As we discussed in “Notification”, parents may register their child or children as home schooling students with thee by officially notifying thee of their intent to do so. Parents may make this official notification between the dates of May 1st and September 30th of a given year. As also mentioned previously, the province of Alberta provides $812.50 to each registered home school student, and this funding is distributed and accounted for via an associate school board or an associate private school. Home school funding is available for home schoolers who are 6 years of age or older and younger than 21 years of age as of September 21st of a given school year. Families who register their child or children with thee after the September 30th deadline can certainly do so, but they will not receive the provincially-provided funding. Home school funding is available early by sending your Notification Form to the thee office before the 1st day of July. You must renew your notification of your intent to home school by re-registering your child or children with thee for each new school year; the previous year’s notification expires at the end of that particular school year. Students may only be registered with one board at one time. Please call us immediately if your plans change before the last school day of September. The government grant (your home school funds) for home education is intended to defray the costs that parents will incur when they purchase learning materials for their home learning program. All school boards, public, separate, independent Christian schools or alternate (public), schools receive the same amount for each home education student. The Home Education Exchange complies with the Home Education Regulation that mandates that every school board must make available a minimum of 50% of the education funding allotted to home schooling families.
Parents are able to access their home school funding through direct billing and/or reimbursement for receipts submitted for the current year once their program plan is in place. The program plan is your roadmap for the how-when-where-why of your home-based instruction, and in order to get reimbursed for your purchases of home learning materials, you must be sure that the materials support your program plans. For reimbursements, The Home Education Exchange may not issue funds without the submission of receipts to the thee business manager, Mr. Bob Milligan. To do otherwise would force Revenue Canada to consider the amount that you received from thee to be taxable income received by the parents. Direct billing is available upon request (see “Curriculum” for a list of suppliers). Call The Home Education Exchange for a Purchase Order number for each supplier per purchase. The supplier will in turn bill us, and we will pay the bill on your behalf. Direct billing for the first half of your home school funding amount can take place as early as July 1st, upon registration confirmation. Direct billing for the second half of your home school funding can take place as early as January 1st of the new year. thee pays 50% of the parent’s portion of home school funds in October and pays the remaining 50% in February, when sufficient receipts are supplied. The funding is available for any learning resources related to the home education program. For the official word on what the province defines as a reimbursable home schooling expense, see the “Funding” section in the “Home Education Regulations”, article (8) (5) (a) & (b).
To use the direct billing service and avoid paying for your home learning materials “out of pocket”, just download the “direct billing authorization form” by clicking on the button below.
If you do not want to use the “direct billing” service, then you can purchase your home schooling materials with your own “out of pocket” money, and you can then send the receipt(s) from the purchase(s) of the home school materials to thee to receive a reimbursement payment that comes from your son or daughter’s “Home School Grant” funds. Along with the receipt or a copy of your receipt, you will need to include a completed “Reimbursement Form” which shows each resource that you bought along with its price. To download this “Reimbursement Form”, just click on the link shown below:
It is the policy of The Home Education Exchange to carry forward un-used funding, per child, from one (1) year prior, to the current year, upon re-registration of that child with thee NOTE: Not all home school supervisory boards will carry forward un-used funds. If you do not intend to re-register your child or children with thee for the upcoming school year, then you need to submit your receipts to the thee office, prior to July 1st , to claim reimbursement for your purchases which you made during the school year which is about to end; reimbursements from your home school funding are not payable after July 1st to families not re-registering with thee Un-used funds are designated per registered child and are not transferable to siblings, and, funding is not transferable between boards. Early availability of funding privileges is provided to families who register before July 1st.
According to the Alberta Education Home Education Regulations, all home learning resources that the parent purchase and receive reimbursement for are the property of the school administration to dispose of as the board sees fit; however, our official and written policy here at thee is to enable the parents of the student for whom these resources were purchased to keep these resources; The Home Education Exchange chooses to retain no right to these resources. In other words, you get to keep your own stuff!
