Do you know what to do if Child Protection Services knocks at your door? In this workshop, Homeschool Idaho Board member, Melissa Nash will walk you through the Idaho Homeschool education requirements and the Idaho Department of Health and Welfares’ policies and procedures so you are prepared if your doorbell rings.

Can your students read between the lines? Decode advertisements? Interpret political cartoons? Make judgments about logic? Discern between inevitable biases and compromising agendas? Take counterarguments seriously? Pinpoint ideology? Contextualize events in history? Tease out nuance? Define subtlety? Take apart rhetoric? Account for psychology? Distinguish between intuition and reason? Assess the impact of the medium? Discuss images vs. text vs. video? Read laterally? Research reliably? Uncover original sources? Identify circumstantial evidence? Tolerate boredom? Frame and characterize charitably? Distinguish between facts, opinions, and value judgments? Distinguish between readily-available sources, well-financed sources, aesthetically-pleasing sources, and good sources? Breakdown satire? Unpack persuasiveness? Co-exist with misinformation, disinformation, and fake news? Literacy with today’s media requires a world of insights from history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and media studies. Come learn how to structure a course that targets all layers of a student’s needs in today’s information and media environment.

Why do military families choose to homeschool? The last survey completed by Blue Star Families estimates that at least 6% of military families homeschool. This number is continuing to rise post-COVID as more military families choose to homeschool. This session will give an overview of these reasons and examine some of the challenges—and solutions—to homeschooling military-style.

Homeschooling in Idaho had a rough start and this quick look back reminds us how far we've come and how vigilantly we must guard our hard earned freedom

Homeschooling has gone mainstream and with its growth has come all manner of variations: pod, micro, bridge, co-op, and etc. The list seems endless. They all claim to be homeschool and each has their own benefits, drawbacks, and unique features. But what does homeschool really mean, particularly in Idaho? What are all the options out there and what do they involve? How do you decide which option best fits your needs? Learn the basics of them all.

Dr. Ray provides a brief summary of homeschool research to date and explains current projects and trends. He explains that scholarly writing and research are powerful tools used by both friends and foes of parent-led education, that they should be guided by clear goals and theory that are based on sound values, and suggests where they should be headed.

In spite of what professional educators might tell you, homeschooling works. Even parents with a high school education help their children excel with home-based education. Educators have talked for centuries about using state-run education to liberate people. Could it be that parent-led, home-based education is the only deep and lasting way to free individuals from control (even tyranny)? One of the world’s leading homeschool researchers makes this engaging and fact-filled presentation as he reviews research on homeschooling and documents the findings of his own multiple studies.

Education Savings Accounts for elementary and secondary schooling is a new tax-funded student in the neighborhood. Even some so-called conservatives are promoting them, and “choice advocates” are promoting them. Dr. Ray will use a biblical perspective, a freedom-loving perspective, and historical research evidence to explain why ESA-tax- funded schooling is a bad idea. And Dr. Ray will challenge you and encourage you that private, parent-led, home-based education, with the volitional help of others, is the best way to execute God’s principles and expand the “education freedom space” in America.

Will gives a historical review of the Founders’ intentions when they drafted the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. He then discusses how many of the provisions in the U.S. Constitution directly protect homeschooling families. Will concludes with an informative and practical discussion that includes real-life examples of how parents can protect their Constitutional freedom even when an irate social worker is demanding entrance into their home.

Will goes into detail about the history, content, and effects of the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 2006 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. He discusses how U.S. ratification of these treaties would threaten homeschool freedom, parental rights, and the sovereignty of the United States. Will discusses the shifting political support for these dangerous international treaties, what freedom–loving citizens can do to fight them, and how homeschoolers have defeated these treaties in the past.

Will uses ripped—from—the—headlines stories and personal anecdotes to share what issues homeschoolers face on Capitol Hill, the political environment, what HSLDA is doing at the federal level, and why the Parental Rights Amendment is so important. For longer general sessions, Will goes into detail about the history of the federal government and homeschooling, threats to our freedoms at the federal level, the battles that are being fought, the victories that are being won, and what is on the horizon.

Will takes his audience through the history of the Common Core’s creation, how the federal government and national education bureaucrats pressured states to adopt the Common Core, and how the philosophy behind the Common Core is deeply flawed. He discusses related concerns with the Common Core, such as intrusive national databases and how the Common Core is poised to become a de facto national curriculum. He closes with how homeschoolers and their allies can unite to push back against the Common Core.