Postcards from the Rogue Valley

On sunny school days, I often see the eight-year-old boy who lives near us running across the meadow we share, his long blond hair flowing as he aims his slingshot, sometimes at trees, sometimes at the deer or turkeys who graze in the meadow. 

I asked my neighbor if he knew anything about the boy with the flowing hair and he said, “I hear he’s unschooled, whatever that means.”

I’m told that when it’s a “bluebird” day at nearby Mt. Ashland —a clear day after a storm when the sun is bright, the sky is blue, the air is still and the slopes glisten with clean, fluffy snow — students who ski head to the mountain instead of the classroom, with their parent’s blessing.

In our post COVID world, I read that a sniff or cough often wins a kiddo a reprieve from school. The early morning stomach aches of yore rarely had such power.

Whatever ground my educator colleagues and I gained over fifty years of trying to create school kids wantedto attend (and whose parents supported) seems to be shrinking like Alpine glaciers.

Absences almost everywhere

“What was once a deeply ingrained habit — wake up, catch the bus, report to class — is now something far more tenuous,” a recent New York Times article with the headline “Why School Absences Have ‘Exploded’ Almost Everywhere” tells us.

“The rise of student absenteeism is a canary in the coal mine,” a national school expert recently warned. 

“Some days my classroom is barely half full,” a high school teacher in Detroit told a local reporter.

The current absenteeism numbers in America’s public schools are shocking, with much of the unprecedented rise laid at the doorstep of COVID and the assumption that students got out of the habit of going to school when classrooms shuttered. 

Before the pandemic, roughly 15 percent of public school students nationwide were considered chronically absent, missing 10 percent or more of school days, according to the conservative-learning American Enterprise Institute. Last school year, 26 percent of public school students were chronically absent, almost double the pre-COVID rate. 

In Oregon, where regular school attendance has always lagged other states, a stunning 38 percent of Oregon students missed at least three weeks of school in 2022-2023. What makes the Oregon figures stand out even more is that in other states nationwide, the 2022-2023 absenteeism rates post COVID had fallen, albeit slightly. Oregon was the only state where absenteeism continued to rise. (Oregon Live)

Addressing parents, an Oregon school administer put it plainly in a recent interview on our local NPR station: “It is very important for students to be in school as much as possible. If they don’t show up, they can’t learn.”

A parent also interviewed as part of the broadcast countered, “If my child doesn’t show up, would people even miss the fact that he’s not there?”

The rise of homeschooling

Long before COVID, with its interrupted schooling and remote learning (a poor second to in-person learning, we discovered), the ties that bound students to school had already begun to fray.

Debuting in the 1970s among Christian parents dissatisfied with the secular public school system, homeschooling has been part of this dismantling. Over time, it has diversified to include parents from Upper Manhattan to Eastern Kentucky, rich and poor, White and Black. 

Homeschooling has reportedly become America’s fastest growing form of education by a wide margin, reports the Washington Post. The boost it received from the pandemic has only increased.

Why homeschool?

In a 2019 national survey, more than two-thirds of homeschooled students had parents who selected one or more of the following as a reason for homeschooling: a concern about school environment, such as safety, drugs, negative peer pressure, and gender  identity (80 percent); a desire to provide moral instruction (75 percent); emphasis on family life together (75 percent); and a dissatisfaction with the academic instruction in today’s schools (73 percent). 

What is homeschooling? 

“If we think that work, post pandemic, has become hybrid, homeschooling is hybrid on steroids,” an education colleague in Portland told me. 

Home schooling includes not just parents teaching their own children in their own homes. Cooperative arrangements called “microschools” are cropping up. Local nonprofits, from art centers to science museums, offer special opportunities for home schoolers in their area. Online learning is often part of the mix. Parents coordinate activities through Facebook.

“Unschooling” is also on the rise. The unifying characteristic of unschooling is that children are allowed to direct their own learning through natural life experiences like play, household responsibilities, personal interests, books of their choosing, travel.  It is estimated that unschoolers make up to 20 percent of the country’s more than 3.5 million homeschooled students.

In this diverse landscape, three things are consistent: there are few regulations; some children lose ground while others thrive; parents are passionate, despite the challenges.

Homeschooling is legal in all 50 states. Parents must simply tell local education officials of their intent. Some sort of annual assessment or periodic testing is required in 24 states, but it is reportedly rarely enforced and few parents comply (Responsible Home Schooling). The baseline for test scores is low: generally above the 13^th percentile. Eleven states require parents to meet certain educational requirements, like having a high school diploma, to homeschool their children.

