Registration is currently available via the CHSPE Web site at  www.chspe.net.

The October 2009 Examination will be held October 17, 2009 and the regular registration deadline is September 18, 2009. The regular registration fee is $92.00.

Although not required, many homeschoolers use the CHSPE for high school graduation. See An Introduction to Home Education or The High School Handbook for more information.

Please write immediately!

Fax or mail your letter to the Governor and ask him to sign AB 66.

Your letter can be as simple as the following:

The Honorable Arnold Schwarzenegger
Office of the Governor
State Capitol
Sacramento, CA 95814
Fax:  916-558-3160

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger,

Please sign AB 66 (Anderson) into law. This bill will help ensure that all students have equal opportunity to get jobs.  Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

Please:
* Do not send emails.
* Share this information with your friends, church, school, and group.
* Pray for a proper outcome.

Summary:
AB 66 will authorize principals or administrators of private schools (including private schools which offer homeschool programs) to issue work permits to students enrolled in their school.  If this bill is signed and becomes law, we will make more details available on our website.

Background
Under current law, private school students have sometimes been unable to obtain work permits even though they have the full approval and support of their parents and their schools of enrollment.  By allowing private school principals to issue permits to their own students, AB 66 ensures that work permits will be available equally to all
students.

AB 66 also specifies that the hours during which a student can work shall be based on the calendar of the school that the student attends. Under current law, student work hours are based on the public school calendar, even for students who do not attend public school.

Private and Home Educators of California (a ministry of Roy Hanson) has been working intensely in the Legislature for the past four years to make work permits more accessible to all private school students, including those in private homeschools.  This year, as in previous years, it has been important strategically to work behind-the-scenes until now.  If the Governor signs this bill, it will become law effective January 1, 2010.

For some, education takes place year round, so there’s not really a “back-to-school” time. It’s school time all the time. Still others, celebrate Not-Back-to-School with parties, park days, or special trips. And, there are those who are really getting back into the swing of things.

Share with us your back-to-school, or not-back-to-school, routines and traditions.

We praise God for the great victory He has given us today!

Homeschooling Remains Legal!

The California Court of Appeal, in their unanimous opinion today, said, “California statutes permit home schooling as a species of private school education.”

This ruling specifically overruled the Turner (1953) and Shinn (1961) cases, which gave private homeschooling families problems in the past.

Our prior concern about “independent study programs” (ISP) was confirmed when the court also stated, “It is apparent, however, that independent study is permissible only when offered by the public school system and supervised by a certificated teacher.” [emphasis in original]  Therefore, we continue to strongly recommend that each private school program, where one Private School Affidavit is filed for multiple homeschooling families, refer to their program as a “private school satellite program” (PSP).  Please read our notice about this Important Information about ISPs.

We are thankful for the relationship among the five homeschool groups, Christian Home Educators Association of California, Private and Home Educators of California (part of FPM),  California Homeschool Network, HomeSchool Association of California, and Home School Legal Defense Association, that have been working on a statewide basis to support private homeschooling.  We are also very grateful for the all of the attorneys involved in this case who have work so hard to protect private homeschooling in California.

“I enjoyed the speaker selection again this year~ great to have Ken Ham and Gregg Harris back, and Kevin Swanson was thoroughly convicting, as well as very entertaining.  Great choices! Thank you”

–R.H.S. Mission Viejo

“Thank you and to the CHEA staff for organizing this 25th anniversary convention.  Our vision has been to homeschool through high school and we will.  Yet, it is always a blessing to be refreshed, inspired, and
encouraged to continue on in the race that is before us.”

–C.S., Humboldt County

Share your experiences below.

Friday General Session

Gerald McKoy, member of the CHEA Board of Directors, present product information during the General Session Friday morning.

Children's Convention

Children ages 4 to 11 take part in Cause Kidz at the Children’s Convention.

2007 Convention Workshop

“The Convention is a blessing that brightens my summer and helps me focus and prepare for the following school year. Each year that I have attended I come away with great ideas, wonderful materials and resources, encouragement and support for the work of homeschooling.”

Long Beach Convention Center

– R.G., Upland

“The Long Beach Convention Center is a beautiful facility and a great location for summer to be near the  beach. Thanks for the discount admission to the Aquarium; we built a mini family vacation with the whole family being able to attend.”  — M.W.,Moreno Valley

Though I didn’t particularly enjoy teaching reading, the success of hearing my child read is a great milestone in my homeschooling. Reading, reading, reading to your child before he can read for himself is the most important pre-reading activity we can do to encourage our future readers. The same is true after completing the phonics program.

There are four types of reading I suggest for readers to encourage progress:

Reading Silently

Once my children read to themselves, we worked up to a full hour per day in one sitting. They read an hour, broken into shorter segments—four 15-minute sessions leading into three 20-minute sessions, and so on until they were reading the full 60 minutes.

Read More

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Bethany Bennett will be presenting Phonics Foundation with Phonics Fun and Curriculum Choices for the Elementary Years at the XXV Annual Convention in Long Beach, CA.

One of my family’s favorite films is one called Avalon, made in 1990 by director Barry Levinson. It tells a beautiful story about how easily the next generation can be lost. Sam Krichinsky (played by Armin Mueller-Stahl) is a young Jewish immigrant in the early 1900s who comes to America with his three brothers to find a new life. Every year on Thanksgiving Day to the great annoyance of his extended family, Sam insists on telling all the grandchildren the stories of how he and his brothers came to America.

“Why do you keep telling them those stories?” his wife asked.

“Because,” he warned, “if we don’t remember, we forget.”

Maybe I am just feeling my age. (I am 54, and both John Calvin and Charles Haddon Spurgeon died at 54.) But I believe it is time that my generation started telling our stories to the next generation. I mean this in the broadest and most general way, because it relates to everything from how we came to faith in Christ to how we bake our special holiday breads. But since many of us have also been part of the Christian homeschooling movement, we ought to begin telling our homeschooling stories as well. Read more.

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Gregg Harris is a Keynote Speaker at the XXV Annual CHEA Convention. In addition to his keynote address, “What Do You Have in the House?”, at the Saturday morning General Session, Mr. Harris will be presenting three workshops.

If you are unable to attend the Convention, you can see and hear the General Session keynote address via Live Webcast.

Celebrating 25 Years of Ministry
God’s Homeschooling Tapestry:
- A Memoir

by Susan Beatty
Co-founder, CHEA of California

I didn’t see it coming.

One is seldom privy to a prophetic glance into the future, and that’s probably wise.

This was as ordinary a morning as they come for a young family. It started with the early morning hustle to get the husband off to work and the eldest son off to first grade at the local public school. The pace slowed down slightly mid-morning with the four-month-old now napping and the three-year-old quietly playing at my feet while I folded laundry.

I turned on the radio. This simple act changed the course of my life and my family’s life. It was also one slender thread in the tapestry of history that God was weaving.

It was February 1982. The program was Dr. James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family,” and the subject was early childhood education. Dr. Raymond Moore, author of Better Late Than Early and School Can Wait, was describing a typical third grade child who, because he’d been attending formal education from age two or three, was suffering from educational burnout. Dr. Moore was describing my first grade son.

Read More

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Hear Susan Beatty at the XXV Annual CHEA Convention in Long Beach, CA. In addition to her workshop “Getting Started,” Susan will be presenting “Introduction to Home Education” at the Free Introduction Session Thursday, July 10.