STAYING HOME FOR LESSONS

Rita Lavanchy isn't concerned about her 11-year-old son Micah getting up to go to school. Most days the sixth grader will wake up around 5:30 a.m. and start on home school assignments without prodding.

"He'll go through a certain amount of review material himself," his mother said. "When he gets to something he doesn't understand, he'll come and wake me up."

Micah typically finishes his school work by 10 a.m. each day.

Neil and Rita Lavanchy have been educating Micah, 13-year-old Monica and 17-year-old Megan at home since 1993. The Lavanchys and a growing number of families nationally are deciding to leave public or private schools for education at home.

"We were so busy driving back and forth to school, we had no time to pass on our own family values," Rita Lavanchy said.

Between 1.3 million to 2 million are estimated to be in home schooling in the United States, a report from the Associated Press said. This is a rise from no more than 20,000 almost 20 years ago.

When Jane Sandvos of Scott City, Mo., decided to teach her daughters at home in 1987, she was concerned about it becoming public knowledge, she said.

The year before, some children in Missouri were placed in foster care in certain counties because local officials decided the education they were receiving at home was inadequate, said Sandvos, who is presently general manager of radio station KUGT 1170 AM.

Along with two other women, Sandvos decided to organize a local support group for home schooling in 1988. Suzanne Hassert, having previous experience with home schooling in Wisconson, became the group's first president. Sandvos later became the group's leader.

After announcing their first public meeting at the Cape Girardeau Library and receiving attention from various mass media, Sandvos got an invitation to visit the Scott County prosecutor, she said.

Since Sandvos had attended Southeast Missouri State University with then-prosecutor David Summers, the conversation was quite open, she said.

"I told him 'let's be real about education,'" Sandvos recalled. "I asked him how many people did we know in college who pretended to be students."

Her argument and evidence were enough for the prosecutor, she said.

But before Sandvos went to the prosecutor, she had done her homework.

Conversations with other mothers seeking more individual attention for their children came out of Sandvos' work as a teacher at Christian Faith Academy in Scott City, which relocated to Cape Girardeau and is now Eagle Ridge Christian School.

Sandvos recalled a comment at that time by Beverly Breithaupt, who has worked with her husband at Mid-America Teen Challenge in Cape Girardeau for several years. "She said that she did home schooling with the kids in Teen Challenge," Sandvos said. "So, with that in mind, why couldn't we teach our own children?"

The legal basis for home schooling is stronger in Missouri than many other states, said Maggie Probst of Cape Girardeau. Some states require that children complete standardized tests annually, and that parents have a teaching certificate, she said.

"Here, you only have to show your records to the prosecuting attorney, if there's a case of possible educational neglect," said Probst, who is a past president of the Mississippi Valley Home Educators.

Missouri only requires that parents keep a lesson plan book, a log of lessons completed, a record of grades and a child's tests and exercises as work examples, Sandvos said.

"It gives parents complete authority over a child, whether they have a college education or not," Probst said.

The state wants to make sure that each child receives 1,000 hours of educational instruction a year, with 600 of those hours coming from subjects such as math, language arts.

Probst's son and daughter typically have close to 2,000 hours each year, she said.

From time to time Probst has stepped in to assist other parents who were being questioned about teaching their children at home. It's just a matter of telling school officials what the law says, Probst said.

"Usually a phone call to a school administrator is enough," she said.

Although it is hard to estimate, there are roughly 80 families around Cape Girardeau and Jackson who are active in home schooling, Probst said.

Jackson School Superintendent Ron Anderson calls home schooling another option for parents.

"It varies as to whether it is in the best interests of the student," Anderson said. "But that depends solely on the parents."

Anderson questions whether the socialization that a child in home school receives is enough, since a child's success in social activities is often a good predictor of overall success.

Peeking into home schools is not something Anderson plans to do. State statutes don't provide such regulatory powers to school districts, he said.

If school officials looked into the Lavanchy's home school just outside of Jackson, they might find them cleaning chickens.

Besides raising a few cattle, making their own bread and some vegetables, the Lavanchys raise, and butcher, chickens.

"It's a great biology lesson," Neil Lavanchy said.