MISSION, Kan. -- As parents nationwide prepare to help their children with more distance learning, a growing number are quickly deciding to take matters into their own hands and begin home schooling.
Some are worried that their districts are unable to offer a strong virtual learning program. For others who may have been considering home schooling, concerns for their family's health amid the coronavirus and the on-again, off-again planning for in-person instruction are leading them to part ways with school systems.
A week before the deadline for sending notice to local school districts and the state of parental plans to provide a home school for their children, the Arkansas Department of Education's Division of Elementary and Secondary Education has seen an increase of 7,221 in the number students to be taught at home over the same time last year.
Kimberly Mundell, a spokeswoman for the division, said notices for 17,287 students were submitted to the state as of Monday. That is up from the 10,066 notices submitted for a comparable period in 2019.
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State officials assume that part of that increase is because of parents' concerns about their children being exposed to covid-19 at school and becoming ill.
But also contributing to the increase could be the establishment of a more efficient online system for parents to use when submitting their home-school notices, Mundell said. The system now is a more user-friendly and efficient in notifying the student's local school district and the state simultaneously of home-school plans. That reduces use of paper forms that go to the local district, which then sends them to the state, she said.
Mundell said the state expects the number of home-school parents in the coming year to fluctuate. Some parents will determine that a traditional school district's virtual school will meet their student's needs and allow the student to learn from home. That way, the student will be on the rolls of the traditional public school system and won't be a home-school student as defined by state law.
The deadline for submission of the annual home-school notice for the coming school year is Saturday.
OTHER STATES
Home-schooling applications also are surging in other states, including in Nebraska, where they are up 21%, and in Vermont, where they are up 75%. In North Carolina, a rush of parents filing notices that they planned to home school overwhelmed a government website last month, leaving it temporarily unable to accept applications.
There were about 2.5 million home-school students last year in grades kindergarten through 12 in the U.S., making up 3% to 4% of school-age children, according to the National Home Educators Research Institute. Brian Ray, the group's president, is anticipating that the numbers will increase by at least 10%.
"One day the school district says X, and four days later they say Y," Ray said. "And then the governor says another thing, and then that changes what the school district can do. And parents and teachers are tired of what appear to be arbitrary and capricious decisions. They are tired of it and saying we are out of here."
Interest in home-schooling materials has been surging, driven in part by parents who are keeping their children enrolled in schools but looking for ways to supplement distance learning.
The National Home School Association received more than 3,400 requests for information on a single day last month, up from between five and 20 inquiries per day before the coronavirus. The group had to increase the size of its email inbox to keep up.
"Clearly the interest we have been getting has exploded," said J. Allen Weston, executive director of the suburban Denver-based group. "That is really the only way to describe it."
Most other states don't have home-schooling numbers, either because they aren't collected at the state level or it's too early. But all indications point to increases across the country.
"Now is when the reality sets in," said John Edelson, president of Time4Learning, an online curriculum provider, which has seen business explode. "People have postponed the decision, but we are at this great inflection point. And it is hard to see what the angle is going to be, but it is definitely up."
In Missouri, calls and emails pour into the home-school advocacy group Families For Home Education each time a district releases its reopening plan, said Charyti Jackson, the group's executive director. She said families are in a "panic" about virtual starts to the year and hybrid plans in which students attend classes part time and study at home the rest.
"They are asking, 'what am I supposed to be doing with my children when I am working full time?'" she said.
For the families that plan to home school for only a semester or two, some in small groups or pods, her advice is focused on how to make sure students can transition back to public schooling smoothly when the pandemic ends. That's trickier for students who receive special-education services and high schoolers who need to meet their district's graduation requirements.
BACKUP PLANS
There also are some indications that the move to home schooling will continue well into the fall.
Christina Rothermel-Branham, a psychology and counseling professor at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Okla., said she is going to attempt remote learning through her local school district for her 6-year-old son. But, she said, the virtual learning she oversaw in the spring was "very monotonous," and she plans to switch to home schooling if the first month goes poorly.
"If there is a lot of stress between the two of us, it is probably going to get him pulled out," she said.
Rothermel-Branham, 39, already has scouted out curriculum as a backup, and has signed up for art and music classes through Outschool, an online learning platform that is reporting 30 times year-over-year growth since March.
"It is such a big mess," said Outschool CEO Amir Nathoo. "A lot of schools spent all summer preparing for a social-distanced reopening, and now it looks like that isn't going to happen because of the virus."
He said the demand for classes has been particularly strong in states that moved to reopen, including Texas, Florida, Georgia and Arizona.
Chris Perrin, the CEO of Camp Hill, Pa.-based Classical Academic Press, said curriculum sales to home schoolers are up by 50%, and enrollment in its online Schole Academy has increased by 100% amid the pandemic.
He said that for some there was "understandably a lot of bad online learning" in the spring and that some parents were "appalled" as they oversaw it.
"They are saying 'I can't stand by and do nothing,'" Perrin said. "So they are becoming home schoolers."
Information for this article was contributed by Heather Hollingsworth and Lisa Rathke of The Associated Press; and by Cynthia Howell of The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
