curriculum, so that might be something you

(01:54:57):
may want to consider. So all of this, all of
these resources out are out there for you to look
into and explore.

Speaker 2 (01:55:08):
So which subjects should you teach?

Speaker 1 (01:55:11):
So it varies soon, right, So I know I kind
of mentioned it earlier, so just to kind of circle
it back in. So depending on your state or country,
they actually outline which subjects that you should teach in

(01:55:31):
your curriculum. So that's something that you should be mindful of.
So thirty two out of fifty states there are specific requirements.
So when it comes to choosing a curriculum, there are
some subjects that pretty much all states and countries have
something in common, right, So there's language, arts like meeting

(01:55:53):
and writing, social studies, science and math, so those are
the common DENI dominator among the states and the countries.
So you need to have those foundational skills so they
are considered essential for well rounded education. So this is
something you may want to incorporate in your own curriculum.

(01:56:15):
Is when your child starts ninth grade. I think for
the most part, we still follow the grades set up
in that when your child starts ninth grade, that might
be the time to start talking about college and introducing
life after high school, right, So that might be something

(01:56:39):
you may want to incorporate into your curriculum. So we'll
talk about that later. Preparation for college, that'll be my
next segment. So, should you decide to homeschool until twelfth grade,
it's important for you to research the graduation requirements of

(01:57:01):
your state or country, which my next presenter will get
into more of. But I do want to emphasize that
you can homeschool up to twelfth grade. So should you
decide to go all the way, you can do that,
but definitely go into the graduation requirements of wherever you

(01:57:22):
are located. So I wanted to highlight that point.

Speaker 3 (01:57:27):
So the.

Speaker 1 (01:57:29):
Core subjects you have your math, you're reading, and your
writing and your social studies. Those are your core subjects.
So then there are electives, right, So they're optional, you
don't have to, but it might help to make your
homeschooling more eclectic and more enriching is you add these
additional subjects. So I talked about arts before, so you

(01:57:51):
may want to add music. You may want to add dance,
foreign languages, right, you may want to teach things like finance,
life skills, how to open a bank account, credit reports. Right,
so you may want to add these things into your
homeschooling curriculum to make it more of a well rounded education.
So you might want to have more electives in your setup.

(01:58:18):
All right, So here are some additional resources for you.
A book Shark is another one that has it's I
think that's an online No, those are books, but those
are pre packaged. So those curriculums are laid out. I
did mention IXL learning. I like I excel. That one
is a that one is a subscription, so that one

(01:58:40):
is well, it's it's a financial investment. They do give
some free questions, but if you want like unlimited practice,
IXL is a good resource.

Speaker 2 (01:58:51):
They follow.

Speaker 1 (01:58:53):
No, they have a variety of curriculums actually, not just
the common core. So I EXL is another one that
one I like personally. A to Z Homeschooling is another resource.
So those are some additional websites for you to look
into and additional resources to help you decide how you
want to put your homeschooling together. So you can change

(01:59:15):
your curriculum at any time. So that is a very
very important for you to know. Once you pick one,
you do not have to stick to it. So if
you pick one and you decide, hmm, I don't really
like it, or my child's not really getting anything.

Speaker 2 (01:59:30):
From it, guess what you can switch?

Speaker 3 (01:59:32):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:59:33):
You don't have to stick to one.

Speaker 1 (01:59:35):
You can hop around, jump around, you can find which
one is better for a child, but you can switch
them up at any time, all right, So five non negotiables,
So something that you want to keep in mind. You
want to assess your child's strengths and weaknesses by testing
them in reading or math. So we talked about assessments,

(01:59:55):
so you may want to do some additional assessments as well,
but definitely see where your child is in terms of
the reading and math, in terms of their core objects,
so you definitely want to look into that. You want
to keep track of your child's progress, so how are
they doing, where are they struggling. You definitely want to

(02:00:16):
keep some sort of documentation of your child's progress. You
want to evaluate. You want to take ad notes help
you decide what to teach next. So this is something
that's very important. So depending on your state, that may
require you to keep a portfolio. So the assignments that
you give out, the worksheets, presentations, all of that. Depending

(02:00:39):
on your state, you may want to keep all those well,
you should depending on your state if they require a portfolio,
so these are things that you should be keeping track of,
documenting and keeping it all in a portfolio. So you
definitely want to have those. So if depending on your

(02:01:00):
state as well or your country, if you're curious or required,
you may want to give them a standardized test to
see how they're doing and how they compare with their
age groups across the country. So I know New York
requires standardized tests, so that's a state that requires it.

(02:01:22):
But if you're in a lack state like Texas that
doesn't really require it, you may want to have them
do it anyway as an option, just to see how
they're doing personally, but also compared to other kids their
own age, So that may be something to factor in.

(02:01:42):
And you want to choose appropriate level standards and set
postal goals for your child. So, I know we talk
a lot about grades, but there are developmental stages so
but some depending on your child, there may be more
advanced think kids their own age, or they may be
farther behind than kids their own age. That's fine, but

(02:02:07):
you definitely want there are I will say there are
more or less developmental benchmarks that you want to make
sure your child is preaching and this will help you
guide how you're doing your homeschool all right, So a
good luck you guys. Sorry stop sharing, so good luck

(02:02:30):
you guys on your homeschooling journey.

Speaker 2 (02:02:32):
Just know that it is.

Speaker 1 (02:02:35):
Trial and error. So it's it's research, it's exploration, it's
there isn't a one size fid all type curriculum. It
really does take patience. It takes I don't I guess practice.
I don't know if I want to say practice.

Speaker 2 (02:02:58):
But it really is.

Speaker 1 (02:03:01):
Figuring out what's best for your child. So don't expect
to get it right away. It may take some time
for you to get it right. So just know it's
just have patience with yourself, don't rush yourself. It does
take time. So whatever is best for your child, but
also best for your family as well, because homeschooling is

(02:03:23):
a collective effort, so you definitely want to pick something
that is best for you, best for your family, and
for your child.

Speaker 3 (02:03:34):
All right.

Speaker 1 (02:03:34):
So that is the end of my segments. Let me
give myself a round of applause. All right, all right,
and now we are reaching the final question of the day.

(02:03:59):
That question is how do homeschool children get into college?
So we're going to dive more into that. And I
see my presenter is here, so let me tell you
about her. So her name is Lnissa James. Let me
get her get her name. There, you are Laniss or James,

(02:04:19):
So let me tell you about her. So she is
going to wrap it all up for us. So she
plays a vital role in the HSLDA. So she's the
second panelist from that organization where she works closely with
homeschooling families to guide them through the high school process.
She leads a homeschool co op tutorial and oversight program

(02:04:42):
for K to twelve, demonstrating a keen understanding of the
unique needs of these families. With over a decade of
experience as a seasoned tutor in both group class settings
and one on one coaching, Lanisa is well equipped to
support her students. Additionally, she husband are actively homeschooling. There's
seven children raging from preschool to college. Awesome, all right,

(02:05:08):
without further ado, I'm gonna go ahead and bring lenessa
to the stage child, Lanessa, how are you doing?

Speaker 2 (02:05:16):
I'm great? How are you? This is exciting good, I'm good.
All right, So you're taking it home for us? Hey,
I had a phenomenal presentation today all day. This is great.
I hear my colleague Darren Jones was on. Yeah, he
was definitely on. All right, Lenissa, take it home wonderful.

(02:05:40):
So she said, the question is how do homeschool children
get into college? Do they go to college? Absolutely? I
love talking about this topic and I hope you are encouraged.
I think that there's so many stereotypes about homeschooling through
high school. We all think we're smarter than a fifth grader.
As soon as you say you're going to homeschool your

(02:06:01):
kid through high school, everybody's concerned. Aunties are concerned, grandma's
are concerned. Right, you know, your spouse is concerned. People
begin to get really concerned. And this is an area
that I've totally fallen in love with and I want
to share with you. I want to encourage you just
in the short time that I have today. Just like
Gabrielle said, I am a homeschool mom of seven. My

(02:06:23):
husband and I when we first started homeschool, and he thought,
is this legal? We went from spending twenty thousand dollars
in private education, clearly on a college track, but I
decided to homeschool, and he was concerned. He was in
law enforcement. He said, is this legal? And that's how
I connected with HSLDA many many years ago. It'll be
almost twenty years. My oldest daughter is getting ready to

(02:06:44):
turn twenty seventh, and our youngest is nine now, so
we have just launched our fourth student to college. Out
of those four college students, two have finished, one is
a junior, and one is a freshman this year. We
love college and at home we're still homeschooling three. We
have one that's a junior. So I'm with you if

(02:07:06):
you're looking college bound students. I have a high school student.
I also have an eighth grader who I'm preparing for college,
getting college credit in eighth grade. That's something homeschoolers can
do and it's exciting, as well as having my third grader,
which just kind of keeps me all young, so it's
all so exciting. I brought a power I brought a
PowerPoint for you. I hope I'm able to share. Let

(02:07:28):
me see if I can share my screen, and I
want to just give you some visuals. If that's okay,
Let's see if it works. Share my screen? All right?
I think I'm sharing my screen. I hope I'm sharing
my screen. I hope I'm sharing my screen. Can you

(02:07:50):
see my screen? Not right now?

Speaker 8 (02:07:54):
What?

Speaker 2 (02:07:54):
All right?

Speaker 1 (02:07:55):
So you click share so present at the bottom and
then share screen.

Speaker 2 (02:08:03):
Let me exit my show. Let's see I'm trying to
share all right. Entire screen? Yes, I see you. Oh,
click share screen on the bottom. Yes, there we go.
It's great. Why is that great? Well? Is it open?

Speaker 1 (02:08:22):
So the the slide?

Speaker 2 (02:08:27):
Yeah, make sure it's open. It's open. Okay, it is open.
Let's see. It should be.

Speaker 1 (02:08:34):
Entire screen or tab, not time window or entire screen.

Speaker 2 (02:08:41):
Oh no, let's try a window. Oh I found one.
Let me know if you see my screen.

Speaker 1 (02:08:46):
Now I popped up on my end.

Speaker 2 (02:08:48):
There you go. Do you see the full screen? Yes?
I see the full screen? All right. I'm just gonna
share a little bit from the PowerPoint, and then I'm
gonna come have a chat with everybody, and I'm to
answer any of your questions. Okay, you are going to
be able to chart your way, not only college but
career military. This is the James Party of nine. It's

(02:09:10):
never a dull moment. Check them out. We're sitting here.
We have a family on beach and they're just hanging out, chilling,
and you see my little one, she's just so cute.
But it's just been a journey. And there was my husband.
He was just like, come on, like, make this make sense.
We saved nineteen thousand, five hundred dollars. She was like,
what's going on? Kids look happy, they're sitting around the

(02:09:31):
table and here's the team. So now I have more
young adults college students than I have little kids along
these many years, and we are a college bound family.
I believe in higher education. You know, so many sacrifices
have been made for us to enjoy higher education, and
I really want my kids to be able to enjoy it.
So we set up our lives for that to be

(02:09:51):
a big part. And I'm going to give you some hope.
My oldest daughter, Lostaza, she's on my far left. She
did the duel enrollment right, the high school diploma and
the duel enrollment. The reason I bring this up is
that some people who might be listening are really into
making sure your kid gets a college experience before college starts.

