Preparing to Homeschool (in Kansas)

My sister-in-law is preparing to homeschool her daughter, who is the same age as my oldest child. Since I’ve been doing this for so many years, she has asked me for advice. So, I’ve been thinking about what things from the last decade of reading and learning are the things that feel like the most important to pass on to a parent just getting started. In order to keep all of these thoughts in one place, and to maybe be of use to anyone else about to get started, I decided to turn it into a blog post so she can take her time going through it. So here we go.

Kansas-Specific Stuff
In Kansas, homeschools fall under the laws regarding non-accredited private schools. You follow this same procedure whether you’re preparing to homeschool your own child or start a non-accredited private school for others to send kids to.

1. Register as a private school with the Kansas Department of Education. This site has the link to the online form, as well as links to PDFs of the actual statute that applies to homeschoolers, and forms for mailing in if you’d rather register that way. One thing to note: if you register online, they do not provide you with a copy of your form, so be sure to print or screenshot your registration before you submit it. You only need to register once. If you move, submit a change of address, but otherwise, you’re set.
2. If you’re removing your child from a public school, let their current school know that they are transferring to a new school. You are a private school now, so if they seem unsupportive of homeschooling, you don’t have to call it that.  But definitely do what you need to do to get a copy of your child’s records. My kid never went to public school, so I’ve never had to do it, but it should be as simple as giving them your private school information so that they can forward the records.
3. Take a deep breath. Now is when you start making choices and that is both terrifying and liberating. You can do it.

Other Kansas rules of note: CHECK has a pretty easy to understand write-up of the specific wording of the educational requirements. Basically, you have to provide a public school equivalent education from competent instructors. I’ve never met a homeschooling parent that wanted their kids to be dumb, so it shouldn’t be that hard. Just make sure your kids are making educational progress and following a curriculum of some kind that includes academic subjects and you’ll hit the legal requirements almost on accident.

Making a Game Plan

One of the best things you can do, before you look at a single  curriculum or make a purchase or research a thing is to sit down and decide what your true goal is. This can be done as a mission statement, or as a list of goals/standards to complete, or a description of what you want school time to look like. 

• Creating a Mission Statement/Set of Standards

Once upon a time, I went through this series of posts to come up with my end goal for educating my daughter. But there are other options for going through that process.

http://www.blessedbeyondadoubt.com/homeschool-mission-statement/

https://thecharactercorner.com/our-homeschool-mission-statement/

• Determine Your Educational Learning and Teaching Styles

Every kid has a learning style (or two or three). Every parent has a teaching style. At the point where those intersect (with minimal compromise), you’ll find your ideal homeschooling style. For reference though, there are articles and quizzes that attempt to help you determine how you want to do things.

https://simplycharlottemason.com/five-homeschooling-styles/
http://eclectic-homeschool.com/what-kind-of-homeschooler-are-you/

• Determine Your Planning/Recording Style

Some people need everything written out ahead of time. Some people find that daunting. Some people are excellent at recording every moment of what they’ve done with their chidren. Some people are struggling to remember what they did two weeks ago so they can get it written down. Technically, in Kansas, you are required to keep records. There is almost no guidance regarding what that should look like. I tend to go with a planner where I write down what we got done. And this year, I had some spare pages about every two months that I’ve been using to put in pictures of our work and activities so it can work as a portfolio of sorts when it’s done. No one way is the right way. The following two videos basically show opposite ends of this spectrum.

I’ve also used this planner before: https://www.proverbialhomemaker.com/relaxed-mom-homeschool-planning-system.html

• Decide When to Start

If your kids have never gone to public school, this is more of a question about what age to start at. For that, I recommend following your kid’s lead. No matter how excited you are to start, wait for them. Trust me. They will show you when they’re ready.

If your kids have been in public school, you need to decide how long you’re willing to allow the transition to take. There is a thing called deschooling. Basically, it’s allowing your kid (and yourself) a period of extra time to get all the public school routines out of your system. I’ve never seen it discussed better than here, so I won’t repeat the stuff that she says wonderfully: http://www.beverlyburgess.com/deschooling-how-to-know-when-you-are-done/

• Now, You Pick Your Curriculum

I started homeschooling my oldest at a point when my husband was unemployed, so I had to do everything basically for free. If that’s somewhere in the realm of your budget, there are a lot of places to find free things.

http://www.allinonehomeschool.com (Easy Peasy. It goes K-8 and has a companion site for high school. This is my default. I only don’t use it for everything because my kids struggle to focus when using the internet for school. But the materials are great and everything is free. If you decide to use it, definitely join the Facebook groups. They are super helpful.)

http://www.amblesideonline.org/index.shtml (Ambleside is hardcore Charlotte Mason. It’s going to be very different from public school and it is quite rigorous, but for some people it’s perfect.)

https://www.ck12.org/student/ (I’ve never personally used CK-12, but it seems to be popular.)

http://oldfashionededucation.com/ (This probably falls somewhere between Easy Peasy and Ambleside Online.)

http://www.blessedbeyondadoubt.com/free-homeschool-curriculum/ (And there are more.)

If you have a larger budget than zero, there are curricula that will meet it. I enjoy reading curriculum choice posts from other homeschoolers, even when I’m not looking for new stuff. Around July and August, you can find a TON for the upcoming year. I’ll probably do one for next year because we’re making a lot of new choices this year. You can get a good idea of what’s out there and what kind of quality it is from here: https://cathyduffyreviews.com/

That’s a ton of information. And really, that’s just scratching the surface of what’s out there. But anything more would probably cause exploding brains. So take your time, and just know that you love your babies. You want them to be the best they can be. So whatever choices you make will be okay. Also, if you decide something isn’t working, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed. You’ve learned something new about yourself or your child. Take that information and make a new choice. Education is a marathon, not a sprint, and most of what we’ll teach our kids is more about teaching them how to keep learning when we’re done with them.