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Thank you for watching this video in which we will be looking at how to choose a school authority based on the advice and suggestions from the AHEA, that is, the Alberta Home Education Association, headed up by Miss Judy Arnold. Judy has published this, I believe, eight-page guide, and by the time that you’re watching this video, you may have access to a more updated version, but as of now, I printed it off, and that’s what the front cover looks like. Some of the information here is outdated, and she evidently just hasn’t had time—she’s a busy lady—hasn’t had time to update it with the new changes and some programming options. So, again, as I’m reading through this, I’ll just ignore some of the things that are outdated, but you will likely be looking at a new one by the time you watch this video. What I’d like to do is go through these pages and give you my commentary on the advice that Judy has written into this guide. She and I agree on 99% of everything. There are just a few things here that I would offer a different opinion on.

On page one, at the bottom, we see the statement: “Every board on the list in the files section will provide you with great traditional parent-directed home education program support. They have to, because it is expected in the Alberta government home education regulation.” I guess I’m starting off with one area that I will disagree with. Unfortunately, in my experience over the last almost 10 years now of being involved with home education, I unfortunately would have to disagree with the statement that every single home ed program in the province will provide you, the parent, with great traditional parent-directed home education program support. Again, I wish that were the case. They may have to provide the home ed program to you as required by Alberta government and home ed regulations, but there are programs out there that aren’t, well, there are programs that are just better than others. So I would place a high priority on doing your due diligence with selecting your home ed program. I wouldn’t overthink it, because then, as the saying goes, you know, “analysis paralysis.” You get stuck and it’s almost the last day of September and you still haven’t made up your mind. So don’t dwell too hard on it, but do the due diligence, and that’s what these videos hopefully will help you to do: look at the criteria, know the questions to ask, and then hear from me as to how THEE would respond to those questions and any situations you can think of. So I do congratulate you on watching this video to look at how how THEE answers these questions as you go about choosing your home ed program. So, kudos to you for that.

Let’s keep going. On that next page, Judy goes on to say: “Remember that you are only committing for one year. That’s true. If you dislike your facilitator assigned, you can request a change.” So you can ask for a different facilitator. That is true. We at THEE certainly want to honor your request for a change. The only limitation we have would be in an area where we only have one facilitator. THEE serves families all across Alberta, so in some areas, like up north in La Crête or down south in Medicine Hat, we only have one facilitator who lives in that area. So if you don’t agree, don’t see eye to eye, there’s a problem with that facilitator, and you request a new one, we can certainly assign a different facilitator to you, but it would be on the condition that that facilitator will meet with you through video conferencing, which may be a good thing, but we will certainly accommodate your request to change, but we might have to change the location of those visits that happen twice a year.

Moving down the page, the next paragraph: “There are slight differences between the big public school boards and their private schools. Definitely big changes, big differences. Field trip options, funding caps (not sure what she means by funding caps), levels of parent support, delivery formats offered, and availability of curriculum all factor as these slight differences.” Field trip is my word of advice. It’s my opinion: I would not join a home ed program just because they offer more field trips than another. In my experience, field trips are pretty low on the total, I would say, low on the priority list, not a total vault. Your priority is getting support from a like-minded home education program. So let’s say these certain programs have a lot of field trips; that’s great. But if you don’t use the field trips or if those field trips are to places where you know you’re not really interested in going, then you’ve put all the eggs in that field trip basket and then in the areas of support and like-mindedness, you know, what’s over there? So some families will say, “Well, we’ll we’ll compromise on the the like-mindedness, we’ll compromise on the level of support because we really want the social side of things.” But then they see the social side of things isn’t what they thought it would be, and then they’re left with an empty basket for support and like-mindedness. So just a word of caution. I mention that because of the experiences that I’ve gone through in the last almost 10 years of being in home education. So my advice is to first look at the values and beliefs of the home ed program and what levels of support and what type of support do they offer. Again, field trips would be just a bonus at the end.

And a word on field trips, and I’m not trying to bash field trips; field trips are great. We offer field trips, but if you’re joining THEE just because of field trips, I think you might be disappointed actually, because that’s not where our strength is, and our field trips aren’t, you know, the best in the world. They may not align with what you’re looking for, of your interest, or you’re the age group of your children. So many factors go into these things. So I would hope that you choose THEE because of support, belief system, our belief in you the parent as having absolute right to design your program, implement, administrate your program, and and other things as well. But yeah, field trips, I think, are, I said, kind of a bonus at the end of the day. What I was going to say on that, oftentimes families, parents are wondering, “How is my little Johnny or my little Susie going to socialize? How are they going to interact? They’ll be isolated, they’re going to be at home all day.” Usually, that’s not the case. Usually, that’s the exact opposite of the situation. So you may have chosen a program because they had all these field trips, but then you get into it and you realize there’s a whole home ed community in your home ed group in your community, and you get plugged in with them, or you make friends with a homeschooling family or two or three in your area, and they become your community, and you don’t even take advantage, you don’t you don’t even get involved in the field trips of your home ed program. I’ve seen that, heard that from a lot of families. So, again, field trips, they’re a bonus, they are fun, but I wouldn’t put them at the top of your list as far as criteria for choosing a home education program.

