Email of the Day:
I have been a certified home based educator in the past, yet haven’t home schooled in 6 years. We have decided to jump back in. A friend of mine is also looking to home school and she is new to everything. She is looking for options on how to get started and was wondering if I would qualify as a certificated teacher? Where I would tutor her child for at least 1hr, 1 day a week?
Thank you for any answers you have.
Answer:
There are four ways to qualify to homeschool:
45 college quarter credits (24-30 semester credits, or one year of full time college)
OR
take a parent qualifying course
OR
hire a certificated teacher to provide oversight (this is a person certificated to teach public school in WA with a minimum of a bachelor’s degree)
OR
gain superintendent approval.
If you took a parent qualifying course in order to be qualified to homeschool your kidlet, that would not qualify you to oversee someone else’s homeschooling. Your friend will need to qualify one of the four ways in order to homeschool.
That being said, there is nothing in the law to prevent friends from banding together to form a mini co-op and to share the burden of homeschooling or to tutor each other’s children. People do that all the time. But that’s separate from each of the parents qualifying to homeschool under WA law.
Let me know if you have further questions.
Warmly,
~Jen Garrison Stuber, WHO Board Advocacy Chair