Ingredients

I'm going to end up seeing everything with network/community glasses now, but I think there is enough good information for it to be beneficial.

Thus far the homeschool groups I have belonged to:

A Girl Scout troop was really at the center of this group. Everyone had different beliefs and few belonged to any organized religion and the average family size (excluding me) had 2 children. However, almost all of us were unschoolers or were close to it. The friends I had within that group supported me as I figured out the best schooling for my family (I started with the group the 1st year of homeschooling). When the Girl Scout part of the group fell apart, everyone pretty much ended up going their own way. I do miss some of the people and I see others in other groups, but our purpose together as a group really is done.

Then I joined a large secular metro group I've never done a whole lot with. They have an annual conference and curriculum sale (which I've never attended), and I've gotten ideas from them on various curriculum, advice, etc. I've gone on a few field trips because of someone hosting or just because it sounded interesting. It really does feel like a network though. There aren't any personal connections and you might find a good close friend out of the 200 or so families that belong, but it doesn't feel like that is the purpose of the group.

After a while, someone had the brilliant idea of creating a support group specifically to serve people living in a small geographic area. I thought this was great and jumped in right away. I watched as they discussed, debated and drew up plans for what their group would be. Fresh from my Youth Ministry work, I offered ideas and tried to keep them focussed on serving the community of homeschoolers and not an elite few. To say my ideas were met with resistance would be a bit of an understatement. We had I think 10 volunteers on a "board" working to figure out what the group would offer, and I think I was the only one who talked to actual homeschoolers in the community who were interested in the group. I had 4 members of the board as well as myself who felt strongly that anything being offered needed to allow for those who were not interested in classes (a school outreach program that allowed homeschoolers to take several classes a week had recently been cancelled and half of the board ended up being parents who missed that program and were facing their 1st year as real homeschoolers), and there should not be any religious doctrine as part of the group (if someone wanted to have a religious class that was up to them, but as a whole it would turn people off to spout bible quotes every 2 sentences within the purpose of the group). There was even 1 or 2 people who were relatively neutral on the topics, but 2 of the remaining 3 were technically the leadership of the group. While debating the value of offering a free or pay per event option (which they strongly opposed because insurance costs were so high and they felt everyone should contribute whether taking classes or not) as well as arguing for a per family instead of a per child charge (to which the leader's 2nd also her sister-in-law replied that she shouldn't have to "subsidize" larger families who are using a larger portion of the resources), I tried to get a firm answer on the board's power. I wanted the board to be able to vote to make decisions, but the leadership kept putting off my concerns. Then at the next get-together, the board was informed that we were officially set up as a non-profit with the leader having sole ownership and control of the group. The board was essentially a group of volunteers with no power. Of course it was not stated that way, we were told that all our concerns would be taken into account, but the leader would make the final decision. At that point I was frustrated enough to step down as did 2 others who shared my views. I followed the group a bit, and watched as they struggled first with having enough people to be able to pay for expenses, raised their rates and changed class structure (so that you had to have your child in 3 classes at a time and you didn't get to choose what they were) to look more and more like school. Then they had trouble finding space. It turns out that if you are a private school and/or charter and can pay more for the space, you get it - even though as the leader pointed out she was a member of the church and had helped raise the funds to build the classrooms. Oh well. Once they lost their space and had few people re-enrolling the leader felt "called" to a job opening and left the group. The really sad thing is many of those families who were interested in the classes ended up putting their kids back in public school. I don't think there are many left officially part of that group anymore, though occasional field trips are announced.

Once I left the above group, I decided to start another group that would definitely qualify as a network. It was much like the large metro group, but just for my side of town. We announce various things, go together for field trips, have park days (and a game and craft group during winter), ask advice, etc.

I'm sure there are other groups here and there that I missed, but those are the big ones that felt very network like. They were impersonal, and had a single purpose and once the purpose was no longer my focus, all those people fell out of my life.


I believe what HR has is different in several ways. For one it is a Catholic group, just by being Catholic and homeschooling we have a whole lifestyle that doesn't fit with any other group the same way. The biggest "problem" we are having now is people who are not homeschooling anymore or who will never homeschool, but are a big part of the parish, want to be part of the homeschool group because we really are like an extended family. My training has me going back to the network-style set up where we enforce the policy and set rules based upon what is best for the "group" not necessarily the people within the group. I am wondering now if maybe there is a better way to go.

If the personal connections and support of ones convictions are what make HR different from the other homeschool groups, then there needs to be a way to support that. We will still set and enforce policy, but we have to keep that support at the center of everything.

It makes me lean more towards having an umbrella group that covers the whole metro area (so people can still have field trips, the newsletter, support meetings, a curriculum fair, etc) and smaller "satellite" groups where people can build those personal connections at a local level. The salellites will set their own rules for membership, so a parish can support the group however it wants. The important thing being that homeschoolers can offer and find the support they need on a personal level.

There is still a lot to work out, but it looks like the skeleton of this idea will work.