The Haines School Board held a workshop about the district’s home-school program Wednesday night.
They decided to write up official home-school policies and to look at systems that might dissuade people from choosing the school district for home schooling.
Right now, there are at least 28 Haines home-schoolers enrolled in outside programs, like Raven and IDEA. There are 13 home-schoolers enrolled in the school district. The school board wants to increase that number.
The district designated teacher Lisa Andriesen to work as a sort of liaison for the home-school families.
Cindy Buxton, one of the two home-school parents at the workshop, said she would like Andriesen to have open office hours for parents like her. Andreisen said she would set that up.
The school board talked about possibly changing the district’s extracurricular policy. Right now, they require students to take seven credits in order to participate in extracurriculars. That’s more than the statewide requirement of five credits.
School board members worry that might be a disincentive for families to enroll in the district home-school program.
The school board also plans to look at the district’s graduation and field trip policies. Those are two areas where some home-school families have felt excluded.
The school board is going to wait to review whether more or less staffing is needed for home-school. Right now, Andriesen and Principal Cheryl Stickler share home-school program responsibilities. But both have said they are crunched for time because of their regular teacher and principal duties.
