The term “homeschooling” has carried heavy connotations over the years: conservative Christian isolationism, awkwardly socialized kids, insufficient academic education. In the minds of secular parents 30 years ago, the idea of homeschooling was, to say the least, questionable.
Fast-forward to the 2020 pandemic, a time when brick-and-mortar schools closed, parents worked from home, and kids hopped online for their assignments. Add to that the nation’s political turn toward bullying, scores of school shootings, reports of abuse and assault by teachers or other students, and some consistently unimpressive public-school test scores.
Now, instead of odd and insufficient, homeschooling seems to many like a viable way to care for, and educate, kids of all ages. For some it might even be an answer to the massive social, employment, and technological shifts occurring in this era. Who says kids need to be in rows of classroom desks six to eight hours a day every weekday?
The percentage of homeschoolers spiked nationwide, including Nevada, during the pandemic and is still growing from pre-pandemic levels. Plenty of parents did not send their kids back to school after Covid. Some decided not to return to their own jobs if they couldn’t work from home to help teach their kids. Others looked for alternatives to what they perceived as troubled traditional schools in the growing list of other options: private schools, charter schools, online schools, or some combination.
“I think this is the new normal,” says Angela Watson, senior research fellow at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy. “Homeschooling is an off-ramp for the people for whom public school isn’t working. They can escape and do something else.”
Public school enrollment numbers are down in Nevada for a variety of reasons (see p. 17) — and options that better fit people’s lives, and concerns, clearly factor into that decline.
Watson notes that, nationwide, K-12 education is becoming a “build your own adventure” scenario, where some kids go to private school three days a week and do online learning the other two; or attend a public charter school online; or choose homeschooling but join school groups for electives or field trips. Some exit public school for a few years and return. Others never attend public schools at all.
“The (availability of) technology is a huge factor, and the newer generation of parents is more accepting of that. The younger generation of parents is not afraid to give it a try. They’re not feeling stigmatized like they were before,” Watson says. “I mean, the Kardashians homeschool their kids — it’s part of the fabric of normal education in the United States.”
But sunny narratives about the rise of homeschooling are complicated by many social media posts, sites, and Reddit threads devoted to formerly homeschooled students who say the process left them feeling isolated and unprepared. Example: A June post on Reddit from someone who says she’s a 17-year-old female forced into homeschooling “due to my parents being scared of the ‘outside’ world and what might happen to me” describes a tangle of emotional, mental-health, and academic issues: “I think what hurts me the most is how I went from a straight A+ student to being 3 years behind …” Such sentiments are not uncommon in these forums.
In many cases, traditional public schools serve as a social services hub that homeschooled kids may miss, says Rebecca Dirks Garcia, president of the Clark County Parent Teacher Association and the admin of the CCSD Parents Facebook page. “So many kids get needed social services whether it’s healthcare, mental healthcare, food insecurity,” she says, “and it’s often identified first at the local school level.”
U.S. Census information indicates Nevada homeschooling increased from around 2.5 percent in the spring of 2020 to 13.1 percent by the fall of that year, slightly higher than the national average of 11.1 percent during that period.
Those numbers dipped after the pandemic but are again on an upward trajectory. The Nevada Homeschool Association estimates that, statewide, there are about 30,000 homeschooled kids, whereas 10 years ago it was closer to 10,000. More broadly, the National Center for Education Statistics estimates the number of homeschoolers at around 3.4 million, or 6 percent of school-aged kids, putting Nevada on par with the national trend.
As homeschooling increases, public school test scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), known for years as the Congressionally mandated “America’s Report Card,” have declined to levels not seen since the 1970s, Watson says. The learning gaps between the highest scorers and lowest is increasing — a sign that needs aren’t being met.
According to a 2019 U.S. Department of Education report, nearly 73 percent of homeschool families reported “dissatisfaction with academic instruction” as a driving reason for choosing to withdraw. Even more, just under 75 percent of families cited a “desire to provide moral instruction” as motivating their decision to homeschool. But the number one reason for choosing homeschooling, at over 80 percent, was “a concern about the environment” in public schools.
