Tough State to Home School Your Kids The Cities to Avoid

Stay out of Lynn if you want to home school your children, as well as a number of other prominent cities in Massachusetts – one of the top states for complaints by home school families.

“Lynn, Lynn the city of sin. You don’t want to move into it for any reason,” warned Scott W. Somerville, attorney for the Home School Legal Defense Association.

“Lynn got better when its superintendent moved to Lynnfield, but it’s still not great,” he added.

People Quoted in Story

Scott W. Somerville, attorney. Home School Legal Defense Association, a national organization located in Virginia, HSLDA. http://www.HSLDA.org

Calvin Layton, Vice President. Massachusetts Homeschool Organization of Parent Educators, MassHOPE. A Christian ministry that requires members to sign a statement of faith. http://www.MassHOPE.org

Patrick Farenga, President of Holt Associates, publisher of a secular home school magazine, Growing Without Schooling. http://www.holtgws.com

Jane Richard, Catholic Homeschoolers In Massachusetts East, CHIME. http://people.ne.mediaone.net/envsol/index.htm

Massachusetts Home Learner’s Association, MHLA. http://www.MHLA.org

His organization won a major victory in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 1998 in a seven-year battle with the Lynn School District. In a unanimous 7-0 decision, the court ruled that school officials could not subject home schoolers to home inspections.

“We have a few superintendents in the state who just have an ax to grind against home schoolers period. They’ve been here a long time and they’ll continue to be a problem,” said Calvin Layton, Vice President of Massachusetts Homeschool Organization of Parent Educators, MassHOPE).

“It’s kind of a mixed bag,” he added. While some school districts use every bureaucratic method at their disposal to make life miserable for home schooling parents, others do all they can to leave home schoolers alone.

“I know parents who haven’t been asked to send forms into their superintendent in a long time and aren’t being asked for it, because the superintendent knows the family and lets them do what they want to do.

“We have other schools that religiously send out their forms every year and really keep their thumb on it,” explained Layton.

Patrick Farenga, president of Holt Associates and publisher of a home school magazine, agreed with Layton.

“Some school districts are openly welcoming of home schoolers. Others don’t care. Like a flea on their back. ‘Don’t bother us. We won’t bother you.’ Others get their backs up. It’s a patchwork quilt,” he said.

The Worst Districts

“Lynn still has a very bad reputation among home schoolers, but it’s a lot better than it was. Canton is still very much a trouble spot. Lynnfield is not pretty. Pittsfield was a pain for a while. There are a number of trouble spots on the Cape, but they go in and out,” said Somerville.

Farenga said there is a direct relationship between income level and which cities cause problems for home schoolers.

“Typically the wealthier districts – Newton, Wellesley, Brookline, Belmont – are harder to home school in because they have personnel whose job it is to supervise you, and by golly they’re going to supervise you,” explained Farenga.

“The city of Boston has a very daunting application for home schooling,” He added. Farenga and he home schools his three daughters in Medford.

Layton said that there are only a few home schoolers in the metrowest and Boston areas, compared to larger numbers on the Cape and in central and western Mass.

“Typically both parents have to work in order to live there, so it’s more difficult for them to home school in Boston,” Layton explained. He said MassHOPE has members in every city and town in the state.

“It’s pretty hard here to make a living without both parents working,” Farenga agreed.

Massachusetts News contacted a number of home schoolers throughout the state. Many were hesitant to name specific problem school districts. None would permit the use of their name, and some would not discuss home schooling at all.

“Marlboro is very home school friendly,” said one home school mother who did not wish to be identified. She is a member of MassHOPE who home schools in Marlboro. “We warn people to stay away from West Boylston and Lancaster,” she added.

Gradually school administrators are becoming educated in Massachusetts law and are becoming more friendly to home schoolers according to Farenga, although Somerville and Layton see the situation as a never-ending cycle. As one school district becomes educated and informed another starts making trouble.

Layton said that whether a school district is good or bad depends on the superintendent of schools. A school district can go from one extreme to another very quickly, because superintendents come and go so quickly.

“One of the reasons why is because they come in from out-of-state and they’re not familiar with state regs. They get promoted from a position down below where they never had to deal with home schoolers on an administrative level so they’re not familiar with regulations,” said Layton.

“Some are fine. Some have no idea of the law. All we can do is tell them to comply with the law,” said Jane Richard of Catholic Homeschoolers In Massachusetts East. She said it is an unfair burden for parents and HSLDA to educate superintendents who “don’t have a clue.”

Superintendents are not the only source of difficulty for home schoolers. School committee members who are ignorant of the law tend to compound the problem, according to Layton.

Somerville said the problem is far bigger than just the superintendents and school committees. The emphasis now placed on site-based management of schools has given principals autonomy, which some use to make life difficult on home schoolers.

“The turnover for principals is even higher than for superintendents,” Somerville explained. “There’s over 300-plus school districts in Massachusetts. Multiply that by the number of buildings, and multiply that by the degree of turn-over.”

New principals are often shocked to learn of the existence of home schoolers, and they become even more surprised when they learn that home schoolers are unsupervised and not being held accountable in the way they perceive home schoolers should.

“Every time a new person comes into place, it’s hard for the school administrators to believe that home schoolers really get to do what they get to do in Massachusetts. It just continuously defies their understanding of the universe. They come into their new job and say, ‘Now this just can’t be right. Somebody’s really been asleep at the switch here. It’s time for me to straighten things out.’ It gives us plenty to do,” said Somerville.

