Uptick in homeschooling continues in Volusia, Flagler; some experts call out 'deficiencies'
In 1993, Bill Clinton was sworn into office. Nelson Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Beanie Babies made their official debut. And movies like “Jurassic Park,” “Sleepless in Seattle” and “Free Willy” hit big screens.
It was also the year Michelle Miller, 52, of Ormond Beach, began homeschooling her children. Over the last three decades, she has watched as the practice has become increasingly conventional.
“This was obviously 30 years ago (when I started.) The internet wasn’t very big back then,” she said. “I got a lot of questions of, ‘Is this legal?’ ‘Can you do this?’ so it’s really great now that it’s so mainstream because back then, it was a little rough. People didn’t understand it and hadn't heard of it, like I hadn’t heard of it really until I started investigating.”
The mom of seven kids — currently between ages 14 and 34 — lived in “rural” Marion County at the time. When her oldest child was about to start kindergarten, Miller went to see her zoned school.
The building was located at the end of a cul-de-sac in a rundown area. Miller said the school was in such disrepair that the children had to eat lunch in their classrooms because "chunks of plaster were falling from the ceiling in the lunchroom."
“And so the thought of my sweet little baby girl going into that situation — I was very concerned about it, obviously,” she said.
Miller started researching other possibilities. She first looked at private schools but ultimately decided against it due to the hefty financial obligation. Eventually, she landed on homeschooling.
She welcomes its flexibility. Her children can spend more time on concepts they find challenging as well as subjects that garner their interest and attention.
In the beginning, Miller wrote her lessons. Then she switched over to pre-packaged curriculum, trying Florida Virtual School and Connections Academy. Now, she uses Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool.
“The bulk has been on me, especially elementary. All of elementary, majority of middle has all been me. It’s high school when they, they branch out,” Miller said. “And not because I no longer can teach them or anything like that. It’s just, they’re at that age, old enough to be more independent learners. And so I like to encourage them to be independent learners. And, of course, I have to monitor it and make sure we sit down and discuss the classes that they’re going to take.”
When the family moved to Volusia County in 2003, Miller and her husband reconsidered sending their children to public schools, but decided against it because they were concerned about subjecting their kids to bullying and other pressures.
“At that point, (the decision) was to not be around peers, quite honestly,” Miller said. “We decided to do other activities for socialization because that’s the big concern.”
Now with only four years until she "retires," Miller said, “I’m satisfied. But honestly, I mean, after 30 years, it’ll be nice — it’ll be nice for a break.”
Homeschooling in Florida
The Florida Department of Education's 2022-23 annual home education report showed that homeschooling is becoming more popular statewide, and its largest influx overlapped with peak pandemic years.
Nat Malkus, senior fellow at American Enterprise Institute, a public policy think tank based in Washington, D.C., said there is reason to be concerned about the "rapid" increase of homeschooled students during the pandemic.
"Deciding that you're going to homeschool your kids in August of 2020 is very different from deciding that a year prior when the pandemic wasn't there," he said. "And so, you may have parents who aren't quite as prepared, parents who are doing it not because this was a choice that made sense, but because their other options were just unsatisfactory."
The number of Florida homeschoolers
The News-Journal received data from the Volusia and Flagler county school districts indicating the number of homeschooled students each year for the last six years. These numbers differed from local numbers reported by the Florida Department of Education in its annual home education reports.
According to Volusia County Schools, 2,090 students were homeschooled in 2021-22, compared to 2,326 in 2020-21 and 2,000 in 2017-18.
According to Flagler County Schools, 1,183 students were homeschooled in 2021-22, compared to 997 in 2020-21 and 872 in 2017-18.
The Florida Department of Education did not comment on these discrepancies despite a News-Journal request. But Flagler Schools Executive Secretary Jennifer Gimbel said home education numbers change weekly and that the figures reported at the district level and state level might be different depending on the dates used to run the reports.
Some of the numbers differed by more than 900 students, depending who reported them.
Theresa Clark Hennessy, Volusia's School Choice, Charter and Home Education analyst, said the discrepancy "is not far fetched."
Many factors can contribute to an abrupt change in numbers, she continued, noting that the district must often students who do not turn in annual evaluations — which are required in some instances by a district superintendent — and then reenroll those students once their evaluations are in. This causes numbers to frequently change dramatically.
"They literally just come and go," she said.
Experts have mixed responses regarding homeschooling
Jessica McIntyre, Volusia County Schools' coordinator of Mental Health Services, said homeschooling can work well for some families, but it really depends on individual student needs.
"I think for some of our kids, it could tend to isolate them a little bit more because they might not have the outlets that they have at school, and being at home with some of our families, they might be home alone ..." she said. "I think some might really thrive with it because ... it kind of gives that flexibility of their own pace which might decrease some of the stressors."
Both McIntyre and Malkus said homeschooling is a big responsibility and everyone needs to be on board for it to be effective.
"You are the direct supervisor and authority over your kids' education," Malkus said, addressing parents and guardians, "making sure that they get the appropriate supports and instruction and also that you have the right expectations for their performance."
He expressed concerns with the lack of benchmarks.
"Some of the weaknesses (of homeschooling) are sort of quality assurance as to making sure your students are learning what they need to learn to sort of keep up," he said. "These problems are also persistent in public schools, I will fully admit, but I think that's a concern that should be a concern for people because we want these students to succeed and do well."
According to the Home School Legal Defense Association, Florida homeschool law has low regulations, and the state offers three options for homeschooling families.
