Date/Time: Thursday, May 3 | 9:00 - 10:00AM

Speaker: Monica Haugen, Seattle Parks & Recreation & Tomijo McCarrier, Seattle Parks & Recreation

Category: Programming

Description: The number of homeschooled students climbed from 1,096,000 in 2003 to 1,773,000 in 2012, an increase of 61.8 percent. Seattle currently has more than 30 homeschooling organizations. Families of home-school students do not operate on the same calendar or daily schedule as many of the other families that we serve. This leaves this community feeling detached from their larger communities and not part of the community centers. In 2011, Seattle Parks and Recreation's Loyal Heights Community Center began offering recreation and educational enrichment programs for Seattle's homeschooled population. It started with a few courses and few rules, and is now thriving, organized and allows participants and their families to enjoy courses designed by the homeschooled community itself. The Loyal Heights Community Center Home School program is made up of three partners that developed goals, rules and sound budgets that have helped make this unique program successful and financially solvent.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the needs of homeschool communities.
  
  
• Knowledge of how to approach homeschool groups to partner.
  
  
• Develop strategies to integrate a successful home school program.

Speaker: Monica Haugen is an 18 year veteran of the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department. She currently runs the Loyal Heights Community Center, one of the community centers that have an active Home School program. She has presented at the National Recreation and Park Association in 2016.