What are we afraid of?

Last year the Virginia assembly passed a law that required school districts to inform Homeschoolers when the PSAT is administered. Well, the school board of one good sized Virginia city has a policy that disallows homeschoolers from participation in any school sponsored activities. So this district has interpreted the new law as requiring them to notify of the PSAT but not to administer it to homeschoolers, which they are within the letter of law able to do. But some feel the intent was to allow homeschoolers to take the PSAT at the public school.

Okay, so what. Both big statewide organizations are on top of it and will be represented at the school board meeting. But the bothersome thing is very few local parents are willing to contact their school board representatives and even fewer will consider going to the actual board meeting where the exclusion policy will be discussed. You might think it was just a lack of enthusiasm, but it really feels to me like a lack of confidence.

The thought of facing even local elected officials is very intimidating. Now one would think that since homeschoolers are willing to separate from the 'system' , they might be bold speaking face to face with the representatives of the system they've left. You would think there is nothing to fear from a school board member, they might be your neighbor or the coach of your kid's soccer team. School board members are not usually career politicians savvy in the ways of power brokering--they are local concerned citizens for the most part.

So what are we afraid of? Why does the state organization have to cajole folks into speaking up for themselves? The lack of confidence is sadly not morethanfine. But I admit I feel beset by it myself at times---it is much easier to speak to 'official' type people as a Board member of a statewide organization, than as just little old me, citizen. Why are homeschoolers intimidated by school board members? They really don't have power over us personally, since they have no power over our children if we are homeschooling legally. And yet we fear them.

I have thought of 2 explanations for it:
--we are programmed by our own public school upbringing to be intimidated by authority and not to question the dictates from on high. We are trained to be powerless, especially if we were good students working hard to please within the system. It takes some mental reprogramming to get into a place where questioning (especially the schools!) is not outside our comfort zones.

--And a certain big homeschooling legal organization has spread the myth of the scary school officials far and wide and we are often under the (usually) false impression that they are out to 'get' us and that the relationship between schools and homeschools is an adversarial one. But does it really need to be?

So I will repeat what I have said before (and will undoubtedly say again), we need to empower ourselves with knowledge, work hard to protect our homeschool freedom and homeschool with confidence.

We generally don't need experts (who is more of an expert on your kid's education than you?) and we usually don't need a lawyer---we usually just need the knowledge and the confidence and then I think we might be able to change the world, one school board at a time :)

Barb