Homeschool Social Register Documentation
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Thanks to the homeschooling pioneers of the 1980's and early 1990's, homeschooling is legal everywhere in the U.S. and legal difficulties are infrequent. It is very important to realize, however, that all homeschooling is local. One reason for this is that in most states school superintendents have a great deal of latitude in the interpretation and application of state law and court rulings to homeschooling in their districts. But a far more important reason is the emotional support we all need to "go against the crowd" and keep our children out of school.
The Homeschool Social Register is a free service offering several tools you can use to find the support you need. The Index of the Register includes pages for almost every town and city in the United States, Canada, and several other countries (if your town isn't there, I will add it). Each page lists members who are homeschooling in that location, and has links to local support groups, too.
In addition to physical, geographical locales like towns, counties, states, and provinces, the Register now includes "virtual" locales listed on the "World View" and other pages. So you can also use the Register to find other homeschoolers and web sites that share your philosophy or interests.
It's fast and easy to sign up - just give your first name (or even an alias) and an email address. Your email address will never appear on the web site and will never, ever be given out to anyone. You decide what to reveal about your family. You can post the age and gender of your children and your homeschooling style. Or show nothing. And you get a "notes" area - that can be viewed only by other members - where you can post anything you want. To show your listing on any Register page, just click the "Add" button and it appears instantly. See How to Sign Up for further information.
Once you're signed up, you can send messages to other members, and they can send messages to you. But these are not emails! To protect your privacy, all messages are maintained on the web site. YOU decide when it's time to go beyond the Homeschool Social Register and get in touch with someone directly.
How can you find out the ins and outs of homeschooling in your area? Check out the Homeschool Wiki. This is a an area where anyone (yes, especially you!) can post anything they want about how to navigate the legal requirements for homeschooling in your town. And it can be used to post info. about local homeschool happenings as well. This is a great resource for those new to homeschooling or new to your area.
Just wanted to thank you for creating this site. It is wonderful that we (the whole family), have found a site where we could find resources, and other homeschoolers like ourselves, to interact with. This will be our first year and we (including our kindergartner) are so excited! We make a lot of noise for a party of three.
Maria in Florida
Thank you for providing such a wonderful site. It wasn't until I visited your site, that I was able to find homeschooling mom's in my own city. Thank you!
Michele in California
I want you to know that I am beginning to email and will meet with some women who are home schooling in my area. For some reason, knowing that I'm not alone is giving me - a very traditional, had a great time in the public schools person - the courage to explore homeschooling / unschooling. Thank you for your website.
Suzanne in Massachusetts
I have been looking for a site like this one for 4 months, since I started homeschooling. I really felt lost and kind of alone in my effort to start homeschooling. This is a wonderful site! Thank You!
Mercy in New York
"Thanks for providing such a terrific service for homeschoolers!"
Helen Hegener, Managing Editor, Home Education Magazine
"I've been hearing lots of good things about this Register ... You've brought the GWS Directory concept to the Internet level, and I think it is great. Congratulations!"
Pat Farenga, President, Holt Associates, Growing Without Schooling
"I'm so glad you started the Homeschool Social Register! I can't believe no one came up with the idea sooner. It's a great site!"
Michelle in Texas
"... it will be a wonderful resource to homeschoolers! After I was told about it yesterday I passed it along to my homeschooling friends ..."
Jan in Arizona
"I love your site! What a wonderful idea!"
Laurel in Minnesota
"Just letting you know I love your site and how easy it is to get around in. Thank you for including our support group ... we're right where everyone can see us now."
Michelle in Alabama
"What a great idea your website is! I already signed up, found someone who lived in the area, and sent them an introduction. I think that as more people hear about it and sign up, it will be an invaluable resource! And, already got a response and an invitation for a play date! Awesome!!!!!"
Tom in Massachusetts
Thanks so much David for using your talents so freely, to enhance the lives of so many humans, thus making this world a much more enjoyable place to live in. Peace,
Gabrielle in Sunny Qld, Australia
"We have just found your site...what a wonderful thing to do ...thank you. We have just started our first year of Homeschooling and really appreciate people like yourself that make it so easy for us!"
LisaDee in Florida
"I love the idea you have created of other homeschoolers being able to contact each other without having to join a group if they don't wish to."
Beth in New York
"Just wanted to drop a note to say thank you for the hs register. Someone right in our neighborhood contacted me after seeing my listing. Cool!"
Karen in Florida
"It is nice to find this type of service and information available. We are a homeschool family that may be relocating to another state and of course are concerned about new laws and regulations. Your site has given me a link to others in the area we are looking at relocating to."
J.D. in Tennessee
"Dave, Just wanted to send a note to say thank you for the WONDEFUL site you have put together!! I hope it