Homeschooling in Southern Oregon

Nowhere in the nation may homeschooling be more popular than in Southern Oregon — perhaps a complement to the low school attendance rate here. (“It goes along with the libertarian spirit,” one teacher told me.) 

The rules are simple: parents are required to notify their local “Education Service District” of their intent to homeschool (either electronically or through paper mail) within 10 days of withdrawing their child from school or from the start of the school year. They are asked to have their child(ren) tested at the end of grade levels 3, 5, 8, and 10, but this is not enforced.

By the Ashland School District’s estimate, one in ten public school children in the city — roughly 250 out of 2,400 — are homeschooled or, in the case of our neighbor, unschooled.

To learn more, I reached out to players who are part of the Southern Oregon homeschooling community, beginning with the state’s largest charter school, Logos in nearby Medford, which enrolls more than a 1,000 students, grades K – 12, in a combination of online and onsite learning. Students in the grades 10 – 12 “Scholars Academy” can attend courses and earn dual credit at Rogue Community College and Southern Oregon University. 

I contacted the area’s largest Christian homeschool community; a “collective” that operates as a small school but without certification; and an alternative program, a mile from my house, that is part of the Ashland public schools and offers special classes to homeschool students several afternoons a week. I posted queries on Face Book sites for homeschooler families. 

The director of Willow Wind Community Learning Center, the well-regarded alternative program near me, welcomed a visit. The director of the Arrows Christian Academy, 20 miles to my north, said I could join an orientation meeting for parents interested in the academy. My other efforts to connect never bore fruit.

I used to write about the dangers of parachuting into schools or programs and drawing conclusions. Here, though, are two snapshots.

“Bringing glory to God in all that we do”

As I headed to the parent orientation at Arrows Christian Academy, I discovered that it had no listed address. The person who answered my call for help directed me to a large, barely marked church in a residential neighborhood in Central Point (pop. 18,000), a hub for agriculture processing bordering Medford, the biggest city in Southern Oregon.

“Our vision at Arrows is to partner with parents in the education of their children through a biblical worldview,” the academy’s director, Hilary Cooper, began her remarks. “It is our belief that parents are charged by God with the firsthand training and raising of their children.”

The young father next to me whispered “Amen.” Later, he leaned over and asked me, “Is it hard to homeschool grandchildren?”

“We are not a certified school but an organization, a community, flying under the radar screen,” Hillary explained. She summarized the schedule:

Two days a week, parents are their children’s teacher, as it should be. Two days a week, students join us for classes that stretch from reading and writing to ‘Countries and Cultures’ and ‘Rome to Reformation.’ We offer art, music, and PE too. The fifth day is a day off.  Parents who want my bring their children to a co-op, managed by other parents.

Math instruction, Hillary added, ended at third grade when “students’ abilities diverge” and parents take over entirely. Field trips supplement instruction. The week of my visit, older students would explore Medford’s wastewater treatment plan. 

Arrows teachers are considered “part-time educators, gifted by God” and “filled with love.” Parents pay to have their children enrolled. 

“Are there any books required?” a young mom holding a baby asked. 

“We draw from a standard Christian curriculum,” Hillary explained. Arrows sells books to parents at cost. Reportedly half of the students also participate in an online “classical Christian school.”

As we headed out to peek in classrooms (whose doors were locked for safety), a line of 20 first and second graders passed by, on their way to a communal bathroom break. 

Glances through the small window in classroom doors revealed first-graders gluing colorful buttons to white paper plates, eighth graders receiving tips on sentence structure, fifth graders watching a video on world culture, fourth graders practicing karate with determination, and more. 

Talking to Hillary after the orientation ended, I learned that 97 percent of the 160 or more  pre-K through eighth grade students typically re-enroll, and there is a waiting list. Ninth-graders generally graduate to all online instruction.

My requests afterwards to sit in on a class or speak with a few parents were met with silence. I did, though, have a chance to talk briefly with one of the parents at the orientation. “I want a Christian education for my six-year-old, but I can’t do it alone,” she told me. “I want my son to learn how to get along with other kids. I want him to learn the facts I can’t provide as someone who doesn’t have a college degree.” 

When I bumped into her later, she said, “Did I tell you I have two younger kids who need my attention, too?”

