Homeschooling continues growth among black families

Mother-of-three Catoya Owens is one of many black parents around the country who have made the switch to homeschooling over the last few years.

“A lot of parents and families want to venture out and homeschool but are afraid because they don’t know what to expect,” she told ClickOrlando.com. “They don’t know how difficult or what challenges to prepare for, so I think just having a resource and a place to come and get that information is amazing.” 

Owens found a resource in the Black Homeschoolers of Central Florida, which recently opened a new center in DeLand where all its educational materials can have a permanent home. The organization also offers extracurricular activities, field trips, tutoring services and more. 

“Everything that you see in here has been in storage or in a cargo trailer,” said Rasheeda Denning, the nonprofit’s founder. 

Instead of renting libraries and other community spaces for a day, she can use the center and avoid daily times for setting up and tearing down. 

“To be able to have a space that you can actually have everything out, have a place that you can go to your office and take care of business, it’s just a blessing.” 

Homeschool growth within the black community 

Denning started the group 15 years ago to connect with more black homeschoolers. 

“I’ve been homeschooling for 26 years, and we would go to different homeschooling conventions and different things like that. There would be 10,000 homeschoolers and we’d be the only black family.” 

Today black families are the fastest-growing demographic in U.S. homeschooling, and pioneers like Denning are reaching out to the next generation. 

In another example, the Georgia Black Home Educators Network is preparing to register over 300 parents at its Jan. 29-31 Flourish Family Homeschool Conference. 

“We wanted to pull homeschooling resources for those families that are on the fringes, that no one’s really focusing on,” said Nicole P. Doyle, the association’s founder. “We’re recognizing that homeschool is not free, and sometimes it’s very difficult when you’re a fixed-budget family with a lot of children.” 

An estimated 41% of homeschooled students are Black, Asian, Hispanic and “others” (i.e., not White/non-Hispanic), according to a 2019 report from the U.S. Department of Education. 

Many of these homeschoolers draw comfort and support through teaching their children in community. For instance, finding like-minded families has been crucial to Lisa and Samuel Abraham’s homeschool journey. 

“One question when you talk about kids, when they’re doing homeschooling, is the socialization, whether or not they have the ability to socialize with other kids,” Lisa said, “And being a part of an organization like this, you’re bringing them to other kids who are homeschooled as well. So you can see they just light up and they participate, and it gives you an opportunity to just allow the kids to be in an environment where they could just thrive with other kids outside of just being home and being homeschooled.” 

Her husband, Samuel, agrees. 

“Our kids can write cursive. They can read an analog clock. It sounds small, but these are things that are being pulled out of the school system that we’ve still incorporated in their lives. So it’s cool. It’s different.”