(02:10:12):
There's dual enrollment available. You know, you can do it online,
you can do it live. She did it live at
our local community college, and she presented herself to her
dean at her university with.

Speaker 1 (02:10:26):
Your slides are not progressing?

Speaker 2 (02:10:28):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (02:10:29):
Slow, uh presentation mode. We're still seeing the first one.

Speaker 2 (02:10:36):
Oh let's see.

Speaker 1 (02:10:38):
Sorry, some technical issues. Sorry, guys, let's try and putting
in slide show.

Speaker 2 (02:10:45):
You don't see it. Wow, Let's try it one more time.
You see the first one?

Speaker 1 (02:10:51):
Yes, I see right now. I see a picture of
a family group. I see your family and slideshow. I
see if that?

Speaker 2 (02:11:00):
Yeah, I'm in slide show mode. Do you see another picture?
Is it's so weird? All right? Is it movie?

Speaker 1 (02:11:13):
No? Still see the group with your family when you
click through? Yes, that's what Sandy is saying.

Speaker 2 (02:11:21):
You said, did you say you see me when I
click through? Or no? No, Let's try this one more time.

Speaker 1 (02:11:27):
We're gonna try agains. Sorry, sorry, guys, all right, we're
gonna we're going forge.

Speaker 5 (02:11:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:11:31):
Okay, I hear Angelo saying she looked into DOL enrollment.
That's exciting. Hang out, let's see all right. Share screen.
I'm hitting share screen. Uh share audio? All right, I
don't have any audio windows. Let me see entire screen.

(02:11:56):
Let's try entire screen. See if that works? Okay, all right,
let me try this. Does that make it kind of crazy?
Let's see how does that look? I think that works.
Does that work? Okay? Let me try to change it
and see if it will change. Ready, did it change?

(02:12:17):
Yes to change. Let's see did it change again? Yes
it did? All right, Thanks for bearing with us, James
partying nine. But these are the kids, and so you
heard me talking about my oldest starter doing the dual enrollment.
So if you're listening and you want to do some
education some college before, that's an option while you're in

(02:12:38):
high school. But I do want to remind you you
do have to prepare for that because most states required
acuplaces or some sort of placement tests to make sure
your high school student is ready. There are some opportunities
to do duel enrollment without. But she presented herself to
the dean with have the classes done? Okay, because each
college or university has a cap on how many classes
they're going to transfer over into the department. We did

(02:13:00):
her homework here, and so as a pre law student.
She presented herself in that way that allowed her to
be a three time intern. Most kids only have an
opportunity to do an intern once in their college experience,
but because she had so many classes done, she was
presented at the Maryland General Assembly not one, not too
but three times as an intern with lots and lots
of credits. She landed her high school career at COVID.

(02:13:22):
Y'all know what happened, right, So I had one finishing
college at COVID and one finishing high school at COVID. Mari,
my second daughter, just graduated this past May, top twenty
in her university. Homeschool students can do well. You know
why because they know how to focus, they know how
to study the material. In fact, they believe that homeschooling
college is just like homeschooling. You get this ninety minute

(02:13:45):
presentation that could be like mom and dad, and the
rest of the time you spend reading material, learning the material,
and coming back ready for the test. Really really had
a great college experience and just home from being kunlati
in her and then my third daughter, she is a junior,

(02:14:05):
the first who went to Salithburg University. The second one
is at the University of Maryland. That's my alma Mana.
She is also there doing a phenomenal job, just was
on the Dean's list as well. She's interning. She's doing
studio art and graphic design. It takes a lot of portfolio.
You can't do it. You can help, and I cannot
color and cut and paste anything. Folks. I want to

(02:14:25):
give you hope. Right, you can get them connected to
great curriculums that help them grow. And then my last
student who's in college is my son Lorenzo. He is
currently at Liberty University. He's doing his business administration and
project management and he's picking up his carpentry so he's
also getting his carpentry certification. Being bussed about thirty minutes

(02:14:48):
away from the university, so he's doing it too. For
one deal having a blast out in Lynchburg, Virginia. And
then of course those are my three who are in
my homeschool. This is the smallest my homeschool has ever
been with three kids. So I have my Nini who
is a junior, Leo who's eighth grade, and Layla who
is in third grade. Did my slide change Yes, it did?

Speaker 1 (02:15:10):
Yay.

Speaker 2 (02:15:11):
Let's talk about the freshman year. Guys, let's talk about
ninth grade. If you're planning for college, career, military, please
understand it starts in the very beginning selecting courses, choose
an curriculum, particularly extracurricular activities, those things that enhance what
it is that your child wants to do. For examples,
if you have a student who says they want to

(02:15:31):
do robotics, there should be evidence in their extracurriculum and
in there what I call unique electives. Right, I should
see some coding, some c plus plus some jobac script.
I should see some evidence that the kid wants to
do computer science or robotics, or law or engineering. So
be intentional those ninth grade years, those early years about

(02:15:54):
preparing your student for higher education through extracurricular activities. And
also there's study skills time management. And then let's not
forget when I say study skills time management, understand that
you have to prepare them to be able to study independently,
because that's what college is. Right. A high school student
who is planning to go to college should be able

(02:16:14):
to take the material, go and do it and bring
it back complete it. And so I think as homeschoolers.
We need to have more practice in that particular area.
Creating great transcripts is something you want to do. At HSLDA,
we help you out. If you check out our transcript service,
it's available. It's very inexpensive twenty five dollars. You can
have a transcript where the GPA is calculated for you.

(02:16:36):
If you are HSLVA member, you can also have our audios.
Myself and some of my colleagues we did a five
part audio series on how to do a great transcript.
That is reason enough to join HSLVA because we're here
for you for those skills. Because the transcript is the
only one piece of communication between you and the college

(02:16:56):
or the university right because you don't get to talk,
so you need to send that document in that really
summarizes who your student is. And writing a course description
does not have to be stressful. Most colleges and universities
don't want all the details of every single class, but
you want records, so copy paste what the publisher is
saying about the course you're in. Get yourself a little
binder book or digital file, and keep a list of

(02:17:20):
all the classes that you're using and the resources that
you're using most classes, almost one hundred percent of classes
will have a description that's your course description. You don't
have to create it. And so when we moved to
tenth grade year, pretty much the same thing. But as
you begin to hone in on college career, there are
some things that you want to pay attention to. So

(02:17:42):
if your kid is going to the workforce a military,
do your research. Now, get connected to other people in
the military, other people in those career fields. I remember
my oldest daughter originally says she wanted to be a
physical therapist. You said she was a junior Olympic gymnast
at the time, twisted her ankle. Spend a week with
a physical therapist and I encourage to every single day
interview him, interview him, ask him questions. At the end

(02:18:04):
of the week she says, Mom, I don't want to
be a physical therapist. That guy touched my feet all week.
I'm just not gonna do that, and poof it was gone.
But thank God for homeschooling, right that we had the
opportunity to be exposed to what it is that we
said we wanted to do right. And so I think
the homeschool years, these four years, particularly while you're in

(02:18:26):
college and high school are the fastest years of your life.
Use them wisely. If you're looking at college, look at someone.
If you're going to prepare your kid for the SAT,
the act, or the COLT, it's totally up to you.
Test optional is an option, but you need to do
your research now to see what your options are. I
always have my kids give me a top five university list.

(02:18:47):
I mean, I'm always. In fact, we're due for a
college tour on Thursday of this week because we are
into touring colleges and the sooner you tour, the better, okay,
And then of course outside courses extra currigular of course descriptions.
Don't forget about the very important transcript. All are part
of being college ready and preparing for post high school,

(02:19:09):
which brings me to the eleventh grade year. Did you
know that colleges only see nineteenth and eleventh grade on
your transcript because when you've sent that transcript in and
your senior year, everything is ip in progress because those
classes in many cases probably are just you don't even
have grades on. Some of the best applications go in

(02:19:30):
on October fifteenth, though later than November fifteenth. Oh my goodness,
we're on November fourth, so if you're looking for merit
based scholarships, those transcripts and applications are already due, so
I encourage people to put in an early application. Let's
take a look at the eleventh grade year. Not only
do you need to consider your workforce. For a military,

(02:19:52):
you need to consider the training. You need to make
sure kids know how to network. They need to understand
about the ASFAB and career testing. And then for colleges,
we talked about testing, but you also should be looking
into research and financial aid right. College is expensive, so
you need to be intentional about what your plan is.
And the best place to look, y'all want to know

(02:20:13):
is on the website of the university. The university loves
to give scholarships to their incoming freshmen and to the
students that are at their university. Go on the website,
use the little search engine and type out the word scholarships.
See what's it required. It's never too early. You can
create yourself a tracking sheet and begin tracking those scholarships.

(02:20:33):
And then of course same same assignment extracurricular activities, course
descriptions and the important transcript and so as we go on,
we're in the twelfth grade year, y'all. I'm telling you
the first the last four years of homeschooling goes fast, fast, fast.
So when you're planning your senior year, it's all of that.

(02:20:54):
It's academics, it's record keeping. If you know, this is
no matter what your plan is. If you're going into
the works, the research and networking, the training, if you're
going into military, it's testing. Please don't forget about the
physical preparation that's required for the military. Kids should be
out running if they're military bound and college. You heard
me say, college visits. It's never too soon, testing applications,

(02:21:17):
financial aid. Hey, let's not forget about that E word
essays right, the things that it's required for college bound students.
If you're entering the workforce, please don't forget about those skills,
those saw skills, interviewing. Does your student have a great resume?
It could be a resume of volunteering. Homeschool students cannot

(02:21:39):
forget about their volunteering. They're up against public schools kids
who are required to volunteer. So when the homeschool student
shows up, they should have volunteer hours. And I love
recommending Congressionalwar dot Org. I love them. I love them
because it helps you organize all of your volunteer service
really in a nice, neat package. And of course you
have your bronze, silver and your goal award based on

(02:22:01):
your activity. Check it out. Research networking soft skills. You're
entering the workforce and guess what, you still need a recommendation,
You need a referral. So students, homeschool students should be
networking with people who they think could give a great referral.
And my favorite homeschool student is the student who has
a well done transcript and a well done resume. They

(02:22:24):
put the two together, they hand it to the person
who's doing the letter, recommendation or the referral. People can
speak more clearly about the goal of your student when
they have those two documents in their hand.

Speaker 9 (02:22:37):
So, if you're.

