Unschooling is a type of homeschooling wherein children are self-led. A lot of people wonder Is unschooling is even legal?. However, you should know that it really is legal within all 50 states of the United States.
Of course, it should be noted that it is easier to unschool in some states than in others. This is because every state has its own unique set of laws regulating homeschooling. As long as you fulfill your state’s requirements then you will be “legal.”
What States Require Of (Unschoolers) Homeschoolers
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There are some states that don’t require homeschoolers to do anything in the form of registering their child, testing them or even keeping attendance. However, they will state that your child must learn subjects such as English, civics, math, and science, which are also being taught in that state’s public school system. There is just no stipulation of how those subjects are taught nor does anyone from the state regulate it.
In other states, you are required to register your child. Unschoolers simply register their children as homeschoolers. The state may also require that you keep attendance records, which can easily be done via an attendance form. This is actually pretty easy to do since learning is viewed as a constant process that happens all of the time, no matter if unschooled or not.
Learning about unschooling in California, Texas, North Carolina, New York, Georgia, New Jersey, and many more states all have individual rules and laws parents who want to unschool their children must follow.
How Unschoolers Handle Annual Record Keeping
Some states require that annual testing be done for all homeschoolers. This is something that is easy to comply with since you can order and administer the test yourself. You may also need to keep a record of what your child has done throughout the school year. This is part of the unschooling laws a parent must adhere to.
These things may be requested whenever you must undergo a home inspection. There are also several different ways in which you can accomplish this as well.
While your child’s activities may not easily fall within traditional subjects, there are ways in which to make them do so. Simply use an academic planner and jot down all the things that your child does throughout the day. Some parents choose to use a notebook, blog or scrapbook.
Whenever you must keep track of your child’s activities you will need to pay attention to what they are doing. Make note of such things as:
- Educational games they play
- Computer software they use
- Educational movies they watch
- Educational TV programs they watch
- Books they read
- Field trips you take as a family
- Activities they are involved in
- Classes they take
It is also a good idea to keep track of all the material they have available to them to use. Every couple of months you’ll want to sit down and write up a transcript for each of your children. This way you are sure to keep on top of everything.
In Conclusion To Unschooling Laws, Rules and State Guidelines
Since unschoolers view learning as something that a child naturally does there is no problem whenever it comes to record-keeping. Material and activities are always made easily accessible within the unschooling learning environment.
This makes it a legal homeschool even though your child may not be learning everything that a government-run public school child may be learning. However, this isn’t important anyway because there is no way that a child will know everything that there is to know. On the other hand, though, an unschooled child may be learning many more things that are not taught in public schools.
Unschoolers believe that the world is an extremely large place and that there isn’t anyone type of knowledge that is any better than another. They are simply different. These are things that may not be learned with real textbooks but they are learned through the use of real books, about real places and real people.
They also enjoy participating in a lot of different hands-on activities. In essence, this is their “curriculum.” For this reason, unschooling is considered a type of homeschooling and thus it is legal in all 50 states. In the end, you can also see that it is actually very easy to fulfill your state’s legal requirements.