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Resources available to Lake Zurich’s home-schooled students
Many local home-schooled children spend one day per week studying and learning in a group environment at the Village Church of Barrington. | Joe Cyganowski~ For Sun Times Media
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Updated: October 14, 2012 1:12PM
LAKE ZURICH — While most children in Lake Zurich packed their book bags and returned to their local elementary and high schools in late August, some students stayed at home — and that is OK.
Parents wishing to home school their children may find Illinois to be a friendly place.
While some states require parents to provide authorities with test results or use a state-approved curriculum, Illinois leaves parents alone to decide what to teach, when to teach it — or whether to let the child’s curiosity lead the way, a philosophy known as “unschooling.”
The parent also is free to decide when a high-school-aged student has met the requirements for a diploma.
Under the state’s compulsory-attendance law parents may be asked to provide evidence that the child is being taught the same subjects as would be taught to public school children of the same age.
Technically, a parent who isn’t offering age-appropriate instruction in the English language in six specific disciplines is in violation of the law.
The required “branches” of education are language arts, math, biology and physical science, social science, fine arts and physical development and health.
Parents can obtain support for curriculum development from places both locally and remotely.
Lake Zurich Community Unit School District 95 offers home-schooled and private-schooled children special education services if they meet certain eligibility requirements.
“We do not have much involvement with students that are home schooled,” said Jean Malek, director of communications and community relations for District 95. “However, we do have a few students who are home schooled that also come to us for one or two courses.”
Lake Zurich resident Ruth Cassel Hoffman, who helps run a Spanish-language program for home-schooled children, reported that enrollment in H.E.A.R.T (Homeschool Enrichment Achieved Respectfully Together) has grown every year.
The local H.E.A.R.T program offers a weekly enrichment program for home-schooled kids in kindergarten through eighth grade. Subjects include language, physical education and art classes for one day a week to supplement the students’ home education. Children take the classes at the Village Church of Barrington.
Hoffman explained that there are several common reasons parents decide to teach their children at home, ranging from allergies, behavioral problems to religious values. The H.E.A.R.T program currently enrolls more than 40 local children.
“This is to round out their home schooling,” explained Jennifer Burns, who founded the H.E.A.R.T program nine years.
She added that the program also is good for children on a social level.
“The kids enjoy being with each other,” Burns said. “As home schoolers, we’re not trying to sequester our children.”
Burns, who runs another academic weekly program for third- through 12th-graders, said there are about 100 students enrolled between her two programs. Although many of her students come from the immediate area, others come from as far away as Chicago.
Burns said the H.E.A.R.T program, which runs the course of a regular school day, also provides parents a good break.
“Home schooling is demanding,” said Burns, who home schools her children. “You have to be the parent, teacher and principal.”
Despite the demands of the job, she added that home schooling also is very rewarding.
Other home schooling institutions like American School provide “curriculum in a box” for high schoolers unable to attend school for a myriad of reasons — illness, location, dissatisfaction with local school options, and so forth.
Founded more than a century ago and now headquartered in Lansing, Ill., American School issues an accredited high-school diploma to about 3,000 students a year across the world, spokesman Jeff Cox said.
“Students really like the ability to work at their own pace,” he said. “They’re not going to be slowed down by a traditional classroom.”
Cox said Illinois is home to many of the institution’s pupils but was unable to provide an exact figure.
How prevalent is home schooling in the suburbs?
The state’s hands-off stance makes it impossible to keep good statistics.
Parents aren’t required to register their schools, which the state views as private schools by virtue of a 1950 ruling by the Illinois Supreme Court.
While a voluntary form on the website states “please remember to register every September,” it also points out the exercise is voluntary.
According to the State Board of Education, only 684 home schools representing 810 children registered for the 2011-12 school year. Of the few parents that registered, 185 were from Cook County, while another 27 were from Lake County and 14 from McHenry County.
--Natasha Wasinski and Karen Berkowitz contributed to this report. ~.
