Ok, I would like to get right to the point here. At no point in my parenting life have I ever considered homeschooling. I am not qaulified to educate students and I have not taken steps to make myself qualified.

That hasn’t changed in the time of coronavirus.

Sure, the schools where my kids go have shut their doors but the mission of the public schools hasn’t changed. They are there to provide a free and appropriate education to my children. Their methods have changed a lot in the past three weeks. However, they are still the education system I rely on to teach my kids academics.

That’s why I won’t call what we’re doing here homeschooling. This is public schooling. At my home.

Homeschooling is a choice to exit the public school system and use alternate curricula and methodology for teaching. People do it for all kinds of reasons and in all kinds of ways. They exert tremendous energy in learning how to homeschool in ways that meet national education standards and also serve the needs of their families. They collaborate with other homeschool families and have access to all kinds of specialized resources.

That is not what is happening over here. I’m doing what I have always done: facilitating my children’s public school education. The schools haven’t dropped out of the picture. I haven’t walked away from the system. I’m not online looking up standards and measures and how to be legally compliant and all that. Rather, I am waiting for the schools to tell me what they’re gonna do and then I’m making sure my kids are present and ready to learn. Just like always.

During normal school, I get them up and fed and get them to school and hand the baton of their day over to their teachers. When they come home, I help with homework and talk over their day and get them ready to do it again the next day. I also provide enrichment for them like music lessons and sports and art projects.

Nowadays, I get them up and fed and to the computer to do the work assigned by their teachers. When they’re done, I talk over their day and get them ready to do it again tomorrow. I also provide enrichments for them…you see where this is going?

I am the mom. The schools are the schools. The physics of this have changed but our jobs have not. Sure, there were a couple of weeks there when the schooling ground to a halt while teachers figured out what comes next. But I didn’t try and take over their jobs in the middle of that. I gave my kids a break and waited for school to start back up. Now schools are up and running (for the most part) and I’m back to facilitating their education.

I’m not a homeschooler and I probably won’t ever be one. I’m just a parent who works in concert with the public schools because I trust in their mission. That hasn’t changed for me and I hope it never does.