Illustration by Ryan Snook
In the early 1980s, if you’d asked Kerrie Tate what she thought about home schooling, she probably would have given you a bluntly unfavorable answer. “I thought they were hiding out for Y2K,” she says. “I thought it was so weird, I’d never do it—and then I had to eat every word I said.”
Today, Tate is an advisory board leader for St. Louis Homeschooling Activities, Resources and Encouragement (SHARE), one of St. Louis’ largest support groups for home-school families. And she’s not alone when it comes to changing attitudes toward home schooling. Support groups are proliferating and addressing an increasingly diverse community. Groups such as SHARE and Crossroads Christian Connection have a biblical bent (although they accept members of all faiths), while groups such as the St. Louis Homeschool Network and North County Homeschoolers are pointedly secular.
Precise data on the home-school population are nonexistent. Like most states, Missouri does not regulate home schooling, so there’s no clear student headcount. Parents do not have to notify the education department of their intent to home-school, and Missouri doesn’t require academic assessment of home-schooled students.
Yet anecdotal evidence suggests St. Louis is on par with—if not ahead of—national trends. The last national estimate, conducted in 2014, counted roughly 1.7 million home-schooled children in the U.S., which is about 3.4 percent of the total school-age population. That is nearly double the number reported in 1999, when the National Center for Education first began surveying home-schoolers.
“It has been eye-opening to encounter the St. Louis home-school culture,” says Rachel Morgan, who home-schools her three sons, ages 4, 7, and 10. “There are so many different people who home-school for different reasons.”
Morgan chose home schooling because her oldest son had a discouraging grade-school experience that deflated her trust in the public school system. “It wasn’t something where we birthed children and thought we’d be home-schoolers. It was like, ‘Hey, we have to do this,’” she says. “And I’m glad we did. It has really impacted me as a parent and a professional.”
Tate initially began home-schooling because she missed the enrollment deadline for her son when the family moved to Webster Groves. She kept at it because her husband works erratic hours, and home schooling allowed for greater flexibility in scheduling around family time.
Kelly Wagner, a freelance graphic designer, took up home schooling because her son’s birthday was 12 days after the entry cutoff for elementary school, and she wanted to jumpstart his education so he could track with his peers. When she discovered his dyslexia, she decided to continue home schooling to better address his needs.
For Veronica Holden, owner of La Mancha Coffeehouse, home schooling was always the plan. “As parents, our children’s education is our responsibility,” she says. “Our educational philosophy is that each person has their own distinct learning style, and we can figure out what’s best for each child.”
If home schooling in St. Louis had a rallying cry, it would seem to be, “Do what’s best for your child.” To that end, though, enthusiasts readily admit that home schooling isn’t the best solution for every student, and it’s not the ideal choice for every parent. It requires an enormous time commitment, out-of-pocket curriculum costs (Missouri doesn’t reimburse home-schooling expenses), and financial opportunity costs. Wagner, for instance, says she’s mindful of how many clients she takes on due to the time involved with home schooling.
Home schooling requires not only day-to-day teaching, but also due diligence and preparation. “There is no pressure to plan scripted lessons or follow a set curriculum,” says Morgan. “I have greater autonomy, but it’s a lot more work upfront trying to be thoughtful and creative about how we are going to approach things.”
Like many home-school parents, Morgan is dedicated to customizing each child’s education: If one kid’s learning style is different than that of his or her siblings, it means considering a new lesson plan and approach. “I’m able to look at my kids’ individual learning needs and support that,” she says.
The vast availability of resources for home-schoolers is both empowering and daunting. There are the support groups where parents typically gather weekly to bounce ideas off of one another while their children play. Cultural institutions such as the Saint Louis Zoo and the Missouri History Museum both offer programs for homeschool students, and the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Center of Creative Arts offer activities for parents looking for hands-on ways to impart lessons. While home-school students are not currently allowed to compete on public-school sports teams (there’s a legislative push underway in the Missouri House of Representatives to change that), there are sports leagues for home-schoolers across the region, and public schools will allow students to participate in gym classes and other organized activities. But you can’t rely on traditional school buses. “You’ll drive way more for home school,” says Wagner.
A blog, stlouishomeschoolevents.wordpress.com, publishes a weekly list of homeschool happenings in the area. To date, the blog has 1,455 subscribers. As with so much of home schooling, what one chooses to do is a matter of curating and personal preference.
Many parents say they also keep traditional school on the table as an option. “If at any time either kid says, ‘Mom, I really want to try public school,’ fabulous—I will arrange a tour,” Wagner says. She plans to eventually send both of her children to private high school.
Although academic assessments aren’t required by the state of Missouri, Wagner administers the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills to her children. “I wanted to make sure I wasn’t skipping anything or missing anything,” she says. “That’s one of the giant fears: What if I skipped this crucial piece of information? The reality is, we all have holes in our education.”
Holden also tests her children, albeit reluctantly. “We really try not to have our kids think that test scores are a measure of intelligence,” she says. “But it was somewhat validating to have them take the test and do OK.”
Home-school students who take the Iowa Tests are scored against other home-school students nationally, rather than against public and private schools in Missouri, so there’s no standardized comparison to size up the at-home approach.
For parents who choose to home-school their children, figuring out what’s best for each child is often more about intuition than it is about measurement. “It depends on the kid and the environment and what’s going to be a match,” says Wagner. The key is figuring out the teaching method that will hit home.
