Homeschooling Online - Guidelines To Applying For Homeschooling - Part 4
In this post, we continue our discussion with guideline #3….
Guideline #3
School officials may consider teaching materials, but only if it is to determine subject and grade levels of the children being taught. School officials may not use this access as a means to dictate the manner in which the subjects will be taught.
However, there are actually some lessons that are considered intangible to school systems. For example, travel, community service, and visits to educationally enriching facilities like museums and zoos can provide important learning experiences apart from a textbook or workbook. In addition, these can actually make homeschooling more rewarding for both the parent and child.
In order for you to be able to follow this guideline properly, you can write in your educational plan that you will be using a variety of materials and resources, and in addition, you will be provide a list to the school department upon request.
Furthermore, you can list the homeschooling books and other resources that you will use to ensure that they will have them made available if and when they are needed. If you are using a pre-set curriculum, you can simply list the books and resources that you will be following from that. If your school insists on getting even more detail, photocopying the table of contents of a couple of key textbooks should suffice.
If after trying one or more of the above suggestions, you find that a school official insists on actually seeing the books and materials that you plan to use, you could point out that your plan includes making use of specific ready-made curriculum and that with the use of the internet, the material is easily accessible to anyone.
It all ultimately comes down to how best to define access to the needed material. You need to remember that approval can only be conditioned on requirements that are absolutely necessary to the state’s interest in making sure that all of the children will be educated properly.
Some of these resources that you can use to make this process easier include:
- Encyclopedias
- Dictionaries
- Atlases
- Reference books and materials (such as textbooks, field guides, timelines, globes, maps, etc.)
- Newspapers
- Magazines
- Library books, tapes, magazines, etc.
- Educational games
- Educational computer software and on-line services
- Arts & crafts supplies
- Writing supplies
- Musical instruments
- Audio-visual equipment and materials
- Religious materials
- Science lab equipment
- Community resources (such as museums, theatres, sports programs, private lessons, volunteer opportunities)
Homeschooling Online