Maine marks jump in homeschool population since pandemic, law removing exemptions for school-mandated vaccines 

The Pine Tree State is seeing a new kind of growth since the COVID-19 pandemic – almost double the number of homeschoolers in the 2024-25 academic year (6.4%) compared to 2019-20 (3.6%), according to recent reports.

“The growth — which was most pronounced in central and northern Maine — follows a period of great disruption for schools, with some parents emerging from the pandemic more confident in their ability to educate their children at home,” explains the Maine Monitor. “It also comes after Maine passed a law removing religious and philosophical exemptions for school-mandated vaccines, which went into effect in 2021.”

Factors for the rise in homeschooling include a “concern about school environment” as well as parental desires to provide moral and religious instruction, according to a 2023 Washington Post-Schar School poll. 

“As homeschooling has become increasingly popular, so have homeschool co-ops,” the Monitor notes. “The parent-driven groups, many of which are religious, typically meet once a week and rely on parent volunteers to lead the classrooms. Parents also typically stay on-site throughout the co-op meeting hours.” 

One of those parents is Angelica Larrabee, who told journalists she never planned to homeschool. Having been to public school, she had assumed her children would stay in the same district where she had attended “from start to finish.” 

However, after the pandemic, she noticed how her oldest son – then in second grade – enjoyed learning from home more than he had in public school. 

Larrabee enrolled her son at a homeschool co-op at the church her family attends: Calvary Belfast Academy. Now all three of her children participate, while she helps at the co-op’s preschool. 

“Homeschooling can be very isolating if you allow it to be,” Larrabee said, “so I think that it’s been really helpful to have those connections.” 

‘Grassroots foundational community of homeschoolers’ 

Pastor Jonah Hadley, who helped form a church-based co-op at Mercy Chapel in Sanford, said demand was so high the co-op began limiting attendance to congregation members only. 

“Maine has a very robust homeschool community, and it’s not just religious people,” he said. “There’s a very grassroots foundational community of homeschoolers here.” 

The co-op serves about 80 students. One of its offerings includes Hadley’s high school Bible class, which he described as attracting “teenagers who get taken out of public school for part of the day to attend,” according to the Monitor. 

Patricia Hutchins, board member for Homeschoolers of Maine, argued the growth in homeschooling demonstrates how parents are seeking greater oversight over their children’s learning. 

“Some Christian families — not all, but some — may feel that sending their kids to a public school is like sending them to a school with an alternate religion,” Hutchins said. 

“We’re very accustomed to thinking of public schools as neutral — a public school is kind of like a valueless place where everybody can go, and it’s like this utopia where students of all different backgrounds just fit — whereas a lot of Christian families might say there is no such thing as a neutral location.”