Speaker 2 (02:22:37):
Considering trade technical apprentices, don't think this is easier. It
could be harder if you're not careful. You want to
get in there and you want to make sure you're prepared.
You have the training, you know what's required for the
certification and the resources, and of course your membership with HSLDA.
They have a tendency to be harder on homeschoolers because
a lot of people who don't finish school hang out

(02:22:58):
in the trades. Guess what, homesok is legal in all
fifty states, and so you need to make sure that
you're hanging close to HSLDA to help people in the
trades and technical and apprenticeships understand that homeschooling is legal. Well,
if you're entering the military, you're either considering enlistment or
military academies, you still need great records. And so again

(02:23:18):
that notebook that I encourage you to keep in the beginning,
put it together now so that you have a list
of everything you did and you're able. You know, on
our video, we have a member exclusive video that we
do for the transcripts for HSLDA. We talk about the
transcript being a story book. Just like any mom or

(02:23:40):
grandmam would have a picture book of their student. Well,
guess what, this is an academic story book and be
ready to share the story. And so I'm always ready.
I love to talk about my kids and some of
the things that they've done and having evidence of that
information through record keeping, tests, extracurricular activities, pictures, right, practical tips,
all kinds of things and of connecting with people who

(02:24:03):
are in the military, particularly if you're looking at military academies,
understanding the nomination process, record keeping tests, and extracurricular activities.
There are also college alternatives. Maybe you're considering college, but
a community college great, think about it. They can start early,
they can start right at the end of their year.

(02:24:25):
It's totally up to you. Look at the admission, get
clear about your goals. That does also mean you still
research the program, find out what's required and what are
the benefits. And there's also what we call CE credit
community education credit for kids who may not, you know,
want to be in a college setting, but may not
be ready for the vigorant pace of traditional college. They

(02:24:45):
can start doing some community CE credits in some areas
that they may be interested in computers, all kinds of things,
but understand that there's some practical cost reductions where the
kids living at home and being able to do college.
It's a great alternative and it's a great way for
you guys to experience it together if you're heading off

(02:25:07):
to a four year college. Again, everybody has applications. There
may be an online application. There may be my favorite
common app, right, got this common app you can go
fill it out and it's one essay, one upload of
the transcript, and you're able to talk to several colleges
at the same time. But there's a lot of pre
work that needs to be done. You don't want to

(02:25:28):
wait till the last minute. Check out common app there's
so many practical tips. And then of course the transcript year,
the transcript fall of the senior year is when it's due.
And then of course at the end you'll have final
do your homework. Know the difference between regular admissions, early action, priority,
early decision, or rolling. They all have something different about them.

(02:25:52):
I want you to do some resource. You can kind
of hit Google and it will tell you everything about it.
And that's what I love. Know which college is the
first or second third for your student. It matters, and
how you approach the college matters as well. A lot
of times my kids, by the time they're in their
senior year, they have made some decisions about the college
they want to be one and two, and we pursue them,

(02:26:15):
you know, very aggressively. So because why we want to
have merit based scholarships, which brings us to and I'm
almost done sources of financial aid there's scholarships, there's grants,
there's loans you want to have that last on the list, federal, state, private, personal,
and then of course there's work study. Kids can have
an opportunity to work on campus, so you want to

(02:26:35):
get a plan. It's going to be a place they're
going to hang out for four years, so you need
a plan. You need to make sure that if your
kids love being far away, they understand that they may
not be home for fall break or Thanksgiving, they may
be too short of a time for them to come home.
Understanding that you have the right kid at the right
distance from you to know what will help them be

(02:26:56):
very successful. And also making several trips. And I love
doing college tour when colleges are open because you get
a chance to see the students and I will tell
you they are the best advocates for talking about the good,
the bad, the ugly about a university. So I love
interviewing students on campus. So now's the time to tour.
Which also brings me to applying for the fact right

(02:27:16):
the free application of federal student aid. Most scholarships are
tied to it, So I challenge you to really, really
really be connected, right be connected to what's required and
when the do dates are right, Knowing what your EFC is,
estimated family contribution, knowing what stars are. These are all
the acronyms if you will, knowing about online registration when

(02:27:41):
it opens, understanding they need the previous tax years and
the deadlines and all of the aspects of it. It's
never too soon to begin learning about how to launch
your kid to college. If you're applying for non federal aid,
you know, just making sure you are visiting the college
board site and the private college sites, and that you

(02:28:02):
know the deadlines. It's so important. Deadlines are so important
for college. And let your team be a part of it.
It's their life and they need to be apart. So
ninety percent of the time I have my team right
next to me so that they can see what it
takes and it helps them be a better student too.
So HSLA is here with the resources, customized plans, the

(02:28:23):
transcript service. We're here to support you. We have educational
specialists who are helping to kind of navigate what you're
seeing on the site. We encourage you, so it's the
time for you to join us at HSLDA. We hope
to see you. We hope that you'll get connected to
our site that's full of resources and so there's so

(02:28:44):
many reasons to join HSLDA. From the legal assistants you've
met my friend Darren Jones, there's a whole team of
legal attorneys who are here and ready to help you
lobby and presents educational specialists, resources in the community. We
have memor discounts, so you want to check out our
discount program, and there's so much more. So if you're

(02:29:04):
not an in your celviier member, we encourage you to
join us. And if you haven't renewed yet, we encourage
you to renew. So I'm ready to answer any of
your questions. I'm gonna stop my slide show. I hope
those slides were moving for you guys.

Speaker 1 (02:29:21):
Awesome, awesome, awesome, Okay, thank you so much, Linisir. So
the questions that answers are gonna kind of we're gonna
put in the end for the end of the program
so so we can all kind of answer it together.
But thank you so much, Linisir. So let me give

(02:29:43):
you your your rout, your sound effects applause, so awesome, awesome,
So thank you, thank you for jumping in all right, great,

(02:30:06):
So I'm just gonna put you backstage for a bit,
all right, you guys.

Speaker 5 (02:30:10):
Uh So, apparently I see.

Speaker 1 (02:30:12):
That my slides didn't weren't moving, so I just want
to see, Uh I can kind of try it on
my end again, Okay, so share, okay, so I.

Speaker 5 (02:30:31):
Can kind of see what's going on. Okay, Okay, let's.

Speaker 1 (02:30:35):
See okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, beautiful. All right, So
I apologize for the technical difficulties. So I'm just gonna
kind of like, I'm not gonna kind of say everything again,
but I'm just gonna kind of show you just kind
of briefly the slides, but basically, so the these are

(02:31:00):
the questions that we talked about prior to my presentation,
So I of course.

Speaker 5 (02:31:06):
Was how do you choose the curriculum?

Speaker 1 (02:31:08):
All right, So not gonna go over all this again,
but I just want to show the slide in its completion,
so you see.

Speaker 5 (02:31:16):
What it was. Again. I paused for.

Speaker 1 (02:31:18):
The technical difficulty, all right, so I'm just going to
kind of go over it with you. So should you
come back to see the replay, you can see the
slides in their entirety, and of course.

Speaker 2 (02:31:35):
The replay will be available to you.

Speaker 1 (02:31:38):
For those of you on stream yard right now, you
will receive an email with the whole video so you
can see that, and I will also put it up
on my social media on my YouTube channel as well.
So I just want to play the slides for you so.

Speaker 5 (02:31:55):
You can see it.

Speaker 1 (02:31:59):
Okay, So it just going one through these, so a
quick reminder as well of what you need in terms
of the subjects for your curriculum. All right, and this
part with things to think about is setting up your
whole school. Okay, choosing a philosophy is up to you.

(02:32:21):
So finding what's right.

Speaker 5 (02:32:22):
For your family. The different options that you can choose.

Speaker 1 (02:32:27):
For your homeschooling.

Speaker 9 (02:32:28):
Who's the teacher?

Speaker 1 (02:32:32):
Get my pretty animation here? So all these different things here,
So faith based curriculum. So these are the options that
are out there. As I was saying, EPs is the
popular one, ethic based.

Speaker 5 (02:32:45):
If you want something.

Speaker 1 (02:32:48):
That highlights your ethnicity more like Black culture Asian culture.
So these are examples of Black culture and Native American.
Not a lot of resources I found with Asian American.

Speaker 2 (02:33:03):
Culture.

Speaker 1 (02:33:04):
But correct me if I'm wrong, for free to put
it in the chat. But this is Asian American focused
hispanic focused pay the types of whether you want something
printed online or both using search engines. So oh yeah,
so we're talking about affordability. You know, if you're worried

(02:33:25):
about how much is all this going to cost? You know,
are there free resources? There are free resources that are
out there. It will take some research on your part,
but there are out there. I did give you some
examples of ones that are free, like math as con Academy,
things like that. Uh so here are a list of

(02:33:46):
Oh yeah, so I was talking about online academies. So
this is a list of ones that are accredited, which
like they're approved by the powers that being in the government.
Uh there's there's accredited and non accredited academies that you
may want to look into.

Speaker 5 (02:34:02):
Talk about spectrum workbooks, so put them on the screen there.

Speaker 1 (02:34:06):
Okay, just want to there so when you come back
to the replay you can see this all this fabulous information.

Speaker 5 (02:34:17):
So I'm just.

Speaker 1 (02:34:17):
Putting this here for the sake of the replay. So
here some additional resources for you as well.

Speaker 5 (02:34:26):
Yes, you can.

Speaker 1 (02:34:27):
Change your curriculum at any time, so if you want
to switch, you can switch.

Speaker 5 (02:34:32):
You don't have to lock it down.

Speaker 1 (02:34:34):
R five non negotiables, assessing strengths and weaknesses. You want
to keep track of your child's progress, very important. Some
stays acquired you keep, say portfolio, so all worksheets, projects,
essays you want to you want to collect all those
for your portfolio. Doing your standardized test, which is required

(02:34:58):
is stay like New York or Pennsylvania. So for like
the lax the more lax states like Texas. You know,
that might be something while it's not required, it may
be something you may want to consider to see how
your child is doing and finding something that is grade

(02:35:19):
level appropriate or developmentally appropriate for your child. All right,
and that is the end of my slides show. Okay,
I'm gonna stop sharing now. Okay, let me switch. So
I'm on my phone, let's switch back. Oh well, okay,

(02:35:43):
switching back to the laptop. All right, beautiful. So I
just wanted to have those slides for you should you
decide to review these again in the replay. I do
apologize for that technical issue there, all right, all right,
all right, all right, So that is it for the questions,

(02:36:09):
the six questions. So we are coming to the end.
So I did say there would be a raffle. So
at this point, I am now going to announce the
winners of the Raffle. I do not have a drum
roll sound effect. Okay, next time, So let me just

(02:36:29):
tell you the winners of the raffle. I guess I
should say what the artist are. So the bunch of
goodies here, So Jan six, she was the earlier presenter.
So one of her books is Teacher, Child to Learn,
So that's part of the raffle there, and there's a
bunch of rather books and goodies. So you know, I

(02:36:54):
love doing these raffles. I've done it in the previous
times I've done this event. So goodies, goodies, goodies, goodies.
So without further ado, let me tell you who the
raffle winners are. So the first one is Emma S.
From Wisconsin, so congratulations to you, Emma. The next one

(02:37:16):
is Steven C. From Maryland, so congratulations to you, Steven.
The third one is Nakia B. From Alabama, so congratulations
to you, Nikia. And the last one is Tiara W.
From Florida, so congratulations to you Tiara. All Right, so

(02:37:37):
that's Emma from Wisconsin, Stephen from Maryland, Nikia from Alabama,
Tiara from Florida, Congratulations you are the four lucky winners.

