CHICAGO -- Inside an Irving Park bungalow, kids raced barefoot through the dining room, zooming past paper chains taped to the ceiling. Some slouched in couch chairs, trading stories in a game of Dungeons & Dragons. Others lay on the hardwood floor, flipping through picture books.

Teacher Claire Jakubiszyn knelt beside a 7-year-old boy, counting beads for an art project.

“This is how, even though we don’t do math class, we’re incorporating it through hands-on practice,” she said.

Jakubiszyn’s microschool — or “unschool,” as she calls it — enrolls nearly two dozen students, ages 4 to 14. There are no desks, no tests, no set curriculum, just a small group of teachers to facilitate child-led learning. Most of the kids are homeschoolers who attend part time.

“Children aren’t standard, right? Education shouldn’t be standard. Different kids are going to need different things,” said Jakubiszyn, a former high school arts teacher at a Chicago charter school.

The model may seem unconventional, but it’s gaining ground.

The pandemic supercharged interest in alternative education, from microschools, to homeschooling co-ops, to online learning. Years later, many of those kids haven’t returned to traditional classrooms.

Against the backdrop of national debates over school choice and vouchers, homeschooling has burst from the ideological fringe to the center of Chicago’s education landscape.

Illinois is among a handful of states with virtually no data on homeschooling. But among the 30 states that track participation, the numbers are booming. Last school year, homeschooling rose by about 5%, nearly triple the pre-pandemic growth rate, according to the Homeschool Research Lab at Johns Hopkins University.

Jakubiszyn began homeschooling in 2022. Her daughter was increasingly unhappy in kindergarten at a public magnet school, where crammed classrooms and rigid schedules seemed to stifle her curiosity, Jakubiszyn said.

During the pandemic, the family had run a small learning pod. Why not revive the model? That same year, Jakubiszyn opened Blazing Star School on the second floor of her yellow-brick home. Today, it has a waitlist.

“I knew that we couldn’t just be homeschoolers. We would have driven each other nuts,” Jakubiszyn said. “I was like, ‘We need more people. We need a whole community.’”

Modern homeschooling has shifted from a largely religious, rural demographic to a more diverse, often secular population, according to Angela Watson, assistant professor and director of the Homeschool Research Lab at Johns Hopkins. It is the fastest-growing — and the only growing — form of education in the U.S.

That shift is unfolding as enrollment falls in large, urban districts, including at Chicago Public Schools. Most of the decline is due to population changes: Birth rates are dropping. Black families are leaving the city in droves. But a growing share of families are also seeking alternatives to public schools.

From 2018 to 2023, the percentage of Chicago’s school-aged children enrolled in CPS fell from 75% to 71%, according to a recent report. The proportion attending private schools or not enrolled ticked up over the same period.

“Homeschooling is not only holding its own, which is a win when everyone else is going down, but it’s actually increasing,” Watson said. “We saw huge increases during the pandemic. Everyone thought it would go back to normal. It didn’t.”

Some parents told the Tribune that pandemic-era growth seems to have set off a snowball effect, fueled by an explosion of online and at-home learning resources. But with limited data, the precise driver of the phenomenon largely eludes researchers.

Safety is the most common reason parents give for switching to homeschooling, according to Watson. But “safety” can mean different things, from shielding a child from certain viewpoints to protecting them from bullying. About 40% of families who homeschool have a child with special education needs, she added.

“It does seem to act as an exit ramp for a lot of people, where the traditional schools, whether public or private, aren’t really aligning with their needs or their points of view,” Watson said. “People are exiting on both ends of the spectrum.”

‘Free the kids’

Above a modest, mid-century church in South Holland, Aziza Butler weaved through rows of miniature desks. She smoothed out her long cardigan, the chatter of children echoing from the room next door.

Butler runs WeSchool Academy, a homeschool co-op with about 20 students, including her six children. The program, which is open to all ages, offers families the flexibility to send their kids as many days each week as they choose. Curriculum is infused with Bible study and faith-based values.

“I always say, I feel like I’m Harriet Tubman for homeschooling,” Butler said. “Free the kids. Let them thrive.”