Families can homeschool under the homeschool statute. Families must file a letter of intent to establish a home education program with their county superintendent during their first 30 days of homeschooling. For two years, they must log their educational activities and save work samples in a portfolio, subject to the superintendent's review. Students must be evaluated annually, either by having a certified teacher review their portfolio, taking a national or state standardized test, being evaluated by a Florida licensed psychologist or being evaluated in another agreed upon way.
Families can homeschool under an "umbrella" program. Families can enroll in private schools registered with the Florida Department of Education. That school will then supervise the program instead of local school officials.
Families can homeschool with a private tutor. The instructor — selected by the family — must have a valid Florida teaching certificate for the subjects and grades being taught, and the instructor must keep records required by the state and district per Florida Statutes 1003.23. Students must be in attendance for 180 days or the hourly equivalent.
What's the appeal to homeschooling?
In Volusia and Flagler, there are numerous motivations driving families into homeschooling.
Debra Snell, 58, of Palm Coast, is the primary caregiver for her 6-year-old grandson. She began homeschooling him in October. Since starting, she has especially appreciated the ability to work at her grandson’s speed.
“He’s autistic, so an autistic child sometimes can learn something in five minutes, or it might take four months for him to learn it, so it doesn’t do any good to move onto the next subject (until he’s ready),” she said.
Ashley Schultz, 38, of Daytona Beach has three kids, two of whom are homeschooled. Schultz said her oldest son, who is now 19 and a student at Daytona State College, was about two years ahead of his peers when his family moved to Florida from Connecticut. They decided homeschooling would be best for him because he could continue working at the rigorous speed he craved. The family also homeschools their 8-year-old son who has special needs because traditional schooling moved too quickly for him.
The Schultzes are part of a hybrid program that meets twice weekly in person at First Baptist Daytona Beach. Schultz said one of the biggest benefits of homeschooling is that “I can teach my children in a way, for us, that holds a Christian background, and that is extremely important for us. And we have flexibility. If my son doesn’t feel like doing school first thing in the morning, we can do it later. We can go on field trips every week or even every day if we choose. It’s the freedom that comes with that.”
Brittny Rubin, 37, of Palm Coast, has always homeschooled her son, 10, out of concern for his safety.
“Unfortunately, I come from a school in south Florida that experienced a school shooting when I was in middle school, so that’s always been in the back of my mind,” she said. “Here in Flagler County — I’m not sure if it’s because we’re a small county or because our sheriff tends to post literally everything — but we’ve seen an increase of kids who have brought guns to school or knives or, you know, different things that can harm other students with the intent to cause harm.”
Rubin created a homeschool group in Flagler County. She plans monthly events so kids have a scheduled opportunity to socialize. Specifically, she has organized aquarium visits, park days and holiday parties. Rubin said that since starting the group in 2021, it has "exploded with members."
“We don’t really see any disadvantages (to homeschooling) because they’re still getting out there. They’re still going to field trips. They’re still socializing with their peers. They’re still celebrating holidays,” she said. “I don’t really feel like he’s missing out because he’s still experiencing those things, sometimes on a greater level than the kids are experiencing them in public school.”
Florida law 'fails' former student
Samantha Field, now 36, moved to Crestview, Florida, in Okaloosa County with her family as a 9-year-old. She was homeschooled there for nearly a decade and now serves as the government relations director at the Coalition for Responsible Home Education where she educates people on homeschool law.
In hindsight, Field views her teen years as a "giant waste of time." She said she did not receive an adequate education, studying only lower levels of math, science and language arts, and was never exposed to people of diverse backgrounds.
"It can be frustrating, especially with history," she said. "I was taught a completely alternate version of world history and American history that turned out to largely not be true. That's very frustrating as an adult.
"Current Florida law definitely failed me massively as a homeschooler," Field said, adding that there was a lack of accountability. "The way that Florida law enables umbrella schools to act as rubber-stamping agencies is completely unacceptable ... . If you're enrolled in an umbrella school, and you're paying the umbrella school for this, you know, supposedly accredited diploma, they need to actually be checking your work. My parents were able to just able to ... fabricate my high school education with the umbrella school, and I got a diploma from that umbrella school, but it was essentially meaningless, and Florida law doesn't have anything in place to stop that."
The Field family used Abeka curriculum, written by Arlin and Beka Horton.
The Hortons opened a Christian school in Pensacola in 1954. Since then, they have released various videos, textbooks, aids and assessments to assist Christian schools and homeschooling families in providing "an excellent education from a Christian perspective." They also founded Pensacola Christian College in 1974.
"Their history textbooks are — 'propaganda' is not too strong a word," Field said. "The lies are only sustainable if you were never exposed to like wider culture, so the lies are dependent on you kind of staying in those white supremacist, Christian nationalistic, very conservative circles. And if you go out into the world, it becomes pretty clear pretty quickly that you are deficient, kind of, as a person, and that can be a very alienating experience."
Abeka did not respond to The News-Journal's request for comment.
Field received her high school diploma in 2005, but wasn't until she visited the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago in 2013 that she realized just how much her homeschool education "failed" her. In reading exhibit placards, she quickly discovered that information leaving her husband "unfazed" was entirely new to her.
Field has spent her entire adult life compensating for what her childhood education lacked, she said, reteaching herself by reading history books and going to museums.
"The way homeschooling law currently stands, there's no protections in place for children. There's no system in place to make sure children are receiving an adequate educations, that they're not going to grow up to be dependent on, you know, state welfare," she said. "A lot of the people I know ended up on state welfare, ended up in jail ... there's no process to prevent these outcomes, and there really needs to be, and right now, with the growth of homeschooling, it's a great time to have this conversation about a student's right to education."
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Florida homeschool law 'fails' some; others thrive
