NORTON, Ohio — Maria Johnson, a resident of Norton, is a mother of nine children, ranging from 7 months to 17 years old, all of whom are homeschooled.
She homeschools for many reasons, one being religion. The name of their homeschool is called Caritas Academy.
“We can do things that we find important as a family,” Johnson said. “We can begin the day with morning prayer. We can say the Angelus at noon. We can take what we find in a book and then put our own understanding on it based on faith and based on the values that we have. And what we value as a family looks different than what will be taught in a regular school system.”
Johnson and her husband were both homeschooled themselves and decided to do the same with their children when they started a family.
“It means independence, that I am not bound by the, the tyranny of the bell, where I have 45 minutes to teach one particular subject, and then I must stop that and move on to something else,” Johnson said. “I'm not bound by the spine of a book. I can go out and explore the world."
She said she has a love of learning, and a college education, but in Ohio those aren’t requirements needed to homeschool. Instead, a parent must have graduated from high school or pass their GED. She said if she thought someone else could do the job better, she'd consider it.
"Because I know my children and because I love them so much," she said. "I want what is good for them. And if I can't provide it, I'll find somebody who can.”
The number of homeschooled students saw a sharp increase from fiscal year 2020 to 2021, an increase from 33,328 to 51,502, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic a possible contributing factor to the increase.
Tim Hamman is the assistant superintendent of Mentor Public Schools. He said for a parent to homeschool their child, they must inform the superintendent of their school district, provide them a copy of intended curriculum and commit to providing 900 hours of instruction. Compared to many other states in the U.S., those rules are strict.
“There's a list of information about all the things that they would like to teach and how they'll teach it, what material they're going to use to teach it with,” Hamman said. “They have to assure us at home education will include the following: language reading, spelling and writing, geography, history, United States national, state and local government, math, science, health, Phys Ed., fine arts, including music and first aid safety and fire prevention.”
According to the Ohio Revised Code, the superintendent reviews the submitted information and, within 14 days of receipt, determines if the curriculum is compliant with the provisions of the code.
The code does specify that home education is not required to include “any concept, topic, or practice that is in conflict with the sincerely held religious beliefs of the parent.”
“As long as they're covering the basic academia areas, the reading, the writing, the math, history, the sciences, they can choose whatever curriculum that they want to do to get to the endpoints,” Hamman said. “In schools, we have a set standardized curriculum from the state that we're supposed to teach. Families at home have some leeway as to exactly how they're gonna, again, how they're gonna get to that end result.”
For students to pass a grade level, Hamman said the superintendent of a school district signs off.
“They have to get either do their own testing, use a standardized test, or they have to show a portfolio of all the things that the child has done to prove that they've completed what they needed to do for that grade level,” Hamman said.
But the discovery of a neo-Nazi homeschooling group in the state is prompting discussion about what some students really learn. Some educators in the state are calling for increased oversight but said that would require additional staff, and funding is a roadblock.
Senate Bill 1 is working its way through the Ohio State legislature and would nix most of the requirements parents must meet to home-school their kids, making it even easier to homeschool. Hamman said to regulate homeschooling more, school districts would likely have to hire someone for that role.
“In a perfect world it would be great to have more regulations, but it's a matter of can it be supported? And not just for the short term?” Hamman said. “There's a bit of an expense there. And quite honestly, I don't know too many districts that can afford that.”
But Johnson said to her and her children, homeschooling means freedom. Her children can play outside when they want, interact with their pet chickens, choose what subjects they focus on each day and deep dive into subjects the children are most interested in.
“It lets me have fun,” said Blaze Johnson, one of Maria’s children. “It means I don't have to stay cooped up in some classroom. It's not instruction. It's education.”
Homeschooling allows her to exercise her first amendment right.
“Whether that is the truth of climate change, or women's rights, or same sex marriage or any of the topics of the day, our job is to form our children in truth,” Johnson said. “And so if I don't take that opportunity to press on my values, then I'm being negligent.”
She said the neo-Nazi group gave homeschooling a bad reputation.
“I think that's most of society, that there's crazies in any group,” Johnson said. “You can find them anywhere. And unfortunately, homeschooling isn't immune to having lunatic fringe.”
The Ohio Department of Education told Spectrum News that parents and guardians are responsible for choosing their homeschooled child’s curriculum and course of study. They also provided an overview of homeschooling requirements but did not address if they think the rules should be any stricter.
For more information about homeschooling in the state, click here.