The number of parents homeschooling their children in San Diego County spiked during the pandemic. But much of that increase appears to be long-lasting, as our Jakob McWhinney reports.
McWhinney analyzed five years worth of data on homeschooling that was originally gathered by the Washington Post.
Between 2017-18 and 2020-21, the number of children in homeschool increased by roughly 150 percent. Those gains have fallen off by a little bit, but not a lot.
The number of children homeschooling last year was still 88 percent higher than in 2017-18, the Post’s data shows. That’s nearly double.
What’s more: That may be a significant undercount. The data is messy and hard to parse. The Post also did not count students, who are enrolled in non-classroom-based charter schools that facilitate homeschooling.
Meet the Parents
McWhinney gave us a double-header on homeschooling. In his Learning Curve newsletter, he profiled a few different homeschool parents.
Their reasons for switching to homeschool varied.
One parent, who had been homeschool-curious, made the leap during the pandemic. She was spurred on by vaccine mandates and government lockdowns.
“In government schools, kids are told what happened, they’re told what to believe and they’re told what to memorize. But in homeschooling, we have the ability to teach our children how to learn and how to critically think,” she said.
Another had previously been a PTA parent. But her son has autism and ADHD and she never quite felt that public schools were serving him well. She felt kindergarten was stifling for her son and didn’t offer him the independence he needed to thrive.
“I feel like they’re just setting these kids up with this horrible foundation where they’re going to hate school for the rest of their lives,” Harness said.
Read the full Learning Curve here.
In Other News
- The San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 Tuesday to allocate another $3 million to a center that offers migrants food, resources and temporary shelter. The board in October spent $3 million, but that money didn’t last as long as officials hoped. (KPBS)
- Everyone deserves to be loved as much as Carl DeMaio loves to run for office. Politico reports that DeMaio is running for California Assembly to replace Marie Waldron. He casts it as an insurgency meant to save the California Republican Party and mobilize it to “take back the state.” And although he has not won in multiple mayoral and congressional campaigns since he was a City Councilman 10 years ago, he’s got a good chance to become the frontrunner in this one.
- Chula Vista Councilwoman Andrea Cardenas will no longer serve on Council Committee seats, or other agency boards as a representative of Chula Vista. The Chula Vista City Council voted Tuesday to not give her any assignments. Cardenas is facing felony charges of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. She has said that she does not plan on resigning from the Council and she filed to run for reelection on Tuesday. (KPBS, Union-Tribune)
- Waves are going to be big today. The National Weather Service issued a hazard statement Wednesday to warn swimmers that, “Waves will be high enough and rip currents strong enough to present a danger to inexperienced swimmers.” (Fox 5)
- The Union-Tribune reports that arts organizations in San Diego got a big boost of funding. This isn’t the first time the city has promised to fund arts, and last time it didn’t follow through with all the spending it pledged, so some are skeptical.
- The City Council is expected to vote next week to appoint the San Diego Housing Commission’s executive vice president as the housing agency’s new CEO. (KPBS)
- The Padres traded superstar Juan Soto to the New York Yankees late Wednesday as a dark fog settled over San Diego.
The Morning Report was written by Will Huntsberry, Scott Lewis, Andrea Lopez-Villafaña and Lisa Halverstadt. It was edited by Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.
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