Home is where the smart is

From the time children are very little until the day they are hurried off to kindergarten, right up to when they are ushered down the aisle at high school graduation and even beyond, parents teach their kids.

The first lessons, as well as the second and third, are learned at home. But for some kids, these lessons go way beyond tying shoes or brushing teeth.

Some students, like 14-year-old Benjamin Record, learn fractions and grammar in an environment they know well: home.

Home schooling wasn't a difficult choice for the Record family. It was important to Benjamin's mom, Michelle Record, 44, that she and her husband, Marvin Record, 45, stay as involved as possible in their six kids' lives, including their education.

"Faith, family and formation," she says, are their parenting goals.

When their oldest kids attended Saint Joseph-Marquette School, the Record parents served on school committees. Still, they didn't feel like they were directly aiding their children's Heducation. In fact, they felt like they were spending even less time with their kids.

So, after a couple of years in the Yakima Catholic school, they decided to start home schooling. It was a bit overwhelming at first, Michelle Record says -- "But once I saw how well they were progressing, it was great."

And now?

"We really love it."

Home schooling is not a simple undertaking, especially for the adults involved.

To become a home-based educator, one of the following requirements must be met, according to the Washington Homeschool Organization, or WHO, a nonprofit membership organization whose mission is to serve the interests of home-based education in this state:

* The student is supervised by a certified teacher with an average minimum contact of one hour per week.

* The parent has earned 45 college-level quarter credit hours or the equivalent in semester hours.

* The parent has completed a parent-qualifying course in home-based instruction at a post-secondary institution or a vocational-technical institute.

* The parent has been deemed qualified by the superintendent of the district in which the student lives.

Once they are teaching their children, according to WHO, parents are required to test them annually, using a standardized test approved by the state board of education or a certified person working in education to do an assessment of the student's progress.

In some cases, the student's capacity for learning surpasses that of the parent.

"As I got higher up in the math, I had to teach myself," says 16-year-old Nate Lynch.

His mom, Shirley Lynch, 46, has home-schooled her kids since they were school-aged, and says she would have made no other choice.

She says she based her decision to home school on her dissatisfaction with Seattle-area public schools when her family lived there several years ago. With an English degree, she says she felt she could do "just as good, if not better."

Once she and her family moved, though, she says she just couldn't stop: "By then, it was a habit, and I liked it a lot. I liked being with my kids, and I liked the results."

Teaching her kids became her full-time job. Now, her son Nate is part of the Running Start program at Yakima Valley Community College. Through this program, teens can complete graduation requirements for high school while receiving college credit. Before participating in the program, Nate had been home-schooled since first grade.

"For the most part, I enjoyed being home-schooled," he says, adding the environment was relaxed and made for more one-on-one time.

Another YVCC Running Start student, 17-year-old Hannah Sharp, says she would choose home schooling over public school.

"In public school, there are all the people and all the stress," she says, adding that home schooling is not necessarily for everyone. "It's a great option, but one you need to be passionate about. "

Many home-schooling parents find home schooling seems to help build their kids' communication skills.

"Generally, people who home school their kids notice that they can interact with people better," says Emilie Fogle, 54, a WHO member and home-schooling advocate.

Home schooling is on the rise. There are about 1.3 million home-schooled students in the United States, compared to about 1.1 million five years ago and 850,000 in 1999.

Fogle says it's because people and the media are spreading the word. Through magazines, Web sites, billboards and word of mouth, people are growing to like the idea of keeping close to their kids and their kids' education.

"What better tutor than the mom?" Shirley Lynch says.

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