The Homeschooler’s Contract

Before we moved to NorCal I took a good survey of the local private schools. I found two that I deemed worthy of even a glance, which upon further inspection, I narrowed down to one. It’s a cute school – tiny, African-centered, intensive, basically everything I’d want in a school. Of course, in the end we decided to continue homeschooling, as I just couldn’t get passed the lack of Christian curriculum. But after speaking with the director and going over the paperwork, I noticed they had the student sign a contract…Brilliance!

Their contract simply stated that education was important and serious business and that the student was required to contribute their best at all times. It really inspired me, though. As I give The Kidd more freedom and responsibility over his own work this year, I wanted him to know that this is still serious business and that education is the foundation to his future. We talked about contracts – what they are and why we use them – and then I showed him examples like our lease and my phone contract.

He was very open to signing a contract and when I pulled it out he decided that this was something that needed to be done “over coffee”. This kid, I tell you! So I made him some hot chocolate, made myself some tea, and we split a piece of peach cobbler while discussing the contract and then signing it. We were just missing business suits and portfolios. I think we’ll make this a yearly thing. After it was signed I made a copy, and we put the original in my teachers binder and the copy in his.

We’re still in the first week of lessons, but it’s gone well. Today during our reading lesson while he was whining about having to do it all over again (sloppy, illegible work) I had to remind him of the contract. He perked right up, said “oh yeah”, and that was that.

Seriously? I would have done this YEARS ago!

Here’s our contract. Feel free to take a look at it, copy it and tailor it to your own homeschool.

Homeschool Contract