Brave new concept … public/home schools

Frontiersman editorial board

This summer the Mat-Su school board will decide whether to add a new charter school to the district, and whether to grant a waiver to allow that school to begin operation in the fall. Horizon Charter School will be geared toward homeschoolers, and its aim will be to provide professional support and guidance to families who choose to homeschool their children.

Supporters say the new charter school would bolster the abilities of homeschool families by providing them support and ensuring their students are meeting state academic requirements. They also point out the increase of student bodies in the district will translate to more dollars for the district. Not that money ever makes a difference in decisions relating to education.

Detractors of the proposed charter school say the program would be redundant since it would largely parallel services already offered by the Correspondence Study School, which offers at-home K-12 educational opportunities to Valley students, already. Others wonder if the notion of homeschoolers joining the district doesn't defeat the purpose of homeschooling.

The critical thing here is that there seem to be valid points on both sides of the argument. The greatest mistake in a case like this would be to make a snap decision. Perhaps it would be best to wait until there's a new superintendent, and until the situation can be seriously studied. If Horizon has to wait one more year to guarantee the correct decision is made, then that's what should happen.

Hopefully, the board will seriously consider whether the Correspondence Study School can, indeed, meet the needs of the homeschoolers. If it is simply a matter of obtaining professional academic support, it may be a reasonable solution. Officials from the correspondence school say their program offers many choices so that each student's needs can be met.

Still, the choices offered by the correspondence school are certainly not as varied as those available to the pure homeschooler. Many families choose homeschooling for reasons other than academics. They use programs that are religion-oriented, but that also provide academic material. In those cases, the Correspondence Study School would provide the purely academic courses, and the family would be responsible to provide the religious instruction. And, the religious portion of study would not garner a grade or credit from the correspondence school.

Ultimately, the question should be, does it make sense to bring homeschoolers back into the public school fold? It's hard to imagine that the district could reasonably make that decision in just a few weeks.