#homeschooler

For the purposes of this poll, I’m using “homeschooling” to reference an education given to you at home by your parents or other adult, using curriculums to teach you themselves.

For example, I consider myself homeschooled up to high school where I then had supplemental lessons, because up until high school my education was based off the curriculums my mom used for me, and when I reached high school I had online classes.

April 30th is the Day of the Homeschooled Child

In the United States, approximately 2 million children are currently homeschooled. Unfortunately, homeschooled children are not safe.

Twelve states don't require home educators to tell anyone that they're homeschooling.

Nineteen states don't require home educators to teach any specific school subjects.

Forty-eight states allow convicted child abusers and sex offenders to homeschool children.

All fifty states allow a child to be withdrawn from school to be homeschooled during and after a child welfare investigation.

In addition, homeschooled children with disabilities do not have the same legally protected access to accommodations and support that disabled children in public school do.

The Homeschooling's Invisible Children database maintained by the Coalition For Responsible Home Education contains over 500 cases of extreme child abuse and neglect in homeschool settings, and over 200 fatalities - that's almost half of all known cases. All of these cases are from publicly available records like media reports and court records. There are no doubt countless others outside of public view.

Day of the Homeschooled Child is an observance held every April 30 to raise awareness of child abuse and neglect in homeschool settings and to call for change to make homeschool safe. It falls on the last day of National Child Abuse Prevention Month in April.

How to Make a Change:

Join Voices for Reform. The voices for reform program empowers people like you to help homeschooled children in your state. You'll get notified when bills and issues are impacting homeschooled children near you, and you'l get the resources you need to take action.

Wear green on April 30. 0n Day of the Homeschooled Child, dress in green to stand in solidarity with people who experienced homeschool abuse. You can also share a picture on social media with the hashtag #DayofTheHomeschooledChild and tagging CRHE.

Source: Coalition for Responsible Home Education

… wait lemme say that again.

For context, the husband and I spent several years living abroad, and just returned home in September. I started unpacking our storage unit yesterday.

Um.

We had over 2 dozen milk crates of books packed that had been intended for library donation 7 years ago, but never got sent off. And now they're still here, and I'm unpacking them. Hundreds of books.

And we came home after 7 years abroad, with our suitcases packed largely full... of books.

And my Mum-in-Law has cheerfully returned... all of the books we'd wanted to keep that we left in her safekeeping for when we returned.

If that wasn't enough, my husband's grandmother passed recently, and Mum, as executive of the estate, has asked me to take... a lot of Grandma's books.

Science. Philosophy. How-to manuals. Textbooks. Classics. Religious texts. References. Children's books. The list goes on and on and on.

------------------------------------------------

Here's where it gets interesting.

We live in a very heavily religious, conservative community. What few public libraries that are functional around us are either censored by local governments, defunded, being forced to ditch their physical books and "go digital" due to budgets, or just freaking outright closing. Even the one bookstore within an hour's drive is being forced to sell more toys and movies than books, just to stay open.

It has been suggested that since I technically spent a summer helping my hometown's library build a card catalog back in the 90s, and we live in a house that's way too big for us, that it would be super-cool if I turned this collection of approximately a zillion books into a library that the children and adults of the family (and our friends) could have access to. Just kinda be the caretakers of the collection.

I am 1,000,000% down for this. We have kids in the family not learning jack in their public schools, and both my husband and I were teachers when we were abroad, so we want to help. We have cousins who homeschool and are always desperate for study material. Absolutely. I'm in.

Librarians of Tumblr.... NOW WHAT???????

Where do I start once I have set the boards onto the milk crates to make shelves? How do I sort these? I'm not loaning them, folks will have to come here to read, and I'm willing to set up a coffeemaker and cups for them. But... I'm kinda starting to panic here.