Are there people who have turned home schooling into a home business?

Question

If so were you paid by the state or by the parents of the chikdren and how much did you charge for this? I am thinking about becoming a home school teacher.

Answer 1

I did exactly that for about five years in Oregon.

The two key challenges are the teaching and the business. I find that I am the kind of person who prefers to be totally immersed in one or the other since they are each complex and challenging in and of themselves without mixing them together. This created a problem because I ended up starting and crashing the business several times. Those five years were not consecutive years.

In planning for doing it you should really consider both the business aspects as well as the teaching. Ideally, you would already be accomplished in one or the other (I wasn't.) If you are already comfortable running your own home-based business, then it should be relatively easy to apply those skills to a teaching business. If not, then perhaps you are an experienced teacher who can translate your methods into a home school situation and learn the business aspects as you go.

What I did was I home schooled other people's kids out my own home, rather than going to theirs. I wanted to be affordable so I undercharged, but did not have sufficient supplemental income to sustain it.

In Oregon there is a provision in the exception to the compulsory schooling law that mentions private teacher without defining it, so I called myself a private teacher. I also checked out the laws for child care and private schools to avoid hassles with the agencies that regulate them. This confined me to small groups of students, which was my intention, anyway.

Deciding what to charge for your services is a challenge. I would investigate the range of private school tuitions in your area and also get a sense of the rates tutors are charging, as well. Estimate the annual cost of a full time tutor and the hourly rate of the private schools. This will vary enormously, but should be useful for figuring out what to charge.

Based on that data you will want to find a balance with who you think will be your clients. If you are serving a wealthy community you want to make sure you charge enough to be respected, but if you are serving less wealthy clients you need to figure out what would be considered affordable. Remember to charge enough so that you can sustain yourself through ups and downs of life.

The key to getting started is finding your first clients and the key to maintaining success is finding more.  Do not count on advertising. While I advertised, all but one of my clients came by word of mouth. Advertising is more of a long term strategy for becoming a familiar person in your local community. People will always prefer a familiar person to a stranger, especially when it comes to their kids.

You should also be clear about what distinguishes you from every other schooling option available. You need a clear and concise way to explain what you do and why. I facilitated a consensus-run small group to explore their community to discover what learning resources were available and take advantage of them. This worked best in urban Portland than in rural Hood River, but mainly because I had more kids to work with and better transportation options.

If you want to explore the details more feel free to contact me through my websites and I can share more about what I did and how.

I am also intent on doing it again, but with a better business model this time. The next time around I plan to have reliable supplemental income in place so I can weather the inevitable client changeover from families moving and changing financial situations.

Answer 2

In my state, the parents must do 85% of the teaching, or it

is not considered home schooling.

You might be able to charge parents to get them started with

home schooling their children, by helping them with getting

information how to start, what to teach, where to get school

books etc. how to plan lessons.

Answer 3

I heard of families who started umbrella schools; Church schools, and hold classes at the Church.

These are not paid for with and federal, or state funds, they are private schools.

If your children attend you will be part of it; parent participation is what makes them work.

In our state you can hire a tutor for a subject, but only the parent, or legal guardian can home school their children.

Tutors are paid for by the parents, not the state.

Parents will also use each other; example; one will tutor in math, and than the other mother will give the music lessons, or provide childcare when needed.

Moms, and dads have agreed to share their time and talents.

This works great for everyone involved.

The only paid teachers I know that come to a students home are the ones that are paid for by the schools to provide instruction for home bound students, due to illness, or other circumstances.

They provide instruction to these students until they can go back to school, this is NOT true home schooling, but rather a temporary service schools  provide when needed.

Addition:

I will have to disagree with Blessed, since home school families are not going to pay for services that are available for free all over the Internet, and are also provided by local home school coordinators, as well as local and state home school groups and organizations.

Answer 4

The only homeschoolers that we know who have turned home schooling into a home business is for used curriculum,resources and books.  I cannot imagine paying someone to teach in my home.  I can imagine sending my son to another homeschool family to work together on a project, to be supervised while doing his work, or to have a fun day with other homeschoolers.  I do not know of any homeschool families that would ask for payment for supervising.

Our state recognizes homeschooling as non-public education.  This means that no tax dollars are used for home school, therefore they would not pay for a private teacher.  

Please, do some research.  You may be thinking of starting a private school which could be done from your home.  This is different from home school.  I do not know of any states that support private schools with tax dollars.

Answer 5

I do know a couple of people who homeschool other people's children (it is allowed here, too). The state does NOT pay ANYBODY to homeschool. You would have to set up something with the parents. You'd also have to look into city regulations in terms of running a business in your home. What you would charge would depend a bit on typical full-time summer childcare charges where you live and the private schools that are on the cheaper side.

Answer 6

There are people who are employed as home school tutors; you would generally be paid by the parents.  I don't work with a school in our homeschooling, so I'm not quite sure how that would work (being paid by the state).

I would suggest contacting some of the homeschool groups around you - you can google the name of your city or county and "homeschool group", something should come up.  Let the leader know of your services and prices, and see if they know anyone that could use your services.

Another option would be to be a co op or tutorial teacher.  In some areas, co ops will hire in teachers to teach subjects that the parents might not feel comfortable teaching, or that parents want their kids to take in a group setting (either for accountability or to prepare their kids for college).  I teach at a couple of co ops - for one of them I am a hired teacher (foreign languages) and for another that my son attends, I teach a couple of classes as my co op job.

You would probably make more headway as a co op teacher, though you may be able to get some private tutoring jobs as well.  Bear in mind that most homeschool families are one-income families, and many may not be able to afford a full-time tutor.  However, many do send their older children to co op classes that they pay for.

Answer 7

I think we need teacher for home schooling as a special talent only. how is we can not get on formal schooling. we need him for growing our great talent and we must paying with how qualified his teaching, and focus with our gift.

I have post about home schooling on one of my blog. you can explore it!