Home schooling organization Cornerstone helps to expand home education trend

For more than 25 years, Kansas's capital city of Topeka has played host to a growing independent Christian home education assistance organization named Cornerstone Family School. What began as one man "haphazardly" overseeing an effort to have greater accountability and support for people looking to home-school their children has grown into an expanding network of more than 75 families.

"Cornerstone is a unique organization among home-school groups because at the time it was setup the environment was much different than it is now," said Kent Vincent, Cornerstone founder. "Cornerstone provides not only opportunities, but accountability for home schooling families and that was the big concern back then."

The Vincent family started home education in the early '80s when it was generally considered to be illegal, said Kent. After multiple court cases rule against home-schoolers Kent and his wife started an organization working with a local Christian school hoping to protect their rights. After a few years of having a satellite school program, they decided to spin off a separate organization.

"The board at the Christian school didn't have time to deal with all the issues we had so we formed our own board and it's been going ever since, 25 years or so," said Vincent.

The Difference

According to a study performed by the National Household Education Survey Program, 1.5 million students were being home-schooled as of spring 2007. Approximately 1.1 million were home-schooled in 2003. The increased numbers are also apparent in Kansas, where some associations maintain a membership of more than 2,000 families. Cornerstone acknowledges their size is quite small in comparison, but the families who have joined enjoy an accountability process lacking in other organizations.

People have to apply and go through an interview process before they may join the association.

"We're also an accountability group," said Lori Brewster, Cornerstone board member. "We track our hours and turn the reports into Cornerstone, just to make sure we're doing what we're supposed to be doing."

The Brewster family joined Cornerstone when their eldest daughter, Kayla, was in eighth grade. Kayla expressed a desire to attend public school because of the ability to participate in extracurricular activities. The family found Cornerstone and agreed to give it a chance for a year; since joining the association none of the kids have brought up public school.

The group also does standardized testing, which is not a requirement of the state. Cornerstone participates in testing, as well as collecting grades twice a year, to go above and beyond state regulations. The decision to keep accountability has been a decision supported by the members themselves. Kent said at one point the group debated removing the record keeping requirements, but many families enjoy having the extra peace of mind. This stems from the inadequate protection of home-schoolers.

Currently, the requirements for home education are to register as a non-accredited private school. The school must to be taught by a competent teacher, but there is no definition of competent. "The law reads they have to be in school for substantially equivalent to number of hours or days which equates to 186 days of school," said Brewster.

Additionally the household must register with the state education department as a home-school.

No one has been stopped from home schooling since 1983, said Kent. While some states have stricter regulations than Kansas, Kent said he doesn't believe their results are any better.

"If you go to court here you don't have safe harbor like in other states," Kent said. "So there is an incentive to do the best job you can."

The Advantages

The same laws that haunt home schooling families also contribute to their enjoyment of in-home education.

"Training begins from the time they wake up until they go to bed," said Christy. "I think it gives a lot more time for building relationships if you choose to."

School isn't limited to a classroom setting in the home. Families can take trips to museums or participate in extracurricular athletic activities, all in the name of class credit. Families are also afforded control over their children's grade placement.

"Each family decides what grade their kids are in," said Brewster. "My kids have never been in all one grade material at the same time."

Brewster said teaching her kids allows her to cater specifically to each child for each subject.

Schoolwork aside, many families choose to join the Cornerstone family because of the extracurricular activities. Cornerstone conducted a survey in 2008 to ask why people were joining and the results were split between the access to sports and the fine arts.

"Accountability and testing was a small part of it," said Brewster. "There was a lot of different reasons people had for joining, but the biggest was the extracurricular activities."

Cornerstone Family School's sports teams, the Saints, compete with public and private schools in a variety of sports ranging from soccer and basketball to track and field. Students can even letter in sports offering a similar experience to their traditional school counterparts.

Brewster's eldest son, Keaton, is currently in seventh grade, but would be in sixth grade in a public school because of his age. Keaton plays basketball for the junior high Saints.

"It's tough, but it's a lot of fun," Keaton said.

Another plus of home schooling is the flexibility of the class schedule. The Brewster family took a vacation in the middle of September this year to avoid the vacationing masses.

"We avoided the tourist times and the crowds from tourists in the summer," said Brewster. "We worked our lives and our vacation around school or school around our lives and vacation, whichever way you want to look at it."