The purpose of this web page is to add specific content related to homeschooling in Framingham. As of this writing, there is more to be added but because some of this information is unavailable anywhere else on the web, we thought it important to make it available before this site could be properly laid out. If you are homeschooling in Framingham or a neighboring town, please write. We are new to the area and need to establish a network here.
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Note, in our copy to the school district we crossed out the phrase "a minimum" and substituted "the equivalent" in the sentence, "The following signatures confirm the intent to provide a minimum of 900-990 hours of instruction."
Measuring the number of hours spent on a particular subject or on the entire program is, in our opinion, a waste of time and energy and bears little relation to the amount of subject matter that is learned and retained. More important are the level of interest of the student, and the quality of the content. We also view the clocking of learning time as intrusive to our schooling style. Finally, though we do not see a specific legal basis for or against measuring time spent on homeschooling, we find elements of the Brunelle Decision by the Supreme Judical Court to be in our favor:
". . . at home, there are no other students (except perhaps siblings), no classrooms, and no rigid schedules. Parents who teach at home stand in a very different relationship to their children than do teachers to a class full of other peoples' children. Teaching methods may be less formalized, but in the home setting may be more effective than those used in the classroom because the teacher-to-student ratio is maximized, a factor permitting close communication and monitoring on an individualized basis. It is obvious from these differences that, while the State can insist that the child's education be moved along in a way which can be objectively measured, it cannot apply institutional standards to this non-institutionalized setting."
The school district didn't give us any grief about this minor change to their form.