We fall asleep reading the classics at our house. Why this matters may make more sense if you keep reading.

I’m in a little tussle with my school district right now.

The way it stands, I provided the same end-of-year information in 2018 to my school district as I did the year before, and this time, they said it wasn’t enough.

New York State is one of the most highly regulated states to live in if you homeschool, and several years ago when our liaison with the school district retired after many years of service, a revolving door of anti-homeschool vigilantes (or so it felt to the homeschoolers) began.

We seemed to get a new liaison every year, and each one was worse than the last. They sent us forms they had never sent us, complained about things that had never been a problem, and used highlighters, italics, AND caps, just in case we weren’t paying attention.

One summer a few years ago, I had another run-in with my district. I’d submitted all the paperwork they asked for, and they sent me a threatening letter requesting it.

I submitted the information again, and they sent someone TO MY DOOR to request those same documents I’d already sent them, twice. The man on my doorstep was clearly embarrassed to be there. I made him wait on the doorstep while I printed off a third copy and handed it to him.

I hand delivered documentation to them for a long time after that and had them stamp them received. The receptionist was huffy and said with all the homeschoolers in the district, it was MY job to make sure they had received my paperwork. I thought I had.

Now, with a new person in charge and a new problem, I had to wait for the HSLDA  (Home School Legal Defense Association) to get back to me about my shiny new membership and advise me on whether or not I needed to give the school district what they were asking for. I’ve read New York State Homeschool Law time after time looking for answers and kept coming away believing this is a grey area.

In the midst of all of this, I was working on personal growth, and trying to enjoy my summer away from school. Except when this thing was hanging over me, it felt like there was no closure from the previous school year. I also hadn’t been able to completely finish my organization for this school year. I had to be really purposeful about not sliding down the twisty slide of anxiety every time I thought about it.

One night, I was walking with the Chaplain, and thinking about it again, and remembered something that happened the summer I was 16. I was working at a Christian sleep-away camp in Western New York on their housekeeping staff. It was my first real experience with independence and I loved every second of it.

We teen employees would often gather and talk late into the night. One evening, I was sitting with two friends, Nate and Scott, and they were animatedly telling me about their favorite movies.

That night, my friends introduced me to Monty Python. They gave a detailed re-enactment of The Holy Grail, and between their hilarious re-telling and the obvious delight they had in recounting the story, I was sold.

My favorite part was the description of the scene where the knight stands in the path saying, “None shall pass.” A second knight comes along and a duel ensues. At one point, the first knight has had numerous limbs removed and is still trash talking and making displays of bravery. The other knight scoffs at him. “What’re you going to do?! Bleed on me?”

When I watched the movie myself for the first time, I remember being a little disappointed: the retelling by my camp friends had been better than the movie itself. I still smile thinking about them laughing so hard that they couldn’t breathe as they described that scene.

I started writing this in August 2018. While I eventually resolved the initial problem with the district, I’ve been in another tussle with the school district since February.

I spent all last summer, and the better part of our school year without resolution from the district on some issue or another. To comply with the law, I recently submitted more information to them that they can refuse to approve if they want to.

While there have been a lot of condescending and vaguely threatening emails and letters from the district, all of it reminds me of the knight in Monty Python, a mortally wounded warrior shouting insults at anyone who comes their way.

In a way, we are both the wounded knight, spurting blood but with no real weapons with which to fight. We disagree on ideology. No paperwork I send to the district is going to fix that.

I’m dealing with a broken system that would very much like me to toe the line and do things their way. But as a homeschooler, I am sticking it to the Man in hopes that maybe some of my kids will be the creative thinkers who can rise up as adults and fix some of the institutional brokenness in our country.

I want to raise independent thinkers, who aren’t feeling the daily pressure of needing to be a certain way for the comfort of their teachers and friends. I believe homeschooling will help us realize those dreams.

I have a kid who spent the nine years we homeschooled together in nearly continuous motion. I have one who throws dramatic fits when she encounters a difficult concept. In order to figure things out, sometimes she has to lie prostrate on the floor and wail for a while. I have another who likes to finish her schoolwork early so she can read, play, or make baked goods. None of those behaviors would be possible in a public school setting.

The school district ultimately has the upper hand here, as long as they don’t go too far beyond the law. I anticipate all of the documentation I’ve sent or have yet to send for the year will probably initially be rejected for one reason or another. I always send in the same stuff. This year, it’s almost all been rejected, for different reasons each time.

I’m doing the right thing for our family, and I’m within my rights, so I’ll keep doing it. I’ll keep sending stuff to the school district even if they continue to withhold approval. I’m finally getting to be a grown up, maybe even a semi-enlightened one, so I think I can handle the rejection. And I know I’m not doing a crappy job educating my kids. Heck, they fall asleep reading classic children’s lit. 

In a true nod to the connectivity of the universe, Three asked just now if she could get on the computer and work on the report she’s doing on knights. It’s Memorial Day and she knows she doesn’t have school today, but she got a reference book out of the library over the weekend and was excited to get to it. Yes, knights. She doesn’t even have to write the paper; it was an assignment for her sister and she decided she wanted to do it, too. You can’t plan this stuff.  Love it.