Asking questions and taking risks

“I want the wolf face and the owl to blend but I want each to stand out, too,” fifth grader Becca, dressed in black and white just like her masks, explained to Sarah Lowenberg, the mixed media teacher at Willow Wind. For several weeks, she had combined wood, cardboard, strings, and paint to create her two-headed mask. 

“How does this look?” she asked.

“It looks awesome,” Sarah replied.

Across from her, two brothers concentrated on adding wood shavings to their large, brightly colored African masks. I asked Akil how it was going. “I think he looks like a leader,” he said.

At a second large table, three groups of siblings — three sisters, two sisters and a brother, and a brother and sister — were beginning a new assignment: creating Indigenous style dot paintings. First they covered their canvasses with a layer of paint and set them in the sun to dry (the classroom doors were wide open to the outdoors). Meanwhile, they sketched their ideas for what they would paint. Then they began placing small dots on their dry canvasses — using a pencil eraser, a que tip, a tiny brush, whatever occurred to them, all dipped in paint — bringing them to life. 

The youngest student in the group seemed stumped. “How can I help?” Sarah Lowenberg asked, and proceeded to show him examples of African dot paintings on her cellphone until one caught his eye.

Willow Wind began as part of the Ashland School District in 1999. In the early years, all of the students attending were enrolled as homeschool students. The addition of the full time program came in 2005, and now the majority of the students are full time students of ASD. Homeschool students join extracurricular classes two days a week.

Willow Wind’s mission remains the same: providing a strong academic foundation while helping students develop a sense of self, membership in the community, and a commitment to making the world a better place. 

“We encourage students to ask questions, take risks, and develop a genuine love of learning,” explains Debra Schaeffer-Pew, the school’s principal for twenty-five  years. “We prize student choice and responsibility.”

What stands out most by all accounts, though, is high student engagement.

“They’re interested in their classes because they chose the classes themselves.”

While other schools in Ashland face declining enrollments, Willow Wind, with its approximately 190 students, has a waiting list.

Debra circulated, on my behalf, a brief questionnaire asking homeschooling parents about their choice and the benefits and challenges of their experience.

Sara Rose, the parent of a nine- and an eight-year-old, has always homeschooled, “before it became a go-to during the pandemic.” “I am a big proponent of child-led education, play, and social justice,” she said. 

Three days a week, she and her children “hit the 3 R’s, combined with art-driven projects, science, and reading books together that speak to critical social issues, like racism.” They were in the middle of reading The Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (For Young People) by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and New York Time’s bestselling Stamped (For Kids).

At the same time, Sara puts a huge stock in play and what it can teach. She started a homeschool group “united around outdoor play, year-round, rain or shine.”

For her children, Willow Wind allows them to pick and join elective classes, “putting them in charge.”

Emily Graff, a parent of four children, ages 13 to 6, has homeschooled her children since birth.

“Simply put,” she wrote me, “homeschooling keeps children children longer. It gives them the space to play, be outdoors, imagine, create, and pursue individual passions just because they have the time to do so. There is no ahead or behind, there is no track.”

What’s been most satisfying?

“Aside from enjoying watching my children pursue their passions, and experience their ‘light bulb moments’ alongside them, I would say that the friendship piece has been the most satisfying. Homeschoolers are not bound bytraditional classroom age separation rules, and I’ve always believed that there is tremendous value in having older children mixed with younger in learning settings and everyday life.”

What’s been challenging?

“The most challenging aspect has been finding other homeschoolers to be in community with, as there is no one designated meeting place like you get with public school. You have to hunt for others who are doing what you’re doing. … Throughout our ten years of homeschooling, I’ve searched for part-time school opportunities. Willow Wind has been the perfect answer to this for us.”

(See Emily’s full remarks.)

The schools we deserve

Thirty years ago, I wrote an opinion piece for the Providence Journal that was read aloud on the floor of the US Senate. I wrote about how strong student-teacher relationships are at the heart of schools where students thrive and parents are welcomed, about the importance of nourishing curiosity and connecting learning to the real world, about celebrating differences along with equity, about holding high standards while helping each student do their best. Not enough schools, then or now, exhibited these strengths.

When it comes to homeschooling, I find myself at a crossroads. I salute the parents who provide their children a robust education, one that kindles inquiry, that prizes democracy, that speaks of social good. I appreciate the hard work this requires.

However, I worry about the children whose parents’ homeschooling choices — and the “system” — leave them, behind, sometimes painfully, often academically and socially.

As for absenteeism, the best offense is to rebuild public schools we deserve — and provide schools the funding they deserve.

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