Home-Schooling Co-operatives

Home School Support Groups and Co-operatives

One of the greatest issues facing home schooling today is that of socialization. For many parents, the danger of negative socialization in traditional schools is one of the reasons leading to their decision to home school. It is also probably the most commonly misunderstood issue connected with the decision. It is certainly an issue that must be addressed, since it will most likely be one of the first, if not the primary concern of grand-parents, neighbors and other interested on-lookers, as well as the local educational authority.

The decision to home school is bound to make a child feel isolated, especially at first and particularly if the older child has been educated in the traditional system, in the past. There are several options open to parents who have made the decision to home school. In almost every area there are support groups for those who effectively go ‘against the flow’. These support groups meet on a regular basis, perhaps as often as once a week, for various group activities, such as arts and crafts, sports and outings. Often it is possible to tap into a valuable resource of support and encouragement from similar-minded people, who often have several years of experience of home schooling. These support groups also may have access to a wealth of legal expertise relating to home education should it be needed.

Home school co-operatives can go even further and actually meet each day to educate their children as a group, in the kind of one-room school environment of days gone by. Some can even ‘hire’ an expert to do the teaching, instead of the parents themselves. If there is a collective total of five or more children, it is possible to register a home-school co-operative as a small school, in some areas. Certainly there are some advantages to this kind of arrangement, but there are disadvantages also.

Home school co-operatives, or groups, are derivative of home schooling where families join together to educate their children. Families share the burden of teaching is the co-operative word, which allows time for parents who have other obligations such as full or part-time work. It is low-cost education, cheaper then most public schooling institutions. One of the advantages is that there is a pooling of the resources in terms of knowledge, expertise and financial resources. It can enable the purchase of expensive scientific equipment and books, as well as sharing existing books. Co-operatives take many forms, are highly flexible, and can change or evolve over time. Some are limited to specific activities such as sports teams, the study of a particular subject, music ensembles, or field trips, whereas others involve more time and cover a broader array of activities. Typically each family takes on part of the teaching responsibility and/or financing of the group.

Co-operatives often receive free-teaching services from retirees, interns and adults of all ages. Most anyone with a special skill or subject of interest might teach at a home-school co-operative. Larger co-operatives make it even easier for families to work their child’s schooling into a busy lifestyle.

Some of the disadvantages of a home-school co-operative are that unless it is well structured, it can be difficult to know exactly what type of relationship each person has with the next and whether they can be considered doing their fair share of the work. By it’s nature, the home-school co-operative requires its members to co-operate, so a ‘head’ person would need to be appointed, if only to mediate conflicts. A curriculum or teaching plan for the whole group would most likely take a great deal of planning. A registered home-schooling co-operative would be bound by government bureaucracy, including increased form-filling, monitoring and inspection that straight home schooling is capable of avoiding.