[MommyToTwo]

Can foster parents homeschool foster children in Mass, or do they have to send them to public school?

Thanks in advance.

[Joy2566]

I don't know about MA, but here in PA I was able to homeschool foster kids. I had to educate people about the homeschool laws. (I actually had one SW tell me that it was not legal to homeschool ANY child in PA--not true). I did get permission from all of the workers, the PO (if the kid had one) and bio's, but it really wasn't necessary for the filing of the paperwork. Are you a member of HSLDA? That is where I got all of my information/help from, they could explain MA's law in this area. We are currently sending our fost/adopt children to Christian school, and only had to get the county workers approval. Good luck, I hope you are able to homeschool them.

[ALfostermom]

i don't know about your state, but Al is a no.

[Withay]

Why not ask your local DHS office. They can give you the straight answer for your state. Just a thought.

[Scrapsathome]

Wow! You are lucky in PA! Here in CO it depends on the county. They can just arbitrarily make their own rules about it. We can't homeschool them or even put them in a Christian school. It's got to be some form of public school even if it's a public charter school. Unfortunately the schools in my area are horrendous. We have two new little ones ages 4 and 5 who they are requiring us to enroll in school so that they can get speech therapy. These schools can't even get the kids around here to pass basic proficiency tests in reading or math or teach any of them to speak English. I'm skeptical about how well they'll do with speech therapy as part of a pre-K and K program.

I wish there were at least some sort of state wide laws regarding homeschooling/educating foster kids so that it wouldn't be up to people in each county who really don't have enough facts to make an informed decision.

Jess

[Joy2566]

Can homeschoolers not get speech therapy there? In VA we were able to get the therapy through the public school, we just had to bring the child to the school for it. In PA they don't give therapy to homeschoolers, but Medical Assistance pays for it. We have taken the kids to a therapy center through a hospital and never had to actually pay anything. We also took kids to WVU for therapy. They are much cheaper than the hospital and the session is longer. Since we have PA medical assistance and they are in WV, they wrote off the expense and we never paid anything. At a university you have masters students doing the therapy, but they are observed by the professor at every session. The public school therapy we got was always group sessions, and I didn't find those to be as effective as individual sessions. Do you have a university near you that might offer therapy? You also can get material to do some therapy at home. My mind is blank right now, but I'm pretty sure one of the places I got stuff is Special needs, sensory and therapy equipment from Abilitations - a School Specialty Company. My favorite was "Scissors, Glue, and Artic Too." Something like that.