more homeschooling in BC

Here's a short UPDATE to yesterday's post.

After meeting with some other homeschool moms last night, I realized that I missed one of the reasons that parents would choose to enroll their children rather than register: funding. If you enroll your child, the government gives you $1000 per year to spend on "school" stuff like curriculum, ballet lessons, art classes, drama lessons, karate, etc, etc. If you register your child, you only get $150.

At the meeting of moms that I attended, a very well meaning mom tried to explain to me that it would be much better to enroll so we could get that extra $850. She told me that there are some online schools that we could enroll with that are very lenient, and would basically let us do whatever we want. Of course, we would still have to submit reports every week to a certified teacher so she could make sure my kids were learning what the government wanted them to learn. Hmmm...

An extra $850 sure sounds nice, but is it worth the freedom that we would have to give up? I mean, isn't freedom the whole reason we decided to home educate in the first place? Am I willing to sell out for $850? Do my kids really need to take all the fancy lessons and classes that this $850 could buy? Wouldn't they have just as much fun (and learn just as much) exploring the forest behind our home, or playing on the playground, or attending programs at the library, or having playdates with other homeschool kids, or going on hikes, or playing pretend, or visiting a farm, or mountain biking, or doing any number of things that are available to us out there in the real world?

So, thank you, Ministry of Education, for the generous offer. But I think I'll pass.