Speaker 4 (02:37:46):
Oh my raffle yay, all right, So I will reach
out to you via email to collect your information and
I will send you your prize beautiful.

Speaker 2 (02:38:01):
All right. So now we are.

Speaker 3 (02:38:05):
Here.

Speaker 1 (02:38:06):
The most uh, the most important part of the show
is the question and answer portion. So this is where
I'm going to bring everybody onto the stage.

Speaker 2 (02:38:19):
All right.

Speaker 1 (02:38:19):
So Tamara, we have Wally and Lnissair. So this is
the part We're going to bring everybody to the stage.
A few people had to leave. Darren had to leave,
jan had to leave. So we will do our best
to answer your questions. Okay, ladies, let's do it. Look
at that all black women, black power, love it, love it.

Speaker 2 (02:38:43):
All right.

Speaker 1 (02:38:43):
So some of your questions we put them up here
in the chat, so unpinned. Okay, so some of these
are answered already. How do I generally have our parents? Okay,
we can answer this one from Rye Beaver. Uh do
parents have to have a teaching license to homeschool?

Speaker 9 (02:39:08):
Yep, it's it's legal in every single state. Your parents,
you can homeschool them.

Speaker 1 (02:39:21):
You don't have to have a license. No, no, Okay,
there you go. That's very simple, all right. I know, uh,
while you tapped into it a little bit more, but could you,
I guess all of you. Can we talk about the
difference between homeschooling and unschooling, and I also saw D schooling.

(02:39:45):
Can you tell us the difference between the three of those.

Speaker 2 (02:39:50):
Yeah, well, homeschooling and unschooling and D schooling, you know,
really are all the same, you know, in my opinion,
because when you come out of traditional school, you're not
trying to do school at home. You really need to
figure out how homeschooling works for you. And so you know,
when I'm very eclectic, you know, we shut down in December,

(02:40:13):
we do different things in December. It may look very
unschooled D school. I think so much. There's so much
talk around unschooled D school, but I really think when
you get a child alongside of their parent, the best
thing you can do for them is to unschool D
school because the traditional setting they could do, they could

(02:40:33):
go and be in school. Why homeschool? So I bring
them home and I tell them, I say, hey, this
is not going to look like anything you've ever done
or what your school friends look like, right, because we're
going to make this work for our family. And one
tip I want to say and give these ladies an
opportunity to share, is that when I first started homeschooling,
I remember my oldest daughter saying something to me that

(02:40:54):
changed my life. She said, Ma, we have an extra
twenty five hours a week. She said, because when I
was in traditional school, we would be in school all
day and then we had homework at night, right, And
so kids had an experience of all school, all day,
all night. So when we started homeschooling, we would get
our work done during the day and that feed them

(02:41:15):
up at night. So when they would do sports with
some of their school friends, she said, they're under so
much stress. She said. The kids started holding carrying their
backpots with them.

Speaker 1 (02:41:25):
Right.

Speaker 2 (02:41:25):
I said, why do you get your backpacks at night?
They said, Oh, we just want to support our friends
who are under so much stress because they do school
all day, in school all night. So as a family,
we were able to get back almost twenty four hours
of our lives to be able to shape what it
is that we wanted to do for our education and experience.
And the kids are really doing well and they're soaring
and homeschooling, So in my opinion, you know, as soon

(02:41:47):
as we started homeschooling, we began to unschool D school
into an environment that worked best for our family. And
one last thing. My husband was a police officer and
he worked at the time three to eleven. He wouldn't
see the kids right because he had to be to
work at three and so one of the things we
did is we stopped doing school during school hours. Why
because they needed to spend time with their father to

(02:42:08):
get a chance to know their dad, and whereas when
they were in school, they were missing each other. So
we really started off our homeschooling in an unschooled d school.
But that doesn't have to mean that you're not college man, right, Wally,
were you trying to say something? I can't hear you.

(02:42:29):
We can't hear you. I still can't hear you bad.

Speaker 9 (02:42:37):
While she while she's figuring out her sounds, I'll share
I was a situation where I was homeschooling my niece
for two years and while they while she was being
homeschooled with us, she made a comment at one point
where she said, you do all of the fun things
when I'm not here, and I realized what she Even

(02:42:58):
though she was being homeschool she would be dropped off
at my house at a certain time, she'd be picked
up at a certain time. So we had very specific
hours that we had to that she was that her
homeschool was happening. But in reality, as Linnasa said that
there is we were. Our education wasn't just book time.

(02:43:20):
It wasn't just when we're sitting at the table and
there was curriculum in front of us. It was what
we did as part of our lives. And so some
of the things she missed out on is that when
we were studying Greek and Roman gods, we did a
movie marathon over the weekend when we were when we
were studying the plant cell and the animal cell that
was my daughter. That became my daughter's birthday cake. We

(02:43:42):
made a plant sell and animal cell birthday cake when
we were when we were we were studying. Now his
name escapes me, but the gentleman who founded the shit
is city of Chicago. When we were doing Explorers, we
went to Chicago for three weeks and I couldn't take
her with me because her mother wasn't gonna just give

(02:44:03):
her give up her child for three weeks. And so
there is a there's a sense of homeschooling doesn't have
isn't like it isn't gonna look the same. But also
there's a time where you you you need to put
down the books. And my understanding of the the deschooling
part is just putting down the books and just being family,

(02:44:25):
like reconnecting as a family and not necessarily jumping into
teacher mode, like just become mom again, just become just
become just get to love each other again, get to
reconnect because if you're coming out of school, your scheduling
hasn't really allowed you to to to there's limited time
to just be family and so and even when you

(02:44:48):
put other people in that mix, it can it can
feel homeschooling can feel like like school because if you
limit to a certain number of hours and so that
idea of of deschooling just reconnects you. And my understanding
of unschooling is there isn't necessarily a formal curriculum and

(02:45:08):
all of it, all of it is still homeschooling. Is
it just different things that you're doing as part of
your homeschooling. So it is it isn't. Those two things
aren't separate from homeschooling. They're part of how you either
enter homeschooling or a philosophy you're using to homeschool.

Speaker 1 (02:45:26):
All right, beautiful, beautiful, Okay. Is there any oh from Nikiyah,
one of our winners. Is there any advice or resources
that assist with kiddos on the spectrum regarding homeschooling.

Speaker 2 (02:45:43):
Yes, there's lots of resources you can homeschool a special
needs student. I'm not a special needs expert, but I
have some friends who are phenomenal at it, and there's
so many resources that we can drop in the chat
for you to be able to connect. One of my
sons sees a speech pathologists and he needs extra help

(02:46:04):
in a particular area. And so you know what I
love about homeschooling, I will say this is that you
have time to put attention around the needs, the special
educational needs right that that particular student has. In the past,
my other son we would have to take out to
do speech pathology. You know, maybe you have a student

(02:46:25):
that needs to see OT or whatever it is that's
part of the education process. So I think that there's
lots of resources out there. So maybe at the end
I'll drop you some people who I know, who I love,
who are experts in special needs. I have a lot
of awesome friends and special needs e FM. I'm just

(02:46:45):
going to call him out. E FM. Doctor Rochelle is amazing.
And her sister, Keisha Barry Spectrum. In fact, Keisha is
my son's speaks pathologists and we do what I call
telehealth in the mornings and it's an opportunity for her
to work work with my son from across the screen

(02:47:07):
and it's working and it's it's amazing, So you can
get help. I don't have any special you know, special
skills in all the experts, but I am a mom
who has a special need student and I do homeschool.

Speaker 9 (02:47:21):
That is that is not an experience that I've I've had,
but I actually just came from a conference this past
weekend and talking with some of the some of the
experts here. So I definitely say check out your your
state homeschool group and what resources are available there. But
the one thing I will say is every child learns differently,

(02:47:43):
and so we tend to I think we tend to
cast a shadow to say that this this these particular children,
not to say that there aren't real concerns that you
want to be mindful of. But every child has has
something where we're looking at. And I just say, give
yourself patience and get to know, like how best your

(02:48:06):
child learns, because it really means that they learn differently,
not that they can't learn, they just learn differently. And
so you want to spend time as one of the
one of the benefits of of that of that idea
of deschooling, spend time getting to know your child from
an educational point of view and how they how they
take in information, how they communicate, so that you can

(02:48:28):
communicate what you need and the education that you that
you're wanting to give them. Give yourself patience. It is
not it is It is not something you're going to
just magically get. So give yourself patience and work through
it together.

Speaker 1 (02:48:46):
Yeah, and I'll also add you know what I was
saying before about all shout out to doctor uh Rochelle,
I know what you're talking about. But in regards to
resources that are available, what I was saying before about
doing your own research. So the thing with schools was

(02:49:08):
that a lot of those things were provided as part
of the school. So if you are homeschooling, you will
have to find private resources, which you can do so
you can go to I believe a neuropsychologist which can
do the assessment. There's speech speech pathologists that you can

(02:49:32):
go privately. So all these different types of doctors you
can go on your own under your insurance. So that's
something you may want to look into if you're insurance
will cover something like that, or talk to your pediatrician.
But all of these things that you can access privately,

(02:49:55):
so you don't have to go through a public school
or any kind of school to do that. You can
do these things privately. So if you are interested in
having your child evaluated for any learning disabilities, my recommendation
would be although some will say go straight to a
neuropsychologist first, but I would say, start with your pediatrician,

(02:50:18):
let's see what they say. Look into a neuropsychologist that
can do the assessment, so you can do all those
things privately. So those are my two cents on that. Okay,
So we answered this question in the chat, but I
just wanted to put it out there for everyone. Can

(02:50:40):
you join more than one co op? There are minimal
there is minimal things for kids to do in our area,
so I have so I may have to do an
out of town one I saw to marry answer.

