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Creating African-American Home School Support Groups

© Jennifer James

Currently, one of the biggest obstacles facing the African-American home schooling community is the lack of support groups geared toward African-American homeschoolers on the local and state levels. Arguably, there are a variety of valid reasons for the near absence of organized African-American support groups ranging from the newness of the movement to the lack of and difficulty in finding other African-American homeschoolers in a given area. Although countless reasons may be given to excuse families from actively reaching out to other homeschoolers, there is still one ultimate solution and that is to get moving! In fact, clusters of African-American home schooling families are doing just that in select states such as Texas, Georgia and North Carolina.

To be sure, home schooling in the African-American community is a fairly new movement and thus the organizational infrastructure on the national, state and local levels is just beginning to provide central locations for families to obtain home schooling information and to network with one another. In fact, home schooling has only been viewed by scores of African-American families as a viable educational alternative to traditional education in the last five years. Given such a short incubation period, mass organizational efforts in the African-American community have yet to be established. That said, however, African-American families can still do more to create local and state support groups in order for the children to feel more secure in their role as home schooled students and for parents to feel more comfortable in their role as primary educators.

There are several ways that African-American homeschoolers can reach out and create support groups either on the local or state level. Any organizational effort on the part of an individual or team of individuals demands precise attention to detail and a willingness to help fellow homeschoolers become the best home educators that they can be. Without a cohesive understanding of these principles, support groups will actually do a disservice to homeschoolers and the African-American home schooling community needs collective support in order for home education to work well and to obtain desired results.

Local Support Groups
Any parent or group of parents can begin a local support group by first posting fliers in the library, church, health-food stores, and community and cultural centers. Many African-American homeschoolers are out there searching for other homeschoolers nearby and the first commitment to an organized effort is most always responded to. Be sure to include contact information whether by e-mail or phone and designate a contact person to handle all new and potential members. Set a time for a meeting, either in a community center, a local park, church, library or any other location where a meeting may be held. In the beginning, a support group need not be fully organized. The main objective is to get families organized and connected. From that point, parents can decide the direction of the support group. Some groups form co-ops, others get together on a regular basis to go on field trips while other groups are fully organized with election of officers and committees that fulfill various functions of the group. Additionally, you may find it useful to create a website, get indexed in search engines and let families find you. This approach is highly effective and sometimes works better than trying to get the word out by going all around town. Both approaches used in conjunction, however, are certain to attain the results that you are looking for and a local group will be well under way.

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