Later on down on the list on the page, it says: “The big fully funded, 100% of base-funded, are, you know, the public and separate schools.” That’s true. Not sure where the 100% of base funding. I want to say something about that from a previous statement she mentioned about funding caps. There are differences in funding from the smaller schools, especially the private independent schools, compared to the larger public and separate. THEE is part of a separate school board, so we’re part of the public system. So most public boards have larger budgets, larger funding, larger support systems compared to private schools. So for us, that means we’re able to offer you the parent 100% of your reimbursement amount from the very beginning. Now I’m not saying the beginning of September 1st, the beginning of the reimbursement period, which for us, mid-October, checks are going out, let’s say very early November. So it’s about, there’s a whole other video on on the scheduling and what how it comes, how the funding comes from Alberta Ed, why it takes until November oftentimes to get reimbursements going, the difference between reimbursements and purchase order numbers being given, all those things. But for us, the big advantage that we have for funding, and again, funding is not the number one reason to pick a school board, but it’s a criteria, it’s a it is a bonus and something that we can offer that’s that’s nice and that is again we can offer 100% reimbursement from the very first reimbursement check that we provide or the very first purchase order number that you give through. So you can you can get that reimbursement, that PO done in late October, early November, and you’re done. You’ve got all your funding for the whole year as quickly as possible. The problem with that private schools, independent schools have, and it’s a challenge, I’ve been there, I’ve been with private schools, Alberta Ed and again, there’s a whole other video that talks about this, but just real quickly, Alberta Ed doesn’t give the school, any school, 100% of the funding that that school will need for the whole year right, you know, on the count date, September 30th. That’s not how it happens. Alberta Ed looks at the numbers, the enrollments, this the student numbers once it’s based on September 30th, and then Alberta Ed gives a percentage of the whole to that school a little bit each month, and so there’s a whole other plan. It’s not literally every month actually, there’s a month or two where there isn’t a payment. So a private independent school doesn’t usually have the funding in their bank account to be able to pay out 100% because they haven’t received 100% of their own funding. So how can they turn around and offer you percent? That’s just a challenge they have. So I believe that’s our criteria that Judy mentions here when she says “funding cap.” That’s that’s what I’m thinking that that means, but with some people ask, do we pay out in percentages at certain times of the year, and we say no, we don’t have to thankfully. We can pay you 100% from the very first time you ask for that reimbursement if your reimbursement includes receipts that cover the full amount of funding. More videos in the funding section of the virtual open house, so if you have questions about how the funding works, please see our videos in the funding and reimbursement section.

Moving right along, THEE, as I mentioned before, is part of Elk Island Catholic Schools, and so we are a separate school within the public school system. Going down, at the very bottom, “if you want lots of classes, field trips, blah blah blah,” I’ve already mentioned my opinion on field trips. It says, “go with the big boards or big private schools as they have registration numbers to warrant running all that extra programming.” Yeah, well, I’ve said my piece on field trips.

Next paragraph down, it says: “If you want to be left alone and do your own thing, go with any of the supervising boards. Make it clear to assign a facilitator who will respect unschooling or self-directed.” Absolutely, I would certainly ask that the program you’re interested in if they will support unschooling or any type of delight learning or self-directed learning. Some programs, going back to my initial statement about not all programs in Alberta are created equal, there are some programs that want to tell you what to do. They want to tell you the resources that you’ll use and how you’ll do it. They even give you deadlines, all kinds of things like that. So if you are, you know, talking to a home ed program you think they’re the ones for you, they’re the fit, and then they start telling you what you’re going to do in your home ed program, then I would run away. That’s they’re not offering home ed. They’re offering something else, and that’s another discussion because there’s more to it that there’s more going on which I don’t think you’ll want to be part of. So I’ll I’ll stop there.

Next paragraph: “If you want extra funding for a child with special needs, coding the school act insists that you have to be on a distance ed or school program, not home ed.” So if you have a child with special learning needs and a special coding, unfortunately, home education doesn’t have any funding for that. There’s a it’s called a block funding, so there’s a block of funding. It’s a certain amount every year that a home ed student gets, and that’s it. It doesn’t matter if the child was previously receiving all kinds of supports in a school. Once you’ve chosen to withdraw your student from that school and start home education, then Alberta Ed says, “Well, here’s your home ed funding,” and that’s all you’re going to get. So unfortunately, that’s the case.

“If you want, sorry, if you want extra understanding and education flexibility of education options for your child with special needs, go with the private schools under home education. Many facilitators have experience with their own home school children.” I will disagree with that for THEE, because we we can help with the extra understanding, the education flexibility for your child who has special needs. Several of our facilitators have children who have special needs, so we’re not, you know, that’s not foreign to us. So for THEE anyway, I would say, “Well, that’s not necessarily the case.” We’re actually making plans on on providing certain types of support. It’s not the not the big supports, you know, like an occupational therapist and things like that, but we’re looking to do more for our families who have social needs students. And we have educational flexibility. We have some families and we go to bat, we back them up 100%. We support them. Sometimes their program plan, well, all the time, their program plan for their child will look very different from a program plan for a child who doesn’t have these challenges. I I know of one child, one parent whose child needed just the basics. I don’t go in the details, but you know, Grade 3 or so, and just having basic life skills would be a dream, you know, achievement for this child, and that’s what they put on the program plan. You know, they’re not interested in the reading and the math and science. I mean, the parent is trying to get the child to potty train or to this or I mean basic life skill type things, and that’s where the child is. So we’re quite flexible. That’s life. That is why the child, the parent has chosen to home educate. So we at THEE can certainly empathize with special needs students. So when you read that, please keep THEE in mind. We’re we’re not a program that’s going to say, “No, cookie cutter, it’s just got to look this way or or go somewhere else.” That’s not how we do things here at THEE.

I’ll end it there. Judy does provide a chart, a matrix, and the subsequent pages, very good to read, but I wanted to give you my insights into those suggestions and and to Judy’s advice to you as you go about choosing your home ed program. So thank you for this for the opportunity to tell you all this information, to give you my opinion, and thank you for sticking through the video all the way to the end because it was a long video. So thanks again. If you have questions, again, lots of video to look at on our virtual open house webpage. If you still have questions, please don’t hesitate to give me a call. The phone number’s on the bottom of this video along with my email address. So hopefully, I’ll be talking to you soon.