An advisory group concerned with educating people about the need to eliminate government involvement in education and the rights of parents to educate their own children. On this site, you will find a public proclamation for the separation of school and state, which you can sign.

List intended to distribute the Virginia Home Education Association's free biweekly updates, in order to disseminate legislative and other time sensitive information. This list is announcement only. VHEA's Legislative Reports report on legislative matters that could affect homeschooling, offering information on pending legislation.

This list is created to be a means of informing, documenting and evaluating available information concerning the impact of virtual/charter schools on the homeschooling community. This information consists of and is not limited to news items, articles from various sources, legislative information (bills, law changes), documented efforts and experiences and other information that may give weight to whether home-based charter schools or virtual schools are having an impact in any negative way on homeschooling.

Some veteran home educators seem to take a firm stand on principles that others don't even recognize as issues. Is it that they are just stubborn, rebellious, or cantankerous? Probably not.

Virginia offers a unique option to families who have religious objections to complying with the compulsory attendance statutes: the religious exemption. Explore the history of this exemption and consider the possibility of it being under threat today.

For some years, the Social Security Administration has permitted home schoolers to receive benefits in some cases. The agency used a fuzzy test involving several different factors. New documents from the Social Security Administration indicate that the agency has a much better defined policy in place now.

Families homeschooling for the first time inevitably have questions about legal challenges or threats that they might face from local or state education authorities. Those who do seek an answer to these questions are often faced with a confusing array of laws, policies, and regulations that not only vary from state to state, but also between school districts, and school officials within the same state or district.

Do the public school authorities feel threatened by homeschooling? Judging by their efforts to lure homeschooling families into dependence on local school districts, the answer is apparently yes.

Recent news stories have highlighted several isolated cases of child abuse and presented them as indicative of problems in the homeschooling community, because they happened within families who claimed to be educating their children at home. Some of these reports have suggested that federal or state regulations requiring background checks and monitoring of homeschooling families would minimize such cases of child abuse. However, there is no need for intrusive regulation of the homeschooling community. Child abuse is a societal issue that occurs in all education settings.

Do the public school authorities feel threatened by homeschooling? Judging by their efforts to lure homeschooling families into dependence on local school districts, the answer is apparently yes. For the last several years, homeschooling has been the fastest growing educational alternative in the country. The sheer number of homeschoolers represent a distinct threat to the hegemony of the government school monopoly. Qualitatively, the academic success of homeschoolers, measured by standardized test scores and recruitment by colleges, debunk the myth that parents need to hire credentialed experts to force children to learn.

Most books and articles on home education are quick to point out that homeschooling is legal--in one form or another-- in all fifty states. Parents might have to jump through more hoops in one state than in another, but, as long as they're willing to jump through those hoops, they are allowed to teach their own children at home. But are these hoops actually necessary?

Explains how some homeschoolers have empowered themselves and effectively handled requests for tables of contents of books or other items that are beyond the legal requirement in Virginia.

Before supporting a home education tax credit, we homeschoolers need to fully understand the legislation and its potential to benefit or harm us.

Transcript of a talk given by Edwin Schuster of the Virginia Child Protective Services about the relationship between homeschoolers and CPS. The text is presented in question and answer format. Includes the rights that families have when contacted by CPS.

Twenty years ago, home education was treated as a crime in almost every state. Today, it is legal all across America, despite strong and continued opposition from many within the educational establishment. How did this happen? This paper traces the legal and sociological history of the modern home school movement, and then suggests factors that led to this movement's remarkable success.

Will Shaw answers the question, "What happens if the local school division rejects the test, results of the test, or the portfolio?"

As their ranks increase, homeschoolers are tapping public schools for curriculum, part-time classes, extracurricular services, and online learning.

The greatest obstacle pioneering homeschoolers faced two decades ago was daunting: in most states home education wasn't legal. This article details five of the most significant cases that have become landmark decisions in the move towards homeschooling freedoms: the DeJonge case in Michigan, the Jeffery case in Pennsylvania, the Diegel case in Ohio, the Triple E case in South Carolina, and the Calabretta case in California.

While many parents may not have the opportunity to influence legislation regarding home education on the state level, there are ways to be involved on a local level.

Imagine this situation: You are happily homeschooling your children. Your sister-in-law has said many times that she would love to be able to homeschool her children too, if only she and her husband didn’t have to work full-time. She wonders if perhaps you wouldn’t mind including her children in your family’s homeschooling. She would file the Notice of Intent with the local superintendent, but you would do the actual instruction in your home. You tell her you’d be happy to—the more the merrier! But—is it legal? Can you, under Virginia state law, homeschool a child who is not your own?

With a little support and encouragement from each other, homeschoolers can effectively respond to superintendents’ offices that overstep their bounds.