“We have evidence that religion is not the primary driving factor — safety is,” Watson says. “Bullying is a major fear for parents opting out of public schools. … It’s not that they’re leaving (necessarily) because their child was bullied, but the fear of bullying, along with fears of school shootings.”
LeAndra Surprenant, a homeschool mother-teacher and founder of the Nevada Homeschool Association, says there is still a drive for parents to keep their kids protected on a number of levels — not only from bullying and school shootings, but also from an increasing number of issues introduced by social media. At home, parents have more control over what a child may see online.
“What level of trauma happens at the public schools? What do kids learn when the parents aren’t watching?” Suprenant asks. “They’re seeing children introduced to porn through other kids’ phones. How do we keep them away from it without leaving them unprepared?”
“(As parents,) we have to tell them who they are, what the world should look like, tell them what’s wrong about the world based on our own beliefs — you are instilling your values,” she says. “If you don’t do it, the world will instill it. As a parent, you have to decide your values for your family. You can still do that if your child goes to public school, but it’s much harder to undo damage that you can’t see.”
Outside of protecting kids from such concerns, parents also have the desire to design an education specific to each child’s needs — another echo of popular tech-driven culture — a sort of personal algorithm of instruction.
“I think that for all of history there are people who wanted out (of public schools). Or wanted something better and bought it,” Suprenant says. “Wealthy people send their children to private schools. The middle class pick their house by the school district it’s in.”
But, she adds, “The people who are left couldn’t buy that choice for one reason or another, and they’re stuck in these schools. But the barriers are being removed and they’re able to get unstuck.”
Not so fast, Dirks Garcia says. She was homeschooled herself in other states, but is now an advocate for public schooling, in particular magnet and charter schools.
“I don’t live in an affluent area,” she says. “But my kids will graduate from four different magnet schools, award-winning schools, so this narrative of ‘all public schools in Nevada have awful public education’ is wrong.” Dirks Garcia says the truth is more nuanced and depends on many factors, including individual schools — some are testing better than others. But, she adds, “There are not enough (magnet and charter schools).”
ON A TYPICAL day of homeschooling at Arieyanna Carson’s house, she and her 10-year-old daughter were searching their home for a frog named Todashi. He had gotten out of the tank, and they were a bit frantic — especially because their other pet is a German Shepherd whose taste for amphibians was unknown.
“My daughter is obsessed with animals, and when we were studying science, she did a deep dive on which (amphibians) make good pets. The next thing you know we’re getting a Samurai Blue Pacman Frog,” says Carson, who leads the Bluebird Summit homeschooling co-op in Las Vegas.
Carson’s homeschooling cooperative is a multicultural, secular group of about 50 kids and their parents, who have chosen to homeschool but were not looking for a homogenous faith-based group.
“We have had Christians and Hindus and same-sex couples and neurodivergent kids and all kinds of people who come to us because we are multicultural and diverse,” says Carson, whose mom is from Samoa, dad is from the Philippines, and husband is from Mexico. She grew up in Las Vegas as the youngest of nine kids in a three-bedroom household and graduated from Rancho High School.
“I’m a big mixture of things, and it’s very important to me for my kids to see people of all colors and backgrounds and life circumstances,” she says.
Carson had her first child a few years before the pandemic, so when her daughter reached school age, she decided to keep her home and begin homeschooling.
“I personally think we need to expose our kids to all kinds of people, because I think when they get older they’re in for a rude awakening if they aren’t familiar with people who don’t look like them and don’t have the same beliefs as them,” she says.
This echoes a point Dirks Garcia makes: “I have always viewed education as, how are we preparing kids for life,” she says. “And one of the things unique to the public-school experience is learning how to navigate with different people and ideas and engage constructively.”
