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Karl M. Bunday
P. O. Box 1858
Minnetonka, MN 55345
Copyright © 2013 Karl M. Bunday, all rights reserved.
Virginia, the state famous for the slogan Virginia is for lovers,
is a state for which I have obtained official figures on the number of homeschoolers. Virginia homeschoolers can make use of either of two main state statutes when homeschooling. One is a general homeschooling statute, the other a religious exemption from compulsory school attendance statute. Local school authorities in Virginia are the counties or the various independent cities and towns. In former years, some of those local school authorities were reluctant to grant exemptions under the religious exemption statute. Thus the proportion of homeschoolers registering under the religious exemption statute is not an accurate measure of the proportion of Virginia homeschoolers who may be homeschooling for religious reasons in whole or in part. The Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Education began gathering figures about the religious exemption in a later year than when it began gathering figures about the general homeschooling statute, so the data series below begins with figures reporting the number of children registered under the general statute, followed by one year (1993-1994) in which both the aggregate figure of all homeschooled children and the number of children using the general statute are shown, followed by recent years showing only the aggregate figure of all homeschooled children registered with local school authorities. The official figures from the state government of Virginia were kindly mailed to me by a state official whom I contacted by telephone in 1998.
| School Year | Official # H's'ed Children | Notes | Increase |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1991-1992 | 4,558 | (w/o relig. cat'y) | N/A |
| 1992-1993 | 5,842 | (w/o relig. cat'y) | 28% (this cat'y only) |
| 1993-1994 | 8,454 | (7,009 w/o relig. cat'y) | 20% (above cat'y only) |
| 1994-1995 | 9,796 | 16% (all categories) | |
| 1995-1996 | 10,862 | 11% (all categories) |
These figures show about 1 percent of Virginia's school-aged children are homeschooled. These official figures suggest the recent annual growth rate in homeschooling (under both Virginia statutes pertaining to homeschooling) is about 13 percent.
Virginia has various statewide organizations, with informative Web sites.
This Homeschooling in Virginia page can also be considered a subpage of the Learn in Freedom! Education Reform, Home-Schooling Links page on this site. More specific pages for states of the United States and for countries around the world will be added as my schedule permits. Please send me any information you have about the number of homeschoolers in any place you know about.
[Last revision 9 March 2013]
Feel free to come back to the Learn in Freedom™ page (http://learninfreedom.org) and to this “Homeschooling in Virginia" page (http://learninfreedom.org/home-schooling-virginia.html) again soon.
This School Is Dead: Homeschooling in Virginia page is copyright © 2013 Karl M. Bunday, all rights reserved.
A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another: and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body.
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