History

by Mark August, President

Every once in a while, when I’m introduced to a fellow homeschooler for the first time, I hear something like “Oh, you’re the guy from the Nota Bene group.”  One tongue-in-cheek phone call asked to speak to the guy in charge of the “Knotty Bean.”  I’m often approached by someone requesting to join the Tricounty support group.  Because of this, I thought I’d take this space in the final issue of the 2002-2003 school year to give a brief history of the Tricounty Home Educators and what our vision is for it today.

Tricounty Home Educators (which in its early years used to be spelled Tri-County Home Educators) began as some of the pioneers of Christian homeschooling in our area started banding together for mutual support and encouragement.  Most were from various churches, but none of the churches seemed to have enough homeschooling families to form an independent support group.  It was not long after this however, when there were enough homeschooling families to break Tricounty into several distinct support groups serving different locations in the South Jersey area.  It was here that Tricounty meeting changed from a family support group, to one for support group leaders.  The meetings were a time to exchange information, idea, and encouragement.  All was then brought back to the local support groups by the leaders.

Some of the activities that had been started by the early group, still seemed to appropriately belong to the larger organization.  Things like Field Day, the Science Fair, the various Bee’s and sporting events made more sense when drawing from all the support groups.  The leaders also felt a need to communicate with the non-homeschooling community – and began information nights where homeschooling could be presented to those seeking to learn about it – from those actually doing it.  A phone line was established where people could call and speak with homeschooling parents.  Also a newsletter was established, the Nota Bene.  This newsletter would seek to put all the information gathered by the various families in the group into one publication.  In its earliest form it was a true cut-and-paste affair.

Over the next decade Tricounty saw the number of Christian support groups in the area grow to around 10.  Homeschooling was becoming less of a pioneer effort and almost everyone in the area knew or had heard of at least one homeschooling family.  Yearly state level curriculum fairs and conventions were routine and part of people’s schedules.  Some of the churches in the area began to have so many homeschooling families that they began their own support groups. 

When I got involved with Tricounty a few years ago, it was after an absence of an active leader for about year.  During that time there were few, if any, leader support group meetings.  Most of the affiliated support groups were in various states of a support group life cycle, but none of them had seemed to suffer from the lack of Tricounty meetings.  The Nota Bene was then, as it remains today, the most visible part of Tricounty.  Phil Kent, the most recent Tricounty President had begun a webpage for Tricounty as well as establishing email as a communication method. 

I was approached and asked to serve as President of Tricounty in 2000, and after accepting, the next few years were used as time to evaluate the mission of Tricounty; which activities should be continued, which had outlived their usefulness, and what new opportunities were available now to serve the Christian homeschool community. 

tI was clear that the larger group events such as the Spelling Bee, Geography Bee and Field Day were still being a blessing to currently homeschooling families.  The Information Nights were still attended by those considering homeschooling.  The subscriber base of over 200 families spoke to the usefulness of the Nota Bene.  We were still receiving calls on the Tricounty phone number, and at least one email was received each month from someone interested in homeschooling. 

However, interest in the Leaders Support Group meetings had waned.  Casual polling of the leaders uncovered a consistent comment:  “Our schedules are just a little too busy for another meeting.”  Much of the information that used to pass from mouth-to-mouth in meetings was now being disseminated much more conveniently by email and newsletters.  Because of this, the Leaders Support Group meetings were suspended, and replaced by a single yearly meeting where Leaders could get acquainted, discuss the past and upcoming years, and visions for the future could be shared.

Tricounty Home Educator’s mission today is threefold.  First it seeks to serve leaders in the local Christian homeschool community, be they support group leaders or activity organizers.  Secondly, it seeks to disseminate information of interest to Christian homeschoolers using newsletters, brochures, email, web pages, and the telephone.  Finally, Tricounty seeks to be available as a contact, education and referral source for families considering homeschooling their children. We would like to present to the community around us a godly face of humility and service as we follow his call to educate our children at home.  In an attempt to follow Christ’s mandate for greatness, we evaluate our opportunities and activities, not on how well we can and have led, but on how well we can and have served. 

In keeping with our mission, Tricounty is always looking for those willing to serve as part of their spiritual service to their Savior. We have added a few lines to the Nota Bene subscription form this year to give you an opportunity to do so.  Take a few minutes to pray about what talents you would be willing to invest this year to serve your fellow Christian homeschoolers.  As well, please use the subscription form as a forum for an honest evaluation of how Tricounty has done in the past year in its goal to bless and serve.