Some Home Schools Alter Path: Opting for ?08′ Status Means Less Oversight, Availability of State Money for College Courses

By Jennifer Smith Richards, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

Jun. 19–These private schools have a principal and maybe one or two students.

Class can still take place at the kitchen table, though. And nobody will monitor what’s being taught or when school’s in session.

For several years, some home schools have been reinventing themselves as a special kind of private school, called an “08 school” for the section of the Ohio Revised Code that created them.

Growth in the number of 08 schools has been swift in the past decade, mostly because students in such private schools can get state money to take college courses while still in high school. (Ohio calls the dual-enrollment program “postsecondary enrollment options.”)

There are 49 “nonchartered, nontax-funded” private schools in central Ohio and 461 statewide, about a 150 percent increase in the past decade.

“The vast majority of these 08 schools are now home-schoolers,” said Flo McKinley, a board member of Christian Home Educators of Ohio, which studies home-schooling issues.

Now, traditional private schools — those overseen by the state — and the 08 schools with little state oversight vie for the same $2 million that Ohio reserves for high-school students to use for college courses.

Public schools can send as many students as they’re willing to pay for. The state sets aside about $15 million for them.

Some 08 schools are co-ops of home-school families who share ex- pertise.

For example, Veritas Academy in Worthington is a homeschool study group with classes led by parents with expertise in the subject.

But the 08 designation had been reserved for people with “truly held religious beliefs” who don’t want to teach state standards — such as evolution — and don’t want oversight. Established in 1983, the 08 law allows anyone with a degree to open a non-tax-funded private school.

More-traditional versions of 08 schools exist, a handful of them in central Ohio. Integrity Christian School in Newark is one.

Melissa Shumaker, the school’s administrator and a former home-school parent, opened Integrity last year with about 10 students.

“If you’re an 08 school, there’s a lot less paperwork to turn in to the state; therefore, they have a lot less control over you,” she said.

“That’s why some of your more-traditional Christian folks like 08 schools, because the government doesn’t have any control (over what you teach).”

Some nonchartered private schools have been at odds with the newer breed of home-schoolers, as have some state-sanctioned private schools. Some traditional home-schoolers take issue with using an 08 designation, too.

McKinley, of the Christian Home Educators of Ohio, is among them.

“I believe it’s a danger for the traditional 08 schools who want to exist for religious purposes. Those schools are being compromised,” she said.

It’s not wise for homeschool families to become 08 schools for the sole purpose of getting state money for college courses, she said.

The Catholic Conference of Ohio tried to have the legislature exclude 08 schools last year when money for dual enrollment ran out for privateschool students. The group “pretty much dropped” its argument after the legislature declined to change the dualenrollment rules, said Carolyn Jurkowitz, associate director of the Catholic Conference.

But home-schoolers say they have a right to the protection and perks that becoming a private school bring.

“(We do it) so our tax dollars can go toward postsecondary options, too,” said Betsy Walk, whose home school-turnedprivate school is named Walk Academy of Higher Achievement.

Other states also have laws that allow home-schoolers to declare themselves a private school, said Ian Slatter, director of media relations for the Home School Legal Defense Association in Virginia.

“But I’m not aware of another state where you can get access to taxpayer dollars,” Slatter said.

jsmithrichards@dispatch.com

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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