Public school exposes kids to real-world situations they’ll eventually have to deal with: navigating systems, patiently waiting for other kids’ and teachers’ needs, learning to read a room. “If you’re trying to limit your kid’s exposure to a variety of things, yes, you have a lot more control if your kid is not integrated into a larger school community,” Dirks Garcia says. “But at the same time, they’re going to turn 18 at some point, and then how will they handle that? Some do it well, some don’t.”
Carson still has a few years to ponder that eventuality. Meanwhile, Todashi is fine, and his escape even led to a teachable moment: “Thankfully he was hiding in the closet — and we learned that when he sheds, he likes to bury himself.”
WHILE CHASING FROGS and meeting different people sounds like a pretty good day in the life of a homeschool family, there are challenges to taking on the responsibility of a parent-teacher.
Withdrawing from school is easy enough — in Nevada, you simply file a Notice of Intent to Homeschool form, along with a statement outlining a plan to educate the child in English, mathematics, science, and social studies, including history, geography, economics, and government. After that, you’re on your own. No one checks up on your child’s progress, and you never need to turn in grades or test scores or contact the state again.
Surprenant homeschools her three kids, a third grader, a fourth grader, and a kindergartner. She was a working professional — an executive at an accounting firm — before the pandemic.
“I always imagined my kids would go to public school. I went to public school. Then Covid hit,” she says. While paying more attention to her kids’ education at home, and checking out the performance of public schools, she had a revelation: “Nevada ranks in the bottom academically, and I said, ‘I can do better than that.’ I’m very type A.” She began homeschooling while continuing her job. At first, with early education, it was no problem. But as the kids grew, so did her natural desire to create the best education for them.
Though she was enjoying homeschooling, a couple years into it she realized that, in addition to finding the best curricula, she would also need to deepen her research about early brain function and learning styles, among many other things.
“It’s probably one of the hardest things about homeschooling. Sometimes it’s appropriate to do a different curriculum for different children in your own home,” Surprenant says. She’s already changed their math program twice this year. “There isn’t one way to do it.”
She eventually quit her career and created the Nevada Homeschool Association to help parents find resources.
Just as there are many types of learners and many types of teachers, there are countless resources for homeschoolers — from groups and co-ops of other homeschoolers to day-by-day, subject-by-subject curricula you can buy. One can design an independent study plan by going to the public library or online to any number of sites that offer materials, sometimes for free. When searching for resources, a homeschool parent has to be aware that many, due to the roots of homeschooling, are Christian-based, which may include discussion of faith in almost every subject, or a single unit on Christianity. In short, choosing curricula can be overwhelming.
And it can get expensive, particularly if a family has multiple children. Not everyone is in the financial position to get certain academically rigorous curricula, which can run up to $1,000 or more per student. “You really have to do your research,” Surprenant says.
Without a state-mandated testing system, how do homeschool parents know if their child is progressing at the pace of public-school peers?
“That’s a challenge — we’re comparing apples to oranges,” she says. “Public schools do that by standardized testing. It’s been proven to be bad. It is the way they assess readiness to graduate. Homeschoolers, you buy your curriculum, and it has assessments throughout. At the very end you have a final test.”
To be fair, the jury — or rather, the research — is still out on whether standardized testing is demonstrably “bad.” Several high-profile groups contend that it’s the only effective way to measure progress across large populations and (ideally) make adjustments to systems accordingly. If a child wants to re-enter CCSD, then the district will place them at the grade that corresponds to their age.
Additionally, community colleges like CSN allow students to enroll at 16, which some homeschoolers do either to supplement their education or rack up credits in case they apply to a university. Each university has its own requirements for what homeschooled applicants must produce on an application.
This leads inexorably to the big, perhaps unresolvable question: Is homeschooling as effective as traditional schooling? Research findings appear to be mixed. Some studies have concluded that homeschooled students perform above average on standardized tests, and better than traditional students in emotional and psychological well-being. But scholars have attacked these studies’ methodologies and conclusions. Other studies show a persistent “math gap” among the homeschooled.