Speaker 9 (02:50:55):
Yeah, answer, of course you can. I please, please, please
be my full You still have schoolwork to do. So
my first year, we were everywhere, We ran around going
to this, this, this event, And it wasn't all like
we did have a regular weekly co op, but we
were constantly going to events and going to connect with

(02:51:15):
other people, and we just it took us. It took
us about three quarters into the second year homeschooling to
finish our math curriculum because we were never home. So
just be mindful as you're you don't want to fill
up your schedule so much that you're not actually doing schoolwork,
so watch out for that. It can be a lot

(02:51:38):
of extracurricular stuff and you're not handling the main stuff
like reading, writing, math, spelling, typing. So you want to
give yourself space for that. If you're if you're considering
joining too many and really look at what is the
purpose for me joining this this, this co op? Is
it that's your neique friends. Because one of the things
we found was that in all of those activities, we

(02:51:59):
recognize we were doing so many different things that we
didn't have a chance to see the same people consistently,
which doesn't build friendship. So one group of consistent people
that you're that are close to you, that you can
hang out with outside of the group is way better
than joining a bunch of groups where they see people
occasionally for an hour or two once a week. So

(02:52:23):
consider doing that. And there are plenty of activities, maybe
not official homeschool ones, but I looked at we have
a regular parenting magazine in our county. I was looking
at events there and I met a lot of homeschoolers
at those events, although it wasn't a homeschool event. The

(02:52:43):
libraries we would go to, we would look up all
the libraries in our county and see what they were doing,
and again met a lot of homeschoolers there, although it
wasn't advertised as a homeschool event. So and consider things
that are not necessarily education. They can just be local
community activities that you will find a lot of home
homeschoolers will find stuff to do. And if we're looking

(02:53:05):
for a resource, we don't care what they call it,
We're going.

Speaker 2 (02:53:08):
To go to it.

Speaker 9 (02:53:11):
So we've had kids at adult book clubs because they
wanted a book club. And so consider going outside of
the what's considered educational activity or educational groups and look
more into what's available in your community. And I really consider,
can we build solid friendships here as opposed to just

(02:53:31):
going to see people?

Speaker 2 (02:53:33):
Yeah, I have to agree. That's so good, Tamor. Is
so good to put a face with a name, And yes,
I totally agree. I always say go to your state conference.
You know, of course I'm biased. You know, we're with MACHI,
the Maryland Association of Home Educators, But the state conferences
are places to meet other homeschoolers, and it's a place

(02:53:55):
to bring other homeschoolers with you. But I love what
you said, Tamor. That really resonates with me and what
I've learned over these two decades of homeschooling. It's the
friendship piece. I think that there's this thought that just
because traditional school kids are around two thousand kids that
they have friends. Kids could be around two thousand kids
and barely have one. Right, Most of us have come

(02:54:17):
through college and we could barely figure out one friend
that we still stay in contact with. So I really
had to help my kids sit down and understand what
we were after. You know, we were after you know,
Corania fellowship with individuals, and so we were able to
pick those individuals that we can connect with, because you know,
there was a time we were part of a co
op that was so big, we still didn't have friends

(02:54:40):
because you get moving about and you can't make those connections.
And I think that's what kids look for. And I
love what you said, Tam are about finding one group
because it mirrors the longevity of that nine month relationship
that most kids are kind of looking for that you
see the same kid. You know, you work out the good,
the bad, the ugly instead of kind of jumping all
over place. I find that the kids are for most

(02:55:03):
when parents jump all over the place to different co ops,
because they never get a chance to connect. And here's
what's funny. You know, the kids keep up with each other.
I'm just telling you from the other side. Okay, I
have kids that are grown. We've been blessed to have
run a co op in our local city, and the
kids still keep up with the kids who used to
be in co op because kids want to connect and

(02:55:26):
because you know, with social media, they're like, oh yeah,
you remember blah blah blah and blah blah blah. And
I think it's just so profound and I just you know,
I wish that parents would be more mindful of the
children before they jump around different co ops because kids
want to connect with other kids. So that's just my
two cents.

Speaker 1 (02:55:46):
Awesome, awesome, awesome, Okay, I'm not I'll just share this.
So I texted Darren that question. I said, can people
join more than one co op? He said yes, just
check with each one. We had our older kids in

(02:56:07):
one and younger kids and a separate one. So I clarify,
can one student join two? And he said yes, as
long as it's okay? So then I said do they
really need to know? And he's like, if I were
a co op leader, that's something I would want to know,
just because some co op give homework. If a kid's
excuse for not doing it is I was at another

(02:56:28):
co op and didn't have time, I want to know
up front. So I said, it's that an acceptable excuse
and he said that would be up to the co op.
Some are very strict and will penalize for late homework.
Others are more flexible. If it's an assignment like give
a speech that's missing, it's going to be frowned upon.
Then just routine math work. If it's a four or

(02:56:50):
five day a week co op. Constant missing assignments could
get you expelled because they tend to operate like schools.
So I just wanted to share that little tidbit there
from Darren Jones, who spoke earlier about co ops.

Speaker 9 (02:57:06):
Yeah, let me add Gabrielle that the Gabrielle that that's
a it's it's such a great point that he makes.
We as I mentioned, I run classical conversations communities all
over I cover from Maine to d C. And as
our kids get older, you know, we one of the
things that we ask parents, like, is your child involved

(02:57:28):
in any other programs? Because we've had kids who like
they they're leaving early because of because they have a
sports team event. Well, if we have debate, or we're
doing mock trial, we're doing science fair, we're depending on
you to be there. So we do want to know that,
and we we want to have that conversation up front
so that we're not setting up our classroom for unmet

(02:57:49):
expectations where students are depending on another student's participation and
then they are just leaving or they're tired. I once
had a you know, a student who was who had
joined our program and was also doing an entirely separate
curriculum because mom had the misunderstanding that we were just
a social thing. Although she bought all these books, she

(02:58:10):
bought science and history and all these books, and somehow
didn't recognize we were an academic or an academic community.
And he ended up dropping because it was he was
doing we were doing double the work, and she just
wanted a place for him to go. She was doing
all this other stuff online and it just doesn't work.

(02:58:31):
It stresses the student out, It set up unrealistic expectations
for the classroom, and it can cause problems. So it's
it's not that you can't do it, but are you
Are you getting the most out of all those programs?

Speaker 1 (02:58:46):
Yeah? Yeah, all right? Uh micro schools, what is a
micro school? Talk about that?

Speaker 9 (02:58:56):
I believe that went alone.

Speaker 2 (02:59:01):
It's a new phenomenon, you know, it's something that's new
in the homeschool movement. I'm certainly no expert on micro schools,
but I do know a lot of friends who have
micro schools. It reminds me of you know, the tutorial
what we call as homeschoolers tutorial. But after the pandemic

(02:59:22):
there's been a big rise of micro schools, you know,
due to many grant funding available for them. And it
also meets a need for someone who says, hey, I
work or I'm unable to physically be alongside. There was
a time where people will work in virtual Well they
don't have that flexibility now, particularly in our communities, and

(02:59:46):
you're seeing a big rise in micro schools and so
I'm getting to understand the mindset behind it. Again, you
do want to you know, talker HSLA attorneys to find out,
you know, the legality of your particular state, because it's
different from state to state. You know, there's some people
are micro schools and you know it's totally a government

(03:00:07):
funded and there's some people in micro schools who are homeschoolers,
you know, who just have you know, a place to
go more than one day a week. So there's so
much you know, you have to do your homework, and
it's definitely on a rise, and so it's something for
you know, families to really look into before they jump

(03:00:28):
into so that they know what fits best for their family.
I know, for me personally, I seek to homeschool my
kids and so I too limit the amount of out
out of the house activities because we homeschool, like I
count the days we're home, you know, so our Tuesday, Thursday,
Friday are precious to me because that's the time for

(03:00:48):
me to have my un distracted voice around the education
of my children, which is ultimately my goal, so you know.
But so there's so many things out there, and and
if I were working and I had no other option,
right for traditional public school, perhaps you know, micro school

(03:01:08):
would be something. So I think it's one of those
things that people have to look into and figure out
what works for them. But I know I'm biased. I
prefer homeschooling, you know. So you know, you know, and
I want my kids to see myself and my husband
as the primary education givers, you know, home you know,

(03:01:29):
directed parent directed education. That means a lot to us.
And so every parent has to figure out what works
best for them.

Speaker 9 (03:01:40):
So that why I always push stepping back from it, is
that is a consistent you know. I run the Westchester
Homeschools homeschool is Facebook group and it's got about two
thousand parents in there, and that becomes a fight of
are you a homeschool or you not a homeschooler? And
what I would say when when those concerns and discussions

(03:02:04):
come up, is that for for it? The concern behind
those who who who our home want to be the
primary teacher for their kids. There's a concern of what
laws may or may not change as a result of
some of the new ways that people are wanting to pull,

(03:02:26):
people are wanting the new alternatives outside of public traditional schools,
public or private, and how it might affect those of
us who want to be in charge of our children's education.
Where we're running it, we decide what's happening, as opposed
to hiring hiring someone to do so. So I want

(03:02:47):
to put that out there so you know, there's we're
all parents who love our kids and want the best
for our kids, and there's a there's there's a group
of us that want to protect the right and responsibility
and the authority that we have and don't want to
lose that. And so we respect all those who are
just looking for I just I want the best for
my kid too, and I can't do it that way.

(03:03:08):
I can't do what you're doing to Mary. I can't
do what you're doing. Want to see it, but I
want to I want to have something different than additional school.
So definitely look out for what you can do. I
don't hold back from wanting you to have that, and
I want to protect what it is that we have.

Speaker 1 (03:03:25):
So is there a controversy because I was doing like
a like a quick Google search because I didn't know
what it is, but it's it's pretty much. They can
be organized just according to Google here.

Speaker 3 (03:03:38):
Uh uh.

Speaker 1 (03:03:39):
They can be organized as licensed private schools, unaccredited non
public schools, or shared learning opportunities for homeschool children. They
can also meet in homes, churches, or storefronts.

Speaker 2 (03:03:50):
I see.

Speaker 1 (03:03:51):
In terms of funding, their funded through a mix of
tuition fees as state funded school choice program. So it's there.

Speaker 9 (03:03:59):
Yes, some of the arguments, some of the some of
the issues that come up, and some of it is
just pure old division, you know who. It's like it's
like the the the nursing mom and the non nursing mom,
the the the traditional, the non medicated birth, and the
C section like some of those just regular one against
the other issues. But there are some concerns as to

(03:04:23):
whether what constitutes you actually homeschooling, like how much of
the work are you as a parent doing and how
much is being done by someone else, which which which
then can which then steps into some regulations that may
be required. And so if it if micro if an
idea like micro schooling is classified under homeschooling and the

(03:04:46):
parent is not the one primarily providing the education, then
there gets to step in some regulations as to well,
you need to provide insurance for this, you need to
do this, you need to do There are other regulations
that come in when someone else is in charge of
other people's children that just for safety issues, for insurance

(03:05:06):
issues that homeschoolers haven't had to deal with because our
kids are at home with us for most of most
of the time, or if we're going out, we're still
with them, So there's some there's not the safety concerns there,
So it's just some it's just the pos the possibility,
and that's why I held back from a little bit.
But the possibility of what what could occur legally with

(03:05:31):
with this new movement, and how it could change what
we're allowed to do as homeschoolers, and what regulations could
then happen for us as homeschoolers. So it's not a
it's it's it's it's more out of protection of what
we have, Like I said, not but some of it's
just plain old, Oh you do this and not do that,

(03:05:52):
and so we can't be friends.

