Based on a juvenile court judge’s decision to terminate jurisdication over the two youngest children in the In re Rachel L. case, the family’s appellate attorneys will petition the court of appeal to dismiss its pending petition.

More: continued here

As America celebrates its 232nd year of freedom as a nation, a revolution within our nation continues to grow. The homeschool movement, which is a rebirth of the primary form of education in early America, continues to advance despite overwhelming odds.

More: continued here

It’s time for a reader question – how can I make HomeschoolThroughHighschool more useful for you? This is a question that I plan to begin asking every 6 to 12 months.

Why? Because I want to constantly be improving this blog, making it more effective in helping you with your homeschooling journey. I really want to hear your thoughts, so to help stimulate the discussion, here are some areas you might want to comment on:

• Topics - are there topics (specific or general) you’d like to see covered in the coming months? What are the main issues, challenges, and questions that you’re facing as a homeschooling family? What would you like covered for the remainder of the year?

• Types of Posts – reader questions, tutorials, short tips, guest posts, product reviews, news related to family & homeschoolers…. have your say about what you’d like most/least

• Posting Frequency – too many posts, not enough, just right?

• Design – I still have a lot to learn in this area, but are there any design features or changes that you would like to see?

• Blog Features – what would make your reader experience better?

• Community – Are there features that you’d like added to help you connect more with other HomeschoolThroughHighschool readers?

• Services and Tools – what could HomeschoolThroughHighschool offer you to help you improve, make easier your home education experience?

• What Frustrates You about HomeschoolThroughHighschool? What is Best about it?

• Other Ideas and Feedback – anything goes, big or little.

The ‘Rules’ - Any feedback, suggestions, dreams or ideas that you have are more than welcome! I can’t promise to respond to each comment or put every suggestion into place, but I do promise that I will to read anything & everything you have to say.

All that I ask in return is that you be honest, courteous and constructive with your feedback.

HomeschoolThroughHighschool is a project that I pour a lot of time and effort into – as a result sometimes criticism can be a little difficult to hear. However, hearing your honest thoughts are vital if HTH is to continue to be a valuable resource for homeschoolers wanting to improve their homeschool endeavors.

So…now it’s your turn . Feel free to either leave your feedback in the comments section below or share them privately with me via my Contact Page.

Good Monday morning everyone!

Drum roll please…….Announcing…..

I am beginning a free through Homeschool through Highschool newsletter. I am starting with the intent of producing it monthly and take it from there. My desire with this newsletter is to continue to offer further encouragement, support and help to make your home education experience easier & better

To sign up, simply enter your first name and email address in the boxes below or to the right where it says “Subscribe to free HTH Newsletter.”

If you haven’t had a chance to read the World Net Daily article noted in yesterday’s post, Judge orders homeschoolers into government education, it’s critical that you do so now. Also, one of our readers, Crimson Mom, has written an excellent & very informative post on her blog regarding this court ruling that has potentially far-reaching effects for homeschoolers’ freedoms everywhere. May I strongly encourage you to read her post as well: CA Judges: Parents Have No Constitutional Right to Homeschool.

As noted in yesterday’s post, Randy Thomasson, of Campaign for Children and Families, commented that the government school system sometimes lies to parents about homeschool law and sited an incident where a parent was told three specific lies. Ending my post yesterday, I said I would share regarding my experience when we pulled our granddaughter out of public school to home educate her.

In all fairness, I have to say that I don’t think that all public school officials intentionally lie about the law, I think that sometimes, perhaps many times, they just don’t understand the law. In our state, PA, the homeschool law is very ambiguous and has many interpretations. Thankfully, before bringing our granddaughter home, I had done a fair amount of research and believed I had a good grasp of the PA homeschool law.

Appropriate papers in hand, knees knocking, Read the rest of this entry »

As life bears down and we, as homeschooling families, grow weary from the demands upon our time and emotions, we sometimes can use reminders as to why we chose to do what we do – home educate our children. This post is an excerpt from the prologue of John Taylor Gatto’s newest book, The Underground History of American Education.

Who is John Taylor Gatto? He is a former public school teacher from New York City, three times named “New York State Teacher of the Year”. While still carrying the title of New York State Teacher of the Year, Mr. Gatto announced his resignation on the OP ED page of the Wall Street Journal claiming that he was no longer willing to hurt children. His most well-known book to date is The Dumbing Down of America.

You aren’t compelled to loan your car to anyone who wants it, but you are compelled to surrender your school-age child to strangers who process children for a livelihood, Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve done it! Your child has completed their home school highschool education and is ready to graduate. Wow! In some ways it seems like just yesterday when you began homeschooling and in other ways, it seems like a lifetime ago. But, nonetheless, the day is here & you want to give your high school grad a diploma in recognition of their accomplishment (and yours! ).

Very seldom do colleges or workplaces ask to see a diploma – most often, it’s the transcript that bears the greater weight & we’ll talk about transcripts in days to come. But for now, let’s look at some of the ways you can inexpensively or even freely produce the important-to-your-highschool-graduate diploma. Read the rest of this entry »