Finally, A post about Homeschooling

I have a teachers meeting tomorrow, the first of THREE this week. I am a homeschooler, how and why do I have not one but three teachers meetings to deal with? This is one of the paradoxes of homeschooling...the use of a CRS (church related school) commonly known as an "umbrella school".

An umbrella protects you from the rain. An umbrella school protects us from social services and the truant officer. In Tennessee homeschooling is governed by something called the "Jeter Memo". Basically there are three ways to legally homeschool in Tennesse. The easiest by far, is the use of a CRS. But it is a trade-off. Isn't life ALWAYS like that? For the protection offered by the CRS, our home is considered a satellite campus. This means that I am faculty. And once a year I must attend a faculty meeting. Tuesday night is this year's faculty meeting.

But that is NOT my first teacher's meeting this week, Oh no, my first teacher's meeting is tomorrow morning at 10 am. Because I have an only child, I DO worry even more than the average homeschooler, about the dreaded "S" word.

Socialization


Socialization is one of the reasons we choose to participate in a homeschool co-op each week. Last year I taught art and science. This year I've dropped the science class and am teaching Art/Music to the K through 6th graders and Bible to the 7th through 12th graders. Tomorrow we have a mandatory teachers meeting.

Finally we are charter members of the "Keepers Club" (think Girl Scouts meets AWANA) and we have a planning meeting for that group on Thursday night that IS essentially a teacher's meeting.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE homeschooling. I LOVE each of these groups. It's just that I HATE meetings! Call it a social, a fellowship, a luncheon, something...but please, DON'T call it a meeting. I hate meetings. And this week I have three of them