Speaker 1 (03:05:55):
So I mean, this is I mean, this is new
to me. So is it if you register, you're you,
you you do all the paperwork for homeschooling, but then
you put them in a micro school. Is it like, well,
there's a conflict of interest and that this might be
technically considered a school like you know, funded by like

(03:06:18):
a government or something, but you enrolled your child into homeschooling.
So is it like a conflict of a conflict of interests?

Speaker 5 (03:06:29):
That's nothing.

Speaker 2 (03:06:30):
That's a legal question, quite frankly, because it can vary
from state to state. It just depends on what the
law is. You're in New York, you know, what's happening
in New York is not happening in Maryland and tamar
where are you?

Speaker 9 (03:06:44):
I'm in New York as well, Oh new York.

Speaker 2 (03:06:46):
Right, So the things could be different depending on what
state you're in. And I think that that's the danger
of the Internet sometimes is that you're getting some basic
information but it may not be applicable to your state,
you know, So you really have to I think, do
your own due diligence here and making sure that you're
getting the right information for the state you live in

(03:07:07):
and where you're homeschooling. And you know, it's another plug
for hs LVA for you to be able to connect
with them to find out what's possible, you know, for
the state you're in. And it's so funny. We see
stuff online and we're like, oh, this is great, but
it may not be great for you, right, you know, Maryland,
we have these portfolio reviews, and so we're all into
the paper, right, kilose trees and get that paper in

(03:07:28):
front of the portfolio, you know, and you could live
right in Virginia, and Virginia wants to do testing, right, Okay,
so you have testing in Virginia. And so if you're following,
one is following the other. This is where we get
ourselves in a little bit of trouble here because paper
doesn't matter, and you know from the portfolio standpoint in Virginia,
but it doesn't now. And so I said, I think

(03:07:48):
it's it's these parents' responsibility to know the state that
they live in and how their state is handling these.

Speaker 1 (03:07:54):
Topics, right, all right, awesome awesome, awesome. Quick comment still
on micro schools. Okay, so so far, my understanding is
that micro schools are ran by a certified teacher who
can also be a parent, and its smaller group sized
to personalized education plans. That is from Sandy B. Thank

(03:08:15):
you Sandy for that input.

Speaker 2 (03:08:17):
And every micro school is not ran by a certified teacher,
you know, so you have to do your homework.

Speaker 1 (03:08:25):
There, so definitely, definitely, so that goes into doing your
own research and finding out about these things.

Speaker 2 (03:08:31):
Okay, this one here.

Speaker 1 (03:08:35):
Other scholarships to help provide teaching materials, maybe in the
sense of maybe if you can't really afford it. I
know I mentioned before there are materials that are free.
You don't have to pay for a lot of those.
But I don't know if you guys know of any
scholarships that are out there.

Speaker 2 (03:08:50):
We have a compassion department in HSLDA that's available. They
certainly can go. They do do compassion grants for curriculum.
It's a needs base, you know. Definitely, we're doing a
lot right now for hurricane you know, the two hurricanes
back to back, So there are things you know out there.
It just depends on the circumstance. But you can homeschool

(03:09:12):
at the library as far as I'm concerned. You can
go and have never purchased a book, And it seems
I did that one year forget, and I learned how
long I could keep a book out at the library,
and I knew I had to turn it back in
for a certain time that I could take it back out.

Speaker 3 (03:09:27):
You know.

Speaker 2 (03:09:28):
So you know, so there are things out there for you.
I think parents have to be creative. There's so many
things you can get online as well things you can
print down. But in terms of scholarships, you know, private
education is just that it's private, and so you know,

(03:09:48):
there are scholarships from private people, but once you start
reaching beyond that, then it's now longer private.

Speaker 9 (03:09:55):
So right, Yeah, there are VILA v E l A.
They are a grant based organization that does support homeschool families.
It is based on need. There's another organization. It escapes me, Gabrielle.
I'll get you this information as I can find it,
but they it's pretty much like a GoFundMe for homeschoolers

(03:10:18):
and to provide curriculum assistance. There are some states that
do give homeschoolers money that's a whole nother conversation, but
it is. It is there, depending on the state that
you live in. I know Arizona, Florida, Maine, Vermont, Alaska

(03:10:43):
are a few of those that do offer educational it's
actually not necessarily homeschool money, but they're educational savings accounts
and you can use them for homeschooling. I won't get
into the conversation about that, but it depends on that
you live in. That may be available in your.

Speaker 1 (03:11:00):
Eight Okay, it is out there. I'll share this comment
here from Tierra. I get another one of my Raffle winners.
She said there's one in Florida called Step Up for Students,
So I just want to share that out there for
any Floridians watching.

Speaker 2 (03:11:18):
All Right, let's.

Speaker 1 (03:11:19):
See what's the next one you can more? Okay, where's
everyone located? Okay, I think we kind of answered it.
But can you pull your child out mid school year?
Next question?

Speaker 2 (03:11:35):
Absolutely your child? Yes, you can. Absolutely you can homeschool.
Most states are required. You can homeschool at any time
you design, and there are some places things you need
to consider, particularly if you're pulling a high school student
out in mid year. You want to be mindful of
the classes that they're taking and the credits that they've earned.

(03:11:56):
I always encourage high school students who have began working
on a particular credit to finish it, you know, in
their homeschool. I think, with all things considered, I don't
think a student should have to sit through traditional education
if it's not working for them. And so I think
that having a community of support some a great you know,
a homeschool one on one like this, there's a lot

(03:12:18):
of support out there. And listen, we're approaching the holidays.
This is where people make a decision. They're not doing
it anymore, they're not sending their kids to traditional school,
and they decide to homeschool midyear, and so we're here
to support that mid year homeschooler. And it is definitely doable,
and for many it's been one of the best decisions
they've ever made because it changes the trajectory of the

(03:12:41):
education for the student in a way that can be
very positive, particularly when you have parents involved. We just
really believe that parents are the best advocates for their
own children. I mean, you know, when you come through
labor and delivery, you know what's best. And I don't
think that that changes just because your child has gotten older.
And I always say, if your kid doesn't know how,
it's still mom and dad's problem anyway, no matter if

(03:13:02):
they went to a traditional school. It's your job to
find tutorism outside resources and so being able to help
your child learn, I think is part of a healthy
responsibility as parents because you know the best. You know
their work ethic, you know everything about them. I've had
teens lots of them, and you know, I get a
chance to observe really what's going on with them that

(03:13:24):
a teacher would never know.

Speaker 1 (03:13:26):
You know.

Speaker 2 (03:13:26):
So, But the answer to your question is yes, you can.

Speaker 1 (03:13:34):
But I think it is it safe to say that
you want to officially sign them up for homeschooling and
not just you know, pulling them out and sitting at home.

Speaker 9 (03:13:48):
Well, depending on the state you you I mean, you
definitely to withdraw your child from school, that you need
to officially if they're in school, you to officially withdraw them,
why as you run into a whole bunch of other
legal situations of your child just they are registered and
not showing up, so you do need to officially withdraw them.
But depending on the state you live in there may

(03:14:11):
or may not be a requirement to notify them at
you're homeschooling.

Speaker 2 (03:14:17):
That's the HSLDA question, and it is different for all states,
and so you do need to know your state law
does that intent to homeschool. For many states, you know,
you guys live in New York, it's the toughest place
to homeschool, and you know there are requirements, right, you
just don't kind of pull your kid because there's probably
on one hundred and eighty day rule that happens in
most states, and so they're counting. And so I think,

(03:14:38):
you know, again going to the www dot HSLDA dot org,
you know, and getting some serious legal advice about that.
I think it's important. I really do.

Speaker 5 (03:14:48):
I know.

Speaker 2 (03:14:48):
My husband had a security clarence and he was not
going to be playing any games with me learning from
the girl in the park about what we could do
with his kids these kids, mind you right, He's like,
you know, don't have to please at my door. I said, honey,
you are He said, well, don't have my coworkers at
my door talking about you talking to the girl at
the park.

Speaker 3 (03:15:07):
You know.

Speaker 2 (03:15:07):
So I just think that it's important as parents. I
think it's a responsibility to know what you can do
for your statement, to make sure that you're protecting your
child to the best of your ability. So yeah, I
remember when I first started homeschooling, and like I said,
it's almost been twenty years ago. We were like, can
we go out during the day, right, and inevitably somebody
would stop you and say, oh, you be in school,

(03:15:28):
you know, you know, and really preparing kids for what
that experience is like so that you don't become offensive,
you know, I had to train my children to say, hey,
we home school. Yeah, we're exciting because people just stop you.
And then of course when you're like me, you got
a lot of kids, people stop you anyway, right, You're
like all those kids yours, you know, but they do
stop and they will ask the question. And sometimes when

(03:15:51):
the kids don't know, you know. And parents, if you're
watching and you put your kids in traditional school and
you take a doctor's appointment, kids, people are asking your
kids to right, you know, you're just for a doctor's appointment.
So I just think that as parents, we need to,
you know, do our work to help kids understand why
you're doing what you do and get them engaged in
And I love doing that with my my teens and

(03:16:13):
my little people, and they will tell you all about homeschool.
Stop one of my kids. They got a whole dissertation
for you.

Speaker 1 (03:16:20):
Awesome as all right, let's see what else else stupid
of school? Let's see okay schoolps, okay, let's see big okay.

Speaker 2 (03:16:46):
Oh oh, here's one. Okay.

Speaker 1 (03:16:49):
Is there a minimum hours you have to homeschool on
a daily or school year basis? That one is from
the KIA.

Speaker 9 (03:16:56):
Depends on your on your state, and in the state
like New York, it depends on your student's grade level.
So it's I said this earlier. The more you know
your state regulations, the less stress you will feel when
you when you're dealing with this. I remember I forgot

(03:17:19):
I saw I read. I do read them every I
literally read them every summer just to make sure like
something's not going to change over the next year. But
I forgot when I was doing the paperwork to change
the number of hours on my son's on my son's
report because he was changing grades and that next grade
had a higher number required hours. And they sent me

(03:17:41):
a letter back and said, this is an insufficient number
of hours, and it's not that I wasn't going to
do them. I just forgot to change it on the paper.
So please, please, please, please please please read your state regulations.
Know them because though it's which when you get those
questions is when someone pushes back, you start to feel
that fear. But when you know, oh, no, section so

(03:18:03):
and so says this, and even if you don't know
what section it's in, when you know you can go
and look it up and copy and paste and send
it back to them, that it just it just creates
a lot less anxiety when you you know what you
should be doing when you should be doing it. You
know that you have records, if you have if you
have a state that doesn't require records, you should keep
some records of your child's education, if nothing else to

(03:18:25):
help you build your transcript later on. But definitely look
at your look at your regulations, and look at them
per year, not just look at them once and then
think that there's the same when you start in your
child was your child was only seven and now your
child's thirteen. The requirements may not be the same.

