Christian Home Educators of KY Blog

from @tj schmidt, at HSLDA "We at HSLDA have received many calls from homeschool families across Kentucky who have begun receiving the "Declaration of Intent" forms that usually come out around this time of year. As always, you could fill them out and return them declining the services offered. However, you are not legally required to fill these forms out. The schools are only required to send th em to you as you are considered a private school under Kentucky law. Since they must document that they have sent the information to every school, they like to receive information back from a homeschool program that you will not be participating. Again, you are not legally required to respond to the forms. What is new this year is that the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) has provided some incorrect information to all of the school districts. The KDE has also included this information in the forms they have revised for this year. The incorrect information...

from Michael Farris of HSLDA (via his Facebook page) Sobering thoughts from the Romeike brief Having immersed myself for about 8 days in writing a brief for the Romeike family (a German homeschooling family who fled to the United States for political asylum), I wanted to share some insights I gained into the view of our own government toward the rights of homeschooling parents in general. You will benefit from some context. The U.S. law of asylum allows a refugee to stay in the United States permanently if he can show that he is being persecuted for one of several specific reasons. Among these are persecution for religious reasons and persecution of a “particular social group.” In most asylum cases, there is some guesswork necessary to figure out the government’s true motive—but not in this case. The Supreme Court of Germany declared that the purpose of the German ban on homeschooling was to “counteract the development of religious and philosophically motivated pa...

My Son, Give Me Your Heart! Author: Kevin Swanson Published in: ICHE News Magazine (Illinois) Published on: May. 1, 2003 reprinted with permission Have you ever packed everything into the car for a vacation, pulled out of the driveway, accelerated up on to the freeway, and suddenly realized that you had remembered everything except for. . . one of the children? Have you ever bought a used car only to find out after signing the paperwork that the engine was missing? That is very much the way education has developed over the last century. It seems that we have remembered everything, except for what is vital. One of the vital aspects of education that homeschooling is beginning to revive is the principle of relationship-based learning. This principle is nothing new. The book of Proverbs is dedicated to the topic of educating a young person. It is full of character lessons communicated to a son by his father and his mother (in the last chapter). There is far more...

Legal Brief [12]Tj Schmidt, HSLDA Staff Attorney Over the next couple of months many homeschool families in Kentucky will receive a letter and several forms from their local school district that they will be requested to fill out. These forms are commonly referred to as the “Declaration of Participation” forms. They are named this because of the Declaration of Participation Report that each district must submit to the Commonwealth in order to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The reason homeschool families receive these forms, as many of you know, is that under Kentucky law homeschoolers are classified as private schools.. Federal law requires that each district notify local private schools of certain programs that they may be eligible for. Homeschool families typically will receive two sets of forms. One form is for Title III programs which cover limited English proficiency and immigrant student population. The other form is for Title IIA and IID, Title IV and IDEA-B. ...

The Holy Grail of Getting Your Husband Involved in Homeschooling Todd Wilson Let me just say up front that my passion is showing dads how to be more involved in their families and especially in their homeschools. Now if I were writing to a bunch of men, I’d give them all kinds of practical ideas and thoughts on how to do that. But this time, I’m going to address all you moms who are reading this. After all, if a dad isn’t very involved, he probably isn’t going to be reading this article anyway. I’m going to share with you the holy grail of homeschooling - how to get your husband more involved in your life, your family, and your homeschool. I can see you shaking your head in disbelief. But I’m serious. What I’m going to share with you has the power to transform your life, your marriage, and especially your homeschool. Actually, it’s not all that difficult in theory. In fact, it all boils down to one very simple principle. I could be putting myself out of busin...

Your Faith Matters to Your Family by Eric Jones As I was reading through the story of Noah this morning, I had some interesting thoughts about the importance of a father's faith and how it can bring blessing and protection to his entire family. Men, our faith matters. Noah was a righteous man and was considered blameless. So when God decided to purge the earth of the evil that man had created, He recognized Noah and made plans to save him. However, we see that God ended up saving more than just Noah. He also decided to save Noah’s wife, his sons, and his sons’ wives. It is interesting that scripture does not mention that any of these family members were righteous and blameless or walking with God. So why were they spared? Was it because God had to repopulate the earth and needed them for that task? God could have started all over with just Noah and his wife. Was it because the sons helped their father build the ark and this was their reward? Was it the faith of...