Thread: Weekly Poll: Is the number of secular homeschoolers growing rapidly in your area?

I've been thrilled to see secular homeschooling making the news in recent weeks. Three different articles highlighting secular homeschoolers or secular homeschooling have been making their way around the web...particularly among freethinking h-schoolers.

• Why Urban, Educated Parents Are Turning to DIY Education (Newsweek)
• Home-schooling demographics change, expand (USA Today)
• Secular, liberal N.J. parents buck home-school trend (MyCentralJersey.com)

I've also noticed a sharp rise in registrations here on SecularHomeschool.com in the last couple of months. This is incredibly encouraging and makes me wonder if secular homeschooling is growing in general in regional and local areas, or if people are just becoming more accustomed to the "vocabulary" of secular homeschooling and it's simply making it's way into mainstream conversations and site searches.



I won't know the answer until I hear from you. Tell me about your local or regional area and what the secular homeschooling scene looks like where you are right now...

We are pretty new to our area so I don't know about trends, but there are a lot of secular homeschoolers in Maine. The midcoast region seems to attract them (ahem, us) and there seems to be a thriving scene around Portland (no surprise!). With the state of the public schools, and a governor who keeps threatening to close them left and right when he doesn't get his way, I suspect the numbers will continue to rise. According to a recent newspaper article on homeschooling in our area (and which I was interviewed for!) the numbers in Maine have increased substantially over the past few years. It seems to me that the trend will continue.

I haven't noticed an increase but I'm in NJ, where it seems there has always been a lot of secular homeschoolers.

It's hard to say exactly. I feel like homeschooling in general is growing. In my area, that's mostly secular homeschoolers regardless.

I do feel like more and more people are like, oh WE homeschool! Or we're planning to homeschool too! Like random people at the grocery store or the guy who helped me at REI. It gives me warm fuzzies.

I surely don't know any others, but our school system is so bad I believe there must be some.

It is hard to know for me, as we meet hsers through a homeschool assistance program that is part of the school district. I only find out if someone is a religious hser if they mention abeka or focus on the family or something like that. But I know for sure of a family that started this year that is secular. So far none of the hsers I have met have brought up religion as their reason for hsing, though that doesn't mean it isn't. I have also gotten called by a friend to get more info about hsing and they are secular, though they ended up going with private school. I think that the more of us there are and the more we are "out" as secular the more others who are secular and unhappy with the ps system will at least see hsing as an option. There was a time that I would have thought of hsing as primarily a religious thing.

There is a rise every couple of years in the elementary level of home schoolers but that drops off as they enter middle and high school. It seems once the hard work starts then ps doesn't look sooo bad.

I have found secular homeschoolers in my area, but it's really hard to find those who live close enough and have children of similar ages. I hope it does grow because I'd really like to have more companions!

5 years and I've never encountered another secular homeschooler.

I haven't noticed an increase. I base that answer on the fact that I still can't find a secular homeschooling group. They very well could be out there looking for an outlet like I am, but I'm not hearing or seeing any signs of them. It really does seem odd, though, since our area has grown and I have definitely noticed more diversity in political signs. But from my little corner, it's mighty lonely.