Indeed, the Coalition for Responsible Home Education says that homeschooling success depends to a large degree on factors that influence public-school students as well, such as family background and socioeconomic standing. “While evidence undoubtedly shows that homeschooling can lead to high academic outcomes,” the organization says on its website, “claims that homeschooled students universally perform better than their school-educated peers are baseless.”
ACROSS THE BOARD, homeschooling is growing and getting more diverse. It looks broadly like the larger population, Watson says, whereas it used to look — and carry the reputation of being — disproportionately white and Christian.
“We (now) see concentrations of students with special needs in homeschooling,” she says. “Also, advanced learners and more students whose parents identify as LGBTQ.”
Alina Laliberte, youth and family program manager at The Center, an LGBTQ+ support organization in Las Vegas, says their population often turns to homeschooling to guard students’ mental health.
“The rise in homeschooling in the communities I work with mainly comes from the challenges LGBTQ+ children face as an at-risk population,” she says. “Bullying and discrimination are present in schools, from both students and adults, which in turn causes them to struggle with not only their academics, but their mental health.”
Also, for nonwhite students, there is a concern in public schools about both overt bullying and, Watson says, “softer racism, where it’s not culturally responsive curriculum or pedagogy for Hispanic/Latino families, or language is not reflected in the curriculum — maybe they have once-a-week Spanish class, but they’re seeking more.
“Then we have Black homeschoolers creating their own communities, because they didn’t feel included in the majority white homeschool groups,” Watson adds.
Jourdan Robinson, a Black and Indigenous Las Vegas woman, created a co-op when she couldn’t find one in which she felt comfortable. “My decision (to homeschool) started with me. It stemmed from my traditional upbringing in school — I felt I was never able to be my truest, most authentic self,” Robinson says. “When my kids came into this world, I did not want them to be like that, I wanted them to know who they were.”
In the beginning, Robinson says, she was able to teach her oldest child in his early years without much extra support. She made teaching materials from scratch — “I’m a very creative person” — but when she had her second and third children, she knew she needed assistance. Plus, she wanted her kids to have friends. So, she went online and investigated local homeschooling groups.
“A lot of Facebook groups, you stick your toe in the water and see — ultimately, it’s like choosing a school. It’s the community you’ll be in in your pivotal years,” she says. “I was checking them out and feeling vibes, and it was mostly not good. They already had a set look and feel that did not fit me as a Black and Indigenous woman.”
So, she started The Culture Collective co-op in September 2025. She posted about it on social media and handed out fliers. Soon, her desire for homeschool support became an organization that welcomes everyone for field trips, art, and park events. And community doesn’t just mean kids.
“Moms need community, fathers need community, too. We started off as a homeschool co-op, but I immediately saw that we needed to be open to public school kids, as well, who haven’t found their group. So, we are open to that. We are a family hub.”
Kathy Hernandez, founder of the Southern Nevada Homeschool Association, which helps parents find resources, says something similar about her small group. “My co-op (is) me and two other moms.” Each one contributes to the teaching, in addition to the basics; for example, Hernandez usually teaches cooking and Bible classes, while the others typically teach Spanish and science. Then, she says, “We have lunch together, we establish these beautiful in-depth relationships, and the moms are friends.”
Finding your group — whether it’s in online silos or real-life social gatherings — seems to be key in any form of education, in any form of living. While homeschoolers used to be notoriously isolated, changes in the world, including a willingness to upend institutions that appear to need overhauling, are constantly creating new ways of doing things, and new networks for learning.
“It goes back to a lot of us just figuring out (that) traditional school wasn’t working, and we are all in the same boat trying to make a way. I don’t fault anyone for doing it their way,” Robinson says. “Have the courage to do it. If you know that this is something that you want to do, have the courage to do it. The payoffs are something you can’t measure.”
