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Is Your Home School Support        Group Meeting the Needs of High School Students?

Becky Preble

Texas Home School Coalition Leaders' Guide  © 2003 

How many high school students are involved in activities with your local home school support group?  Think about your last field trip. Were there mostly toddlers and elementary-age students in attendance?  Field trips to the library, bakery, zoo and dairy farm are great for the younger set but have probably outlived their effectiveness for the junior-high- and high-school-age students.  By the time my eldest daughter was in sixth  grade, she could almost give the tour at the dairy farm and petting zoo that our support group had visited for three years in a row.  While she loved all the animals, I could see that it was time to start thinking about other types of activities that would be more age appropriate to the growing number of junior high school students in our group.

Consider This First

Before I share a few ways that our support group responded to meet the needs of the junior high and high school students, I feel that I must be candid in relating that turning your support group into a community that ministers to older students can be fraught with problems.  If you are currently part of a support group made up primarily of toddlers and elementary-age students, I encourage you to pray about whether or not the parents in your group want to or should try to build a program that offers activities geared to older students. This needs to be discussed openly among the entire support group.

When your children are younger, it is so easy to determine the guidelines for activities because you are probably in a support group of like-minded people. You are all likely to agree that field trips to the museum, holiday parties, and park days are good activities for your family to participate in. The children play, the mothers have a chance to visit and receive encouragement from other home schoolers, and all is good.  However, as your children mature, you will find that topics of conversation will change.  Once, you were discussing which phonics program is best and how to homeschool with toddlers underfoot.  Suddenly, your children reach the pre-teen years, and you are discussing subjects like courtship vs. dating, college vs. apprenticeship, and many more issues that you never considered before.   As you can imagine, the opportunity for disagreement increases significantly.

For example, those families committed to courtship may disapprove of parties and dances encouraging interaction between the young men and women. When their children were younger, co-ed parties were not viewed with the same amount of concern. Also, families opposed to sending their children to college may not want the support group to offer college prep classes to the high school students. These same families probably enjoyed participating in sewing classes, science classes, and the like when their children were elementary aged, but have determined that college prep courses are not in line with their current goals.  On the other side of these issues are those parents who see nothing wrong with parent-supervised co-ed parties and who are planning to send their children to college. They may welcome the support group activities as in line with their goals.  Families on both sides of the issues are trying to raise godly children but may disagree on the methods by which this is best accomplished. As Nancy Wilson so aptly described in her book The Fruit of Her Hands, people may agree in principle but disagree in methodology.  So without consensus on the methods for setting guidelines for the teenagers’ activities, your support group could end up in conflict.  This is why I recommend that you prayerfully consider whether or not your support group should undertake the development of a program designed for junior high and high school students.

Two Possible Methods for Developing Group Guidelines

Basically, I think there are two ways to help reduce potential conflict should your support group decide to offer activities for the older students.  As with any suggestions, these are certainly not foolproof, and I would never presume that they would remove all potential for conflict.  These are just tips gleaned from my eight-plus years experience in home school leadership. In both suggestions, I am assuming that the high school activities will fall under the larger umbrella of the home school support group. I personally would not recommend that you set up a totally separate group from your current home school support group because the older students and their parents could become too disconnected from the families with younger children.  Those mothers with younger children need to have access to the mothers with years of home schooling experience under their belts. Also, many families have children ranging in age from infant through high school, and it would not be practical for them to belong to two separate support groups.

Method #1

One method for setting up a high school program is to have guidelines for all activities clearly defined from the beginning.  The support group leaders are responsible for determining the guidelines for the group, and such guidelines may be changed only by the support group leaders. The leaders may choose to outline a code of conduct including things like dress code and rules of behavior. The support group leaders also determine what type of activities can and cannot be offered to the group at large. The guidelines are usually written down and communicated to the group through some sort of handbook. This method provides clear definition to the group and may work well for larger support groups. 

Method #2

Another way of determining the operating guidelines for a high school program is a method that is currently in place in my home school support group.  While the group has bylaws that outline our group’s purpose and intent, the board of directors is not responsible for providing activities for the group nor do we set up rules of conduct and behavior for the support group at large.  Instead, any family within the support group may offer an activity or program to the rest of the group.  This family then sets all the rules and behavior guidelines for that specific event.

We feel that the family who has taken the initiative and responsibility for the event should be able to set up the event as they see fit.  This means that certain rules and guidelines may apply for one event but not another.  For example, one family may offer a field trip to the city government offices and feel that it would be appropriate for the young ladies to wear dresses and the young men to wear ties.  They would then communicate this dress code guideline to the group through our monthly newsletter.  The group members who want to go on this field trip are required to dress as such or simply not attend. Another family may offer a field trip to the zoo and not feel that it is necessary to set a dress code for such an event.