The Butler family is Black, as are most of their students. Homeschooling is becoming increasingly racially diverse: A recent analysis from Johns Hopkins researchers found that the share of homeschoolers of color rose by 4 percentage points since 1998, while the proportion of white children declined.

Butler said at-home learning is empowering for Black communities, pointing to historic inequity and achievement gaps in public schools — what she still calls a “failing system.”

“We’ve seen that in history where, Black people took it upon themselves to figure out how to give their kids what they need,” Butler said. “I think about the civil rights struggle and how difficult that was. It was like, ‘We’re not gonna wait for it.’”

About a decade ago, Butler was a Chicago Public Schools teacher, fresh out of college with a class of 31 sixth-grade students in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. Her school was always short on books, staffing and funding, she said, and the large class sizes felt impersonal.

“My challenge wasn’t just to be a good teacher, it was to combat a system that had to meet a bottom line,” Butler said.

She left CPS after her first daughter was born, and her family has been homeschooling since. Butler started WeSchool more recently, when interest in at-home learning exploded during the pandemic. They moved into the south suburban church in 2022.

“I think parents really got to see what their kids were not doing, or what they could be doing, and they just got more involved,” Butler said of the pandemic.

Few rules, little oversight

Only a handful of other states have little to no homeschooling regulations. The Illinois State Board of Education mandates which subjects must be taught — but families don’t need to submit tests, homework or other materials. There’s also no formal registration process, which makes it impossible to gauge the number of homeschoolers in Illinois.

Some school districts, including CPS, ask parents to notify officials if they opt for homeschooling, though they can’t legally require it.

Last spring, Illinois lawmakers advanced a bill that would have mandated additional oversight, including a homeschool declaration form to be submitted to local districts. It followed a joint investigation from ProPublica and Capitol News Illinois, which found that the state does little to shield homeschooled students from potential neglect.

But the bill drew a slew of criticism from homeschooling advocates, who argued it constituted government overreach. It ultimately failed to pass.

Watson said that legislative oversight should be a conversation in states like Illinois, but noted that the process must be “thoughtful and strategic.” In particular, she said, lawmakers should make an effort to consult the homeschooling community when crafting policies — especially as the population continues to grow.

“(These states) have virtually no regulation or laws or requirements around homeschooling,” Watson said. “Then, they try to go from that to the most restrictive laws in the nation.”

A network of alternatives

That growth, too, shows no signs of slowing. With a surge of homeschooling resources now available across Chicago, it is easier than ever to make the transition, parents told the Tribune.

Jen Covotsos’ 8-year-old son, Vincent, bounced in and out of Catholic schools, but faced bullying, she said. At first, he tried online school — but Vincent felt isolated and struggled to focus. Covotsos scoured Facebook for other options until she found Blazing Star School last year.

Vincent has since been thriving there, Covotsos said. One of his interests is fishing, for example, so the children went on a field trip to an aquarium. He’s also become an avid reader of books about marine life. The 8-year-old even asked his mom if he could attend full time.

“It makes us want to cry, because I never thought he would be connected with school and learning,” Covotsos said. “He’s a different kid.”

Or take Ollie Allen, a Hyde Park resident whose 7-year-old foster daughter had never been in a conventional classroom. It led Allen to launch a small homeschooling pod in her apartment, focusing on flexible, individualized learning.

“A lot of times within the public schools, you have a calendar that you must follow, and it’s kind of strict,” said Allen, a former CPS teacher. “With the homeschooling model, kids get a chance to relax a little and let their hair down.”

Outside of academic settings, a burgeoning activity network is helping homeschoolers socialize. After the pandemic, for example, Kilbourn Park resident Ben Huizenga started a theater troupe for at-home learners, now with about a dozen kids.

Their homespun productions also facilitate learning and literacy, Huizenga added.

“There was one kid who’s been doing it two or three times. When he started, the script was the real challenge … He just couldn’t read easily, and now it’s getting better,” Huizenga said. “So I’m like, inadvertently teaching this kid how to read.”

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