Central West Virginia's Guide To Life

HOME SCHOOLING IN WV
By Karen Pennebaker

   9/07 - The Basics of WV Homeschooling

In the United States, the home-schooling movement grows each year. Homeschooling is legal in all 50 states. West Virginia does have some reporting requirements that some states do not but In most cases however West Virginia is "home-schooling friendly".

All anyone needs to be a homeschool instructor is a high school diploma or equivalent. The "teacher" can be a parent, grandparent, or even an unrelated adult. The state requires that you submit a letter of intent to homeschool annually to your county school board, listing a plan of instruction.

By June 30th annually, there are three ways to assess the progress of the students: standardized testing, portfolio review, or an alternative assessment (most often the best for children with learning difficulties). There is another way to homeschool in West Virginia: the "request to homeschool" option that requires much more in the way of record keeping and very few parents use this option.

The law can be seen at http://wvhea.org/lawsection.htm.  The homeschool laws are also in the West Virginia Code. Some counties are much more cooperative than others, but individual counties cannot change state law.

The internet has been extremely valuable to homeschoolers. Hundreds of websites provide free lesson plans as well as work sheets, etc. Some parents purchase curriculum to homeschool, some use school textbooks, others design their own lessons. All are acceptable and legal.

For someone beginning to homeschool, http://wvhea.org is extremely helpful with examples of the intent to homeschool forms, plans of instruction. They will send out a free packet to members, but provide a lot of free information to the general public on their website. Local home-schooling groups are also listed.

WV Yahoo homeschooling group is informative and a good place to connect with other homeschoolers:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WVAHS/.

Homeschooled children have no problems getting into college or getting jobs. Many colleges and employers actually seek them out. Homeschooled children are eligible for the same scholarships and student aid as are those who attend public school.

One of the biggest advantages to the children is time: no hours on school buses and it takes much less time to learn with one-on-one instruction than in a classroom. Approximately 2% of school age children in West Virginia are home-schooled (see the table of statistics at http://wvhea.org).

Karen Pennebaker is a home-schooling grandmother who has been homeschooling her granddaughters for over 10 years. Karen is an artist who enjoys painting, block printing and making jewelry as well as doing volunteer work.

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