Another example would  be that one family might offer to host a dance.  Those families in the support group who do not approve of dancing will choose not to attend. By having the sponsoring families set the guidelines for all events and programs, it allows for flexibility within the group.  It also provides a wide variety of activities for families from which to pick and choose.  This method can work well for smaller groups but can be frustrating to those families who want specific and unchanging guidelines

Regardless of whether you decide to follow method #1 or #2, or even create a new method, make sure that your philosophy is communicated to the entire support group.  You need to decide up front whether the support group leaders or individual families will determine the types of activities that will be offered.  You must also be clear about whether the support group leaders or the individual families will determine the guidelines and code of conduct for activities and events.

Why We Started a High School Program

With that basic organizational groundwork laid, I would like to share with you why our support group decided to start offering activities for the older students. I must admit that when my children were toddlers and in elementary school I did not give much thought to how I would homeschool through high school.  I had enough to do just maintaining the routines of life and teaching phonics.

However, when my eldest daughter reached sixth  grade, I began to wonder about home schooling through junior high and high school.  Ever the investigator, I decided to interview some of the mothers with older children.  I wanted to know all about their experiences of home schooling through high school.  With the exception of a very few families, I was surprised to learn that most of the mothers of the older children had already put their children into the local junior high or were planning to start them in the high school. The most commonly cited reason for this decision was that they did not feel qualified to teach courses like chemistry, calculus, physics, etc. The next most quoted reason for putting their children into high school was that they felt our support group did not offer any activities that were age appropriate for these students.

As I talked with some of the other mothers who had students approaching the junior high years, we decided that we did not want to feel like we had to put our children into school in order to get certain classes.  We also wanted our children to participate in a variety of activities with other home schooled teenagers. We realized that in order to develop a program that would be ready by the time our students were in high school we needed to get started right away. 

How We Got Started

One of the first things we did was to offer a biology class for the 7^th through 12^th grade students.  We prayed for a teacher, and the Lord blessed our group with a Christian gentleman who was involved in research at the University of Texas Medical School in San Antonio.  We decided to offer biology because that is what the majority of the parents wanted. We also offered a Latin class that first year.  The classes met on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and one of the local churches allowed us to use their classrooms.  The fee for the classes was $10 per student, per week, per class.  The course fees were paid directly to the teachers.

As home schoolers in the surrounding area heard about the classes, they begin to call to sign up for one or both of them.  That first year we had almost 20 students in the biology class. Each year after that the school grew in class size and in the number of courses offered.  Some of the courses offered through the years have included microbiology, chemistry, physics, constitutional government, biblical worldviews, English composition, algebra, and calculus.  This year we are offering a PSAT/SAT math prep course and a college prep writing class.  The class offerings change from year to year depending on the needs of the students.

Other Activities

            While the classes provided an opportunity for the students to get together on a weekly basis, some of the mothers in our support group decided that we needed to develop other activities specifically geared for the junior-high- and high-school-age group.  One family volunteered to host a formal Christmas dinner; other families offered to hold youth nights centered around a devotional and followed by games or eating and visiting. We also have a junior/senior night where the students dress in formal attire, rent a limousine, and ride in style to a nice restaurant for dinner.  After dinner they attend a play or other activity of their choosing.

           Another favorite activity among all ages of students in the support group has been our drama classes.  The older students, particularly, look forward every year to participating in a play since the lead parts are usually reserved for them. Students who do not want to act can participate in making costumes, designing the program, or helping paint sets. The play is usually held at the local public school auditorium. Yet another activity that the high school young ladies participated in recently was a service project at our local crisis pregnancy care center.  They raised money and hosted a baby shower for a local family that was expecting a new baby and was going through a difficult time financially.

 Start Small

These are only a few of the ways that our support group has found to offer activities for the older students. As you can guess, the possibilities are limited only by your imagination and by the amount of time you are willing to commit to the group.  Keep in mind that it can take years to develop a full-scale program of classes and activities for high school students. Do not let the size of the task overwhelm you.  Start small--offer a weekly Bible study or some other activity that meets on a weekly basis. You also might want to offer at least one special monthly or yearly event.  Once the word gets out that you are offering even one regularly scheduled activity for home schooled junior high and/or high school students, it won’t be long before your group can be sponsoring a variety of activities geared to meet the needs of high school students.

Meet the author, Becky Preble.

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