If we are lucky we will find out some time this month. But the final answer for parents who are considering gifted programs for their children won't be in until June.
This isn't the only way having children can cramp a home exchanger's style. The day the Board of Education deigns to inform us of a school assignment is just the beginning. Our home exchange options are strictly limited by the public school vacation schedule.
A hallmark of the successful exchanger is flexibility. As home exchangers whose kids have 15 years of school ahead of them, we have specific dates when we can swap and they are completely inflexible.
There is one group of parents with young children who don't face the same obstacles we do -- home-schoolers. If you know any family with home-schooled children, tell them about vacation swaps without delay.
Home-school families have the flexibility to hold classes anywhere. Teaching the kids about the American Revolution? Swappers in Boston or Philadelphia can help the children walk in the footsteps of our Founders. Maybe your home schoolers want to learn French. Do a swap in Montreal or France and enroll the children in the same local day camp the neighbors' children attend.
There is a swap club just for home-schoolers. I don't recommend it. It has very few listings and beyond that, there is no point to restricting yourself to swapping only with a narrow demographic. Retired exchangers or even working people who have vacation time are just as likely to be able to exchange with a home-schooling family.
There is only one reason that home-schooling families might want to limit themselves to other home-schoolers. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics,
"Statistically, the typical American homeschooling parents are married, homeschool their children primarily for religious or moral reasons, and are almost twice as likely to be Evangelical than the national average. They average three or more children, and typically the mother stays home to care for them."
We have exchanged with two families of American home-schoolers. One was comprised of Jewish parents who seemed like very typical exchangers. They home-schooled because their children were exceptionally gifted and (I suspect) because one of the children had a stutter so severe he would have been tortured by the crueler children in any school.
The second swap family with whom we exchanged turned out to be members of an extremely restrictive religious group. The reason we quickly found this out was that their home contained no reading material at all except for one bookshelf packed with fire-and-brimstone texts all published by their church. We later found out from the relatively neutral ReligionFacts.com that this well-known sect believes everyone but its followers are sinful and damned. It is the responsibility of members to "save" others from their evil ways.
When we came back from using the sect-members' home we found a campaign poster for a liberal candidate that we had put up in our terrace window had been removed and turned backwards against the far wall. I'd like to think it fell down by itself but I am not sure.
If steering clear of sinners is the motivation your family has for home schooling, you may want to re-think home exchange. As home swappers we must respect each other's homes and lives. We cannot edit someone else's life. People who do not want their children to learn about the outside world cannot control every element of a home exchange. Your swappers' neighbors may be gay or have a Barack Obama bumper sticker on her car. The exchange family will expect you to be polite to everyone, particularly if you are using an apartment and are in close quarters with people you may consider to be godless.
In general, I have found most home exchangers to be open-minded and more liberal than average. This does not describe people whose main goal is to get sinners to behave the right way. So I do not think home exchange is a good fit for any family that avoids a public school education because it is too progressive or inclusive.
Home exchange could be the perfect travel style for parents who home-school out of a preference for a naturalistic learning environment or because their children have exceptional needs.
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