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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Outside Help School Districts Offer Courses Aimed At Augmenting, Not Controlling, A Home-School Education

Public schools are a mystery to Daniel Hester, 10, who wants to know what they’re like.

His mother, who teaches Daniel at home, wants him to learn more about computers.

Both are getting their wishes under a new program Spokane School District 81 designed to draw home-schoolers into public education.

“I’d like to see them do an art class or writing,” said Kathy Hester, who recently sat in on Daniel’s computer class at Libby Center. “He’s kind of inclined to art, and I’m not artistic.”

It could happen.

This fall, two area districts - Spokane and East Valley - began offering free classes for students from families who often want little or nothing to do with public education.

Spokane started small last month with 14 home-school students, who attend just more than an hour a week. East Valley enrolled about 150 children, most of whom take a class or two each week.

Few districts in the nation offer classes especially for home-school children, said Chris Klicka, senior counsel for the Home School Legal Defense Association in Washington, D.C.

“I’d say they’re pioneers in doing that,” he said. “They’re trendsetters.”

Nationwide, public educators and home-school families are hotly debating how they should interact.

Only a few states - including Washington, Idaho and Oregon - have laws allowing home-school families to participate in extracurricular and sports activities in public schools, Klicka said.

While some home-school families fight for that right, others want nothing to do with public school offerings.

“Some feel very strongly to be involved in public schools in this way will bring regulations back,” Klicka said. “We’ve earned the right to be left alone … so the concern is, hey, you start taking their services and the accountability strings are going to come back.”

In Western Washington, Central Kitsap School District assigned one teacher to start classes for home-school students in 1992. Today, the program has eight teachers, 300 children and a budget of about $600,000, said administrator David Sours.

Parents participate in many ways, such as helping choose textbooks, said Sours.

“We are a partnership with the parents,” Sours said. “There is some negotiation.”

Tom Feldhausen, East Valley’s home-school coordinator, said he was thrilled to see 150 students sign up for the district’s classes this fall.

“We’re just tickled to death,” said Feldhausen. “This is brand-new for us, brand-new territory.”

Spokane Superintendent Gary Livingston called his district’s program a first step. “If it works,” he said, “we’re willing to talk with them about other opportunities, other areas.”

In Spokane, some home-school parents question the district’s motives.

“They really didn’t give a hoot about us in the past,” said Jeanette Faulkner, who teaches two of her children at home. “I suspect there’s a financial incentive.”

Others, like Nancy Floyd, say the programs offer the best of public schools while leaving the worst behind.

“I still feel like I’m in control,” said Floyd, who participates in a computer class at Libby Center alongside Britni, her 14-year-old daughter.

“It’d probably be other subjects I’d be more concerned with: history and evolution and social sciences.”

Ruth Hicks suspects the East Valley district’s in it for the money. But she said she doesn’t care. She’s just glad her daughter, Taylor, can take science with other home-school kids.

“They’re still with like-minded children and like-minded parents, so they don’t get torn down by other people’s values,” Hicks said.

No one knows for sure how many children are home-schooled in Washington, because not all families register with the state. But in 1995, more than 18,000 filed an intent to home-school.

More and more families are turning to home-schooling. In District 81, for instance, 472 families filed an intent to home-school this year, compared with 202 families in 1990.

Aware that many of these families are critical of public education, Spokane and East Valley administrators recruited parents to help plan the new programs.

Spokane started with beginning and intermediate computer courses, offering training with software many of the families don’t have. East Valley offers technology, art, foreign language, and science lab classes.

“A lot of the equipment is quite expensive,” said Feldhausen. “They don’t have access to that at home.”

Three foreign language teachers give private classes with three or fewer home-school students - far smaller numbers than regular classes.

Home-school parents don’t pay tuition, because they already pay the same taxes as other families, administrators say. The parents are responsible for their children’s transportation.

The districts apply for state tax money for the hours home-school students attend.

For an average full-time student, the district gets about $3,500. Spokane expects to get about $10,000 a year for its 14 part-time, home-school kids, said Associate Superintendent Walt Rulffes.

Financially, he said, “it’s absolutely not lucrative, but we hope it’s self-sustaining.”

Livingston said he pushed the program to recruit families into the system. Eventually, he said, “most of them come back anyway. If we’re keeping them kind of linked to the curriculum, then the gaps are easier to fill.”

East Valley is offering the classes simply because they want to offer home-school families any help they can, Feldhausen said.

“I was thinking they’d need a lot of assistance in instructional technique,” he said. “I was wrong. A lot have teaching degrees. They’re networked extremely well.”

Instead, he said, parents wanted access to laboratories, computers and supplies that are expensive for individual families.

Parents, accustomed to being involved in every aspect of their children’s education, participate in most classes.

In that sense, parents hope to help out the school district, said Kathleen McCurdy, director of Family Learning Organization, a Spokane home-school support group.

“We hope that rubs off on other families, that they’ll want to be more involved in their children’s education,” said McCurdy. “We can be a model in the community.”

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