Massachusetts Tops for Complaints

Members of HSLDA pay a membership fee and then receive free legal assistance if they have trouble in the process of home schooling. Requests for help from Massachusetts home schoolers continually place the state in the top ten problem areas of the country. Adjusted for population, Massachusetts ranks in the top three or four states with the most HSLDA complaints.

“What we see routinely happening is that a cluster of school districts in a given area will all go bad. Part of what’s going on is that there’s a relatively small number of attorneys that handle school law. So a group of 10 to 15 school boards will rely on the same attorney for advice and they tend to be local and clustered in a given area.

“So we go through periods where all the school districts in a given area are doing great, we’re having no trouble, and then all of a sudden we’ll get a rash of districts that start to go sour on us,” explained Somerville.

He said the situation keeps changing and requires home schoolers to be vigilant and ready to respond.

Although they have distinct philosophical differences, Layton and Farenga believe that Massachusetts has a pretty effective political force when it comes to home school legal issues.

Layton said MassHOPE and the Massachusetts Home Learner’s Association work well together on legislative issues, “but they tend to take a different tack than we do on some issues.”

Farenga agreed. He helped form MHLA as a secular statewide organization. He no longer has a hand in the operation of MHLA, but he did explain that MHLA and MassHOPE are distinctly different, yet find common goals to pursue politically.

MassHOPE is a Christian ministry that requires members to sign a statement of faith. Richard said she was not permitted to join because she is Catholic. CHIME was formed as an alternative and only accepts orthodox Catholics as members.

The MHLA describes itself as the “inclusive” statewide home school organization, accepting all home school families and leaving religion to individuals to include or not include in their curriculum as they wish.

“I don’t have a problem. Some people do. They think home schooling should be easy. Just fill out a form and that’s it,” said Farenga.

“Dealing with the school is just one small piece of the puzzle. If you don’t want to deal with schools, move to Wisconsin or Texas, or some other states,” he stated.

Home schoolers in Massachusetts are better organized than in neighboring states, primarily because they have found strength in numbers. A sense of persecution and a need to “circle the wagons” has enabled the home school movement to grow in spite of the problems.

“The home schoolers in Massachusetts are visible, well organized, and successful. Whereas in the surrounding states, New Hampshire is a great state to home school in, but the organizations are segmented and scattered. There isn’t really a state conference to speak of. So although home schooling is easier to do in New Hampshire, the movement so to speak is not quite as visible and strong,” explained Somerville.

In the early 90s the number of home school families was estimated to be about 4,000. Today Farenga says it is over 8,000. Layton said he places the estimate at no more than 6,000. Somerville said he was uncertain of the exact number, but he said growth is taking place in spite of all the difficulties.

“The original home school movement began in Massachusetts as a left-wing, anti-war protest movement back in the ‘60s,” said Somerville.

Somerville said that the current growth of home schooling in larger numbers began in the 80s by “evangelical Christians” who were concerned about moral and religious issues. He said that about 1994 the motivating reason to home school changed to dissatisfaction with the safety and poor quality of academics in the public schools.

“In the 80s it was primarily evangelical Christians taking the kids out of secular schools. In the mid-90s it shifted to parents in general who viewed public schools as dangerous and below par,” said Somerville.

“We come at it from the angle that home schooling is educationally superior. It helps kids perform much better because you can individualize their education,” Farenga said of the reasons MHLA members decide to home school.

“They feel their kids are either being rushed along or dumbed down,” he said of the members of MHLA.

“Catholic home schooling is just starting to pick up in eastern Massachusetts, and I’m expecting to see some explosive growth,” predicted Somerville, a Presbyterian. “That’s been a movement that’s really been booming up the eastern seaboard.

“There are relatively few evangelical Christians in New England, and home schooling through the ‘80s was primarily an evangelical phenomenon. As the new wave of Catholic home schooling picks up, I’m expecting to see just a profound change in the home schooling balance of power.”

Somerville said there are more reasons for parents to get their kids out of public schools than ever before. He pointed to safety concerns and the rise of immorality promoted in the public schools. The shock of the Fistgate scandal has motivated many parents to home school their children, he added.

In spite of the challenges faced by parents, he said that home schooling continues to grow and blossom.

“It’s continuing to thrive among the evangelical community. It’s continuing to thrive among the left-wing intellectuals – that’s where it began,” said Somerville.

“What I’m expecting to see in about four years in Mass is a remarkable, unprecedented balance of left-wing/new age home schoolers with a fairly strong and mature state organization (MHLA); plus a strong and very well led evangelical group (MassHOPE); with an equally large and I think probably equally well run Catholic home school organization. I’m expecting to have all three groups be almost equally well functioning. It’s unusual to have three different strands present and functioning in equal weight, but I think we’re going to see that in Massachusetts in the next few years,” Somerville predicted.

Farenga and Layton both said that a few school districts take it easy on home schoolers.

“There’s no application here in Medford. You just call up and they tell you to send them a letter with your curriculum and what you plan to do,” said Farenga.

Farenga said the best school district in the state is in Uxbridge where home schoolers can receive a cash reimbursement of up to $1,000 per year for educational materials purchased for “independent study” at home. Similar programs are in effect in other parts of the country.

Compared to other states in New England, Massachusetts is well, but compared to the rest of the nation “it’s kind of cold and rocky soil,” said Somerville.

“Home schooling in Massachusetts is definitely healthy. Every year we see the number of troublesome school districts go down, even though year by year we keep having to put out the same brush fires all over again,” he concluded.