Discover what we learned by forming and running a homeschool collective. This is an alternative schooling concept where parents home school together. We are based in Clinton hill, Brooklyn and at radschool.org. We are always ready to assist and give advice to others seeking to form their own homeschooling collectives, homeschooling coops, or alternative school concepts.

1. Running a Homeschooling Collective / Alternative School
Andrew Delamarter
@ADNYCE
AndrewDelamarter@hotmail.com
Running a Homeschooling
Presented to Huge OffTopic Discussion Group
10/2/2012
Visit us at radschool.org

2. Homeschooling collectives.
• Families join together to create a mixed-ages cottage school
environment
• Curriculum and subject matters are set via consensus and
planning meetings.
• Funds are raised to pay for part-time teachers and specialists –
music, sports, dance, etc.
• Parents can teach subjects and contribute time where they can.
• Parents lead field trips, bring classes into their workspaces and
business.
• Combines elements of historical small-scale schools and ‘true’
homeschooling.
• Parents file homeschooling plans with the state.

3. Homeschooling History
• ‘Old-time education’ - 60% of families homeschooled prior to
1920.
• 1930s-1980s homeschoolers were prosecuted under
compulsory schooling laws.
• Homeschooler victory in 1987 Leeper v. Arlington, TX case set
precedent and prosecutions stopped.
• Homeschooling in many forms has expanded ever since.
• 2% of US children are homeschooled.
• Current gov’t push is to regulate-to-death homeschooling as it’s
politically impossible to ban it outright.

4. Modern Forefathers
of Homeschooling Movement
Underground History of American Education
by John Taylor Gatto.
Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child
Rearing, by A. S. Neill

5. Homeschooling works.
• Every study shows homeschoolers doing better
academically than state-schooled children on
standardized academic tests.
• In the 2000 national geography bee home schooled
children were:
• 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places
• 4 or the top 10
• 27 of the 167 finalists

6. Who we are / what we do:
Dancer / Choreographer
Dance studio owner
Bar / Restaurant owner
Fashion photographers
NY Times reporter
Chef
Boutique owner
Indie film distributor
Filmmaker
Search geek (me)

7. Key Issue: Making relationships work

8. Weekly field trips: Align to curriculum and mandate team work
to synthesize learning

9. Weekly field trips: Small groups can often get ‘backstage tours’
and special access and attention

10. This is the most common slide.
• It could be a list of things to talk about.
• Or maybe just once concept with a few points.
• It could be a list of things to talk about.
• Or maybe just once concept with a few points.
Weekly field trips: Well-behaved homeschool groups are
beloved by the folks we visit.

11. ysical activity: We can wear our children out. They come home
ysically exhausted and collapse into bed.

12. This is a table.
Cookies. Milk.
• Nutterbutters • Whole milk
• Ginger snaps • Non-fat
• Oreos • Half & Half
• Oatmeal raisin • 1% milk
• Thin mints • 2% milk
It’s up to us what sports they learn. They can suggest ideas
and make them happen.

13. As part of the community and due to small, human size of the
group, we get to know our neighbors.

14. Art plays a big part. Here they are Andy Goldsworthy-inspired
environmental transient art.

15. Here we are at Occupy Wall Street. This sign made by 6-year
old Olivia pretty much sums up the experience.

16. Older kids teach the younger kids. If an older kid claims to be
bored we force them to show mastery of a subject by teaching it
to the younger kids.

17. The NY Times fashion magazine wrote a snarky article about
us. Don’t let the haters get you down!

18. The hard part.
Clashing personalities.
Finding new families.
Diets.
Curriculum.

19. What is it?.
Homeschool?
Homeschool collective?
Cottage school?
One-room schoolhouse?
Alternative School.

20. We used SEO and online marketing tactics to find new families
by framing the school as an ‘Alternative School’ since
‘Homeschooling collective’ is not a common phrase.

21. SEO work begins here
You need to market your collective. Create a blog, post photos,
and track visits using Google Analytics

22. Read this book. Stay under the radar. Only accept people into the school you trust,
who have reputations to uphold, and are committed to the concept. Accept people
will drop out and re-create the school each year.