Speaker 1 (03:18:45):
All right, there you have it, There you have it. Uh,
there was something about duel enrollments. Yes, can we can
you guys talk about duel enrollment, what that is? Is
it possible and as a home absolutely.

Speaker 2 (03:19:02):
Doel enrollment is basically some people call it concurrent enrollment
where you are a high school student and you're taking
college classes at a community college. Some are online, some
are in person. Usually I mentioned this, they will require
an acuplacers, particularly the ones that are in the community

(03:19:24):
that are live. They want to make sure that you're
testing quote unquote on a college level, so you have
to do your homework. But there's so many options. There's
doing enrollment options that you don't have to take an acuplacer,
that you can do online, and it's an opportunity for
you to get college credit. Now does everything transfer? It
depends on the college is going to And I think

(03:19:46):
sometimes you know, there's good and bad to do enrollment.
I think sometimes there's this fallacy that you have so
many dual enrollment credits at the university that you're going
to will take them. Well, they have a cap too
of how much they're going to take as a transfer.
So I think it's important for parents to do their
homework about duel enrollment. I think to be intentional and

(03:20:06):
not make your dual enrollment a substitution for homeschooling, you know,
still homeschool your child and make sure that it's a
good fit. And also some people who are doing in
person duel enrollment, you find yourself with a lot of
older students that might not be a good fit for
your student. So, you know, we had one of our
first daughters who we did duel enrollment and she obviously

(03:20:29):
maxed out of what she could transfer into her university.
And I had my second daughter who I didn't do
doing enrollment with because the downside to do enrollments that
when you show up to the university, particularly as a freshman,
you have two and three and four hundred level classes
and so you don't always have that freshman experience when
you do enroll too much. You know, so you really

(03:20:50):
need to be intentional and you need to be strategic,
and just like when you start at homeschooling, I think
you need to get the why behind the duel enrollment.
And I think it can also be very emotional, right
we want to show the world, you know, that our
kid is on a you know, when my mom I
get to tell the story, it's hilarious. When I first
started homeschooling. My mom was like, you're homeschooling my grand

(03:21:12):
and children. That was codeword to it better be good.
It better be better than what's going on in these
private schools. And so there was a responsibility that I had,
right and so I told my daughter, you're gonna be
a doctor, Anna Laurius, I can stay out of trouble
with my mama. It's funny. So for some of you
who could be used fous, it could be your neighbor,
you know. So sometimes we get into DOE enrollment for

(03:21:34):
the wrong reasons, right, and it puts on too much
unnecessary pressure for the students. So I think we need
to be intentional, you know, about why we're doing enrollment,
what our goals are. And it's never too soon to
look to see how those do enrollment classes will transfer,
because then it doesn't become a money saver, particularly if
those classes won't transfer. So it requires homework, and homework

(03:21:58):
school is never out for the pro.

Speaker 9 (03:22:01):
I'm gonna throw a bit of a plug in here
for classical conversations. One of the things I think is
a huge benefit of our program is that our students,
the high school program is our challenge program. And our
students actually don't take any additional coursework. They do this.
You can have two children sitting in the same program.

(03:22:23):
They're both doing the exact same work. One of them
have chosen to submit that work to the college and
get college credit for it, but they're both getting the
same college level material and cause of education. It's just
that one of them is just choosing to get additional
get actual grades from the college and they will receive

(03:22:44):
college credit for so they've paid a little bit more money,
but they're both getting the same quality educations. One of
things I really appreciate about our program is that it
has been recognized as college credit worthy. But if you
choose not to pay for it, because maybe you're not
on a college track, or your child just doesn't want
the addage stress of getting a grade back from a professor,

(03:23:05):
having refessoral over their work, they are still getting the
same college level education. So I want to just throw
that out there. For our classical conversations program, it's our
CC plus program.

Speaker 1 (03:23:18):
All right, Awesome, awesome, awesome. I think that's it for
the questions here, all right, So let me just I'll
just throw this out there for you guys. So I mean,
both of you are homeschooling moms. So is there if

(03:23:42):
you could do something over again, would.

Speaker 9 (03:23:44):
You I would have started sooner. I really I began homeschooling,
and really my daughter was in the second grade. I
didn't think it was I didn't realize how much I
would enjoy spending time with my children. I honestly, my

(03:24:10):
life was supposed to be in in my in my
early ideas of marriage and family. I was supposed to
be the cool auntie that had all the money and
all the ga all the kids for for fun, fun times,
and then sent them back to their families. Decided to
be a mom, and I still thought, Okay, I'm gonna
have my kids do my time. I was. I was

(03:24:30):
literally saying, I'm gonna do my time with them at
home when they go back to work. But when I
went back to work, I something something switched in my brain,
and I wish I would have I came. I came
home initially at some point, I think for first grade,
I was home with her, and I wish I would
have just had the I had the courage to have

(03:24:52):
started homeschooling sooner. Now that my daughter's in college, I'm
grateful for the the fact that we're still close. I
have another friend who's who their daughter also is a
freshman in college this year. They did in a homeschool.
It's not to say that different because you know homeschool,
you're not you don't have a closelationship with your children.

(03:25:13):
I'm not saying that, but they remember we connected about
a month after our girls had left, and she's like,
oh my gosh, do they call you? Does she call you?
And say, yeah, we talk every day. And it's not
because like I'm chasing her down, like she wants to be.
She wants to share things with me. She wants to
tell me about what's going on. And it's been such

(03:25:34):
a joy. As I look back, I wish I would
have done it sooner with her. I'm grateful. This is
what my son knows is all he's ever known. I
had had those moments where I'm like, boy, you're going
to you're going to public school. But we've stuck with it,
and that's one thing I would have changed. I also,

(03:25:57):
I do wish I could have traveled more internationally. That's
one thing we're we're changing that with my son and
my daughters. Get Toto when she's on break and over
summer she'll come with us. But I do wish I
would have traveled. I got to travel more internationally as
we were homeschooling.

Speaker 2 (03:26:15):
All right, well let's say what about you. Yeah, I
kind of did all everything you're saying, Tomara. So much
of what you're saying is so much of my situation too.
We did start road schooling for the pandemic in twenty twenty,
twenty twenty one. My husband got a thirty three foot
RV and we put the family on the road international.
I think it's great, you know, that is a good

(03:26:37):
goal to you know, leave, help them leave the country.
But being able to reset my homeschool for the road
I did within this past say, four or five years,
which gave me less time with my older kids. You know,
they didn't have as much road schooling as it's new.
We call them big bunch, baby bunch. You know, my

(03:26:58):
baby bunch had.

Speaker 1 (03:26:59):
More of that.

Speaker 2 (03:27:01):
So I would have, you know, loosened up more and
got out on the road and did more road schooling.
I think that's the only difference. But the relationship is
precious if you put that time in and you get
a chance to see what the needs are of your student,
your child is priceless. We had a big loss in

(03:27:23):
our family. We lost both of my in laws, my
mother in law and my father in law, and this
was about eight years ago, and I just cannot imagine
where we would be if we didn't have the gift
of home education and what we've had to do to
navigate through that very difficult time. You know, we just

(03:27:43):
had a big, big celebration at our home church and
I was just really reflecting on how homeschooling has been
a big part of the healing process, and I know
doctor chryl Phil Smith is doing some research on that
and the healing that comes through. I think that that's
for those who are not homeschooling, I think that's what

(03:28:04):
you're missing. I think you're missing the opportunity for you
to sit back and really think through the why you
do what you do kind of and and so we
have created a legacy of children who are ready to
take on the on the on the on the torch
that I don't think that they would have been prepared for.

(03:28:26):
You know, when my husband and I lost his parents,
we said, hey, we can either do this alone or
we can have the children very participatory in this and
they learned alongside. And what it became is it became
you know, how my son got into love and construction
and learn working with his father and now he's you know,
getting this certification and carpentry along with his degree. It

(03:28:47):
became my daughter who's the artist, who had offered more
opportunities to paint than most kids, or like my other
daughter who had time to do biology on the beach,
which happened to be a pontoon ride from the university
she took. And can I tell you that look like
in the essay, I think people in colleges and universities
are looking at the holistic approach of students and they're
not getting that kind of time. I think even in

(03:29:09):
traditional school they're looking at asynchronized days after the pandemic
because they see the value and you know, and what
helped for students mentally to be able to have time
to be human. You know, our kids are moving like
full time workers, y'all, you know, and we need to
look closely at the important aspect of helping kids be kids.

(03:29:32):
Just you know, I could go on forever. I am
extremely biased about home education, but I will say to
you that If there was anything that I missed was
my daughter who spent those first years through her fourth
grade in traditional school. That was wasted time for us.
We should a home school all the way through. So
there you have it.

Speaker 1 (03:29:52):
Right, beautiful, all right, we're gonna wrap this up here.
Words of wisdom, Samara, I mean words of final words
of wism, want to share.

Speaker 9 (03:30:04):
There is no clock that says you have to start
at a certain time or end at a certain time,
or educate on certain days. It's the beauty of homeschooling.
So give yours because you have the time, give yourself
a break like there is. There's no need to rush.
If they're not on reading level this year, they'll get

(03:30:29):
there because you're going to put in the work. The
comparison of where they should be because the schools of
district says that they should be here. The school district
can't get half their kids there, so comparing your kid
to them, it doesn't make any sense. But honestly, give
yourself time to figure it out for each student, particularly
if you have more than one, you've got to figure

(03:30:51):
out four and five or two and three different kids.
Give yourself time, and I will say, find yourself a
set of friends. I know we're so interested in social socialize,
make sure our children have social outlets. We need that too.
We need to know that we have a group of people,

(03:31:12):
or at least one person we can go to to
get some advice or just to cry or to yell.
Apart from our spouses, they can take that too, but
you want somebody who's in it with you on a
day to day basis, someone who's also homeschooling. So find
yourself a set of friends, give yourself a break, and
make time for you. I will say that the part

(03:31:34):
the times where I have found the greatest joy and
ease in homeschooling is when I was learning something myself
and my kids would come up and sit down beside
me and say, hey, mam, what you're doing. And at this
particular that would come to mind vividly. I remember learning
geography and I was drawing a map of Africa trying
to learn I was going to teach a geography camp,
and I'm learning this map of African all the countries

(03:31:55):
in the States. And they crawled into my bed on
a Sunday night and sat next to me, and then
my son ended up coloring Africa. My daughter ended up
doing a crosswear puzzle of Africa, and geography became a
love for us. Not because I was forcing it, not
because we were It was it was an intended lesson
because on a Sunday night, I was endeavoring to do
something for myself and they just wanted to spend time

(03:32:18):
with me. So it became something we did as a family.
That's where some of the most beautiful times of learning
have happened, is because they saw learning is something that
I enjoyed, and they saw they wanted to spend time
with me. So we enjoyed learning together.

