Families for Home Education, the oldest and largest statewide home school organization in Missouri, has been serving Missouri home educators since 1983. FHE is comprised of members – you, not just a board and staff. The purpose of FHE is to protect the inalienable right of the parents of Missouri to teach their own children without state regulation and control.
FHE works to achieve these ends in the following ways:
- Publishes First Things First, a Guide for the Missouri Home Educator
- Holds workshops and special events for new home educators – connecting them with the homeschool community and providing materials and information
- Provides speakers for meetings and events –for support groups, local events, and homeschool conventions across the state
- Maintains a lobbyist in Jefferson City
- Maintains relationships and communication with Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) – working hand-in-hand to ensure your right to home educate in the state of Missouri
- Publishes a newsletter, the FHE Bulletin, for our members
- Maintains communication with FHE members through MailChimp messages which include legislative alerts, important information concerning homeschool issues, and notices that the Bulletin Newsletters have been posted on the FHE “Members Only” section of this website.
(Note to members: Please add [email protected] to your address book to help keep the emails from going to your junk box.)
- Provides member resources in the “Members Only” section of the website which include: FHE Bulletin archives, downloadable “Journal/Planbook, and downloadable hour log.
- Hosts the annual FHE Homeschool Day at the Capitol (Same event, new name, will be, March 3, 2020)
All homeschool families welcome!!
- and more…
2020 Senior Class meetings will begin in August 2019.
If you have a student that will be graduating in 2020 keep up-to-date on registation dates and information by clicking on the icons above.
Back to school is just around the corner and with is comes requests and demands for home schoolers to register....Oh, no!
Oh, NO! indeed! For veteran home educators, this may seem old hat. But for new home schoolers, the "threat is in the mail" type of letter can be unnerving. Usually this request is to secure more federal tax dollars thru the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) federal program.
The primary thing you need to know as a home educator is that you don't have to tell the school district ANYTHING. If you have ALREADY filed a voluntary declaration per 167.042 (FHE recommends you do not, and if you have, that you discontinued filing any future declarations), the district should already have access to all the information they need for this year. If you have never filed one, don't, and you can't be required to do so.
These "declarations" provide the only counts the districts can legally use, according to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). Withdrawal letters (in FHE’s format) don't count. And the districts have no legal mandate or authority to "know the status of every child in their district."
So, if you get such a letter, phone call, or see a notice in the paper (the latest trend is to put an ad in the classifieds claiming home schoolers have to contact the school), don't respond or answer questions. If you are an HSLDA member, call them first. Then call FHE and let us know which school district (district number, name of persons making the contact if known) is involved.
This is the statute which applies to the optional “Declaration of Enrollment”, RSMo 167.042:
“For the purpose of minimizing unnecessary investigations due to reports of truancy,
each parent, guardian, or other person responsible for the child who causes his child
to attend regularly a home school MAY provide to the recorder of deeds of the county
where the child legally resides, or to the chief school officer of the public school district
where the child legally resides, a signed, written declaration of enrollment stating their
intent for the child to attend a home school … “
Armed with information about your rights, you can enjoy the fall, instead of the fallout!