[Teribear]

Originally Posted by jujubnme

OK, I think I'm getting what y'all are saying about the importance of making a distinction between the different types of schooling when talking about laws and homeschooling. But do you think the distinction important when you're talking about support groups? Where does it go from clarification to exclusion? Again, just an outsider trying to understand... (I "homeschooled" Julius for preschool, but was more of an unschooler and didn't really get connected with homeschool community at large per se, so I guess I missed this whole controversy.)

Personally I don't think your run of the mill homeschool support group/co-op should care. All of us who are using homebased alternative schooling (how do we like that term?) should be supportive of one another in that setting because we do all deal with some common issues and struggles. I know how it feels to be given the cold shoulder like that...I am an unschool minded individual in an area with mostly some variety of school-at-home being the norm and I have been excluded from certain groups because of it. I am speaking to this as someone who is on the board of our regional homeschooling association in a county that is largely hostile to homeschooling (we've had to battle daytime curfew laws, we've had to battle getting our kids treated the same as other privately schooled kids...its not pretty) and who will most likely be the next legislative liaison from that association so it is critical that I understand and deal with this from a political perspective. The fact is that ALL alternative schooling choices are being threatened due to the ill advised GWB initiative No Child Left Behind. Private schools are facing scrutiny that they haven't dealt with in decades, if ever. At least in this state. Schooling decisions were NEVER supposed to be made at a federal level. They have NO clue what goes on in the local school systems nor how to solve problems unique to those systems. That is why school boards have always existed at the local level. I am a stickler for explicit language when talking about school choice because the fact is that ALL of us are threatened at the moment. And the more of us we can show are out here and the variety we can prove exists makes it far more difficult for the federal government to force regulation upon any one of us, therefore keeping us collectively safer. Does that make sense?