Speaker 1 (03:32:36):
And I said, what about you?

Speaker 2 (03:32:37):
Yeah everything, Yeah, I love everything you said, Maa, I
would say similar, move at the speed of your family.
I was on a thousand hours outside with Jenny Uurage
and kids need to get outside. Parents need to get
outside and move at the speed of your family. You know,
my season is different than it was when I first

(03:33:00):
started homeschool, and people say, how do you do it?
It's like, I don't got a bunch of babies, y'all
do right? You know, I've been there, done that. I
got a T shirt, still got some panthers hanging around
the house, you know, just you've got to move at
the speed of the family that you have and know
that it's a gift. God gives you a gift to
be a parent. His children are the heritage the Lord,
and the food of the woman is his reward. It's

(03:33:20):
a reward. Treat it like a gift. In the season
you're in, let it be your season. And so if
you're in a season where you have a lot of
babies and one homeschooler, then you have a lot of
babies and one homeschooler. Right, I've been there, right, and
so you're distracted, right, you're doing this to doing that.
You got eyes here in Isaac. That's a season. I
think sometime parents break down and they miss that precious

(03:33:43):
time because it doesn't last forever. Or if you're in
a season where your kids are super active. You got
all these kids, right who are in you know, middle school,
high school, that's a season that you're in. And then
of course when you have young adults, right, that's another season.
Or you have college students, so many college students I
couldn't figure out which student was called me? What school
you go to? Well, what's the question?

Speaker 1 (03:34:04):
You know, it's the season, and so falling in love
with the season that you're in and moving your life
at the speed of your family. It's the best thing
you can get, you can do, And of course I
love what you're saying. You know, self care is so
important and getting outside is so important, and when it
all else fails, go.

Speaker 2 (03:34:23):
On a field trip. Just go on field trip. Field trip,
and when you get out there you find out everybody
else is on a field trip and you're looking while
was that home everybody than you feel trip?

Speaker 1 (03:34:38):
That's so awesome. Well this was amazing. Thank you guys
for all of your feedback and answering all of these questions.
So we're going to do the promotion part now. So
I'm just going to put you all backstage and I
bring you back back out. So thank you guys again
for helping me with this question and answer.

Speaker 3 (03:35:00):
So all of you.

Speaker 1 (03:35:03):
Watching right now or listening later, I hope you guys
got a lot from this entire webinar.

Speaker 2 (03:35:11):
So we gave you a.

Speaker 1 (03:35:11):
Wealth of information to pick through. So I hope you
guys are taking the time learning all this information and
getting the work started. So ladies, I will put you
backstage for a bit and then I will pull you
back out, So thank you guys again for that. All right,

(03:35:33):
you guys, so thank you again. So now I'm going
to give my panelists the opportunity to promote themselves. So
a few of them had to leave, so I'm just
going to go ahead and just share their information.

Speaker 2 (03:35:50):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (03:35:51):
So the first one was WALITHA.

Speaker 2 (03:35:55):
Garrett.

Speaker 1 (03:35:56):
She had to run, but I'm just going to share
her information. So she has two websites. One is clapperapp
dot com slash the Product Pusher, and the second one
is www dot Affiliate Girl of twenty twenty three dot Store.
So I encourage you guys to go to those two

(03:36:18):
pages and learn about all that she has to offer.
She also has some social media, so she is on.

Speaker 2 (03:36:26):
Facebook.

Speaker 1 (03:36:28):
The account name is Wally dot Nelson dot five four.
She is on Instagram as the the dot Product dot Pusher.
She also has a YouTube channel, Affiliategirl twenty twenty three,
and she is on TikTok which is I'm just waiting
for that to come pass on the product Pusher. So

(03:36:52):
I encourage you guys to follow Wally on all of
those social media accounts and visit those websites to learn
more about all the has to offer. So Darren and
Lenisa are from the same organization, so I'll let Linisa
talk about the hsl DA, but particularly Darren if you

(03:37:14):
He himself is an attorney, so if you have any
like legal questions about homeschooling, you.

Speaker 2 (03:37:19):
Can hit him up.

Speaker 1 (03:37:22):
So his email is Darren at HSLDA dot org. The
phone number this is the main phone number for hsl
d A. It is five four zero three three eight
five six zero zero. So I wanted to share that
from Darren, but I will bring Linissa back on to
talk about the hsl DA in a minute. All right,

(03:37:45):
Jan six she was the one with the teaching strategies
that you can use. She is on Facebook and Instagram
as my JS tutor, so I encourage you to follow
her there. She also she talked about her youth tube channel,
Dan six tutor one, so make sure you subscribe to
our YouTube channel as well, and if you have any

(03:38:06):
questions that you want to post to her, her email
is JS tutor at gmail dot com. So make sure
you guys are taking advantage of that. Oh, Tamara just left.
Oh okay, all right, let me say if I can
grab her. But Lnissa, I'm going to bring you back
on just to talk about you can talk oh my voice,

(03:38:30):
if you could talk more about HSLDA.

Speaker 2 (03:38:33):
Yes, thank you so much for the opportunity to share.
This has been great and I really encourage you guys
to consider home education. Home education really does make a difference.
And at HSLDA we just want to be a resource
come alongside you as you make the decision to homeschool
where the advocates from homeschool and making sure it's legal

(03:38:55):
in all fifty states, and so we're here to support you.
If you go to www dot hs l d A
dot org or call our office at five four zero
three three eight fifty six undred. Thank you so much
for the opportunity and it's been my pleasure to share.
And we really appreciate all your hard work today with
this great homeschooling one on one of them. We pray

(03:39:16):
it blesses lots and lots of families.

Speaker 1 (03:39:20):
Thank you, Thank you, thank you. Lines sir, all right, beautiful,
So I'll just add this quick Okay, I'll just add
this quick thing about the hsl DA. So I'll just
put up Lissen back here. They're on facebo, Facebook, Instagram,

(03:39:41):
and x which some of us still call Twitter. Hs
l d A, so follow them on all those platforms
as well. And the website that we have brought up
repeatedly is hsl d A dot org. So I just
wanted to reiterate that. And again the general phone number
is five four zero three three eight five six zero zero,

(03:40:04):
So I wanted to make sure that information is out there.
And unfortunately to Marry Somerville head so run, I have
kept these people for so long, so I'll just do
her promo here. Okay, So she mentioned it Classical Conversations.
You can learn more about that if you are interested homeschooler.

(03:40:28):
So the website for that is www dot classical conversations
dot com. For those of you in Westchester, New York,
she has a Facebook group called Westchester Homeschooler, So I
encourage you to join that group if you are in
the Westchester County. Her email is Tnsommerville at gmail dot
com and her phone number is nine one four five

(03:40:51):
one two seven six four four. So if you have
any questions about homeschooling, particularly if you are in New
York state, you can reach out to her. You can
email her, or you can call or text her. So
I wanted to share that information as well. Oh and

(03:41:11):
she also has a book. Let me make sure to
share this out. Tamara has a book called African American Families,
Why We Homeschool, So she has a book out. It
is on Amazon, So you can purchase that book on
Amazon right now. The link is on the screen, but
it will also be in the description depending on whatever

(03:41:32):
medium you're taking the replay in. But African American Families
While We hold School Tamara is a I believe she's
a co author of that book. It is available now
on Amazon, so please go purchase that book as well. Okay, great, great,
great great great all right, all right, So that is

(03:41:54):
it for homeschooling one on one. Thank you for joining
me at this event. So of course let me talk
about myself, so I will share my information, well, my
company's information. A step Ahead Tutoring Services. I'm tongue tied today,
so A step ahead Tutoring Services is my tutoring company.

(03:42:17):
So we're the ones that have put on this event
for you. So as we're talking about homeschooling, one of
the things that you can incorporate into your homeschooling curriculum
is a tutor So depending on your state, you are
allowed to seek the services of a tutor. So if
you don't necessarily want to do the teaching yourself, you
want to outsource. One of the things you can do

(03:42:40):
to outsource is getting a tutor. So that is where
we come in so we can be that resource for you.
So the website is www dot A Step Ahead Tutoring
Services dot com. We have you go to the website,
there's a list of services that are there. We do
one on one tutoring, test prep, college counseling, so we

(03:43:03):
do a variety of different things. So we are in
person if you happen to be in New York City
or Long Island, but we do offer online tutoring as
well across the United States. So wherever you are viewing
this or listening to this right now, hit us up.
Let our tutors help you. The website again, www dot

(03:43:27):
A Step Ahead Tutoring Services dot com. You can also
find us across social media. We're pretty much all over
the place. We're on TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, we
are all over the place, So just put a Step
Ahead Tutoring Services and we will pop up. I personally
am on Facebook and Instagram, so if you want to

(03:43:48):
follow me there, the account name is Gabriel dot Crichlow.
So if you want to follow me on Instagram or Facebook,
I personally am on there as well. All Right, you guys.
I also want to encourage you, you know what, if
you are so later on, the replay will be available.

(03:44:08):
But if you happen to be watching this on social
media or you're listening to this on a podcast, please
take five minutes and give us your feedback about this webinar,
So please put it in, put the comment in the
comment section, give us a rateing rate us on IMDb

(03:44:29):
dot com. Right, so, if when you see it in
the public, please take five minutes and give us your
your feedback. That will be very helpful to my company.
All Right, you guys, and that's is it. Thank you
again for joining me for yet another year of homeschooling

(03:44:51):
one oh one. I hope you guys took a lot
from this, because we gave you a lot. So all
of these resources are available to you. You can always
rewatch this. You can watch the replay. Those of you
here on stream yard, I believe an email will be
coming to you. But for those of you watching this
later on, I will put this up on my social

(03:45:12):
media as well as my podcast, so this you can
always re listen to it again and I will replay it.

Speaker 2 (03:45:24):
So thank you.

Speaker 1 (03:45:26):
This was awesome. Thank you Nikia. Yes, so this webinar
will be available to you right so the replay will
be available one way or another. You can always rewatch this.
So thank you guys again, and.

Speaker 5 (03:45:42):
That is it for me.

Speaker 2 (03:45:44):
Bye wait yes bye.

Speaker 1 (03:46:11):
S m.

Speaker 3 (03:46:34):
M M.

Speaker 1 (03:46:47):
S s s s m m m m m m

(03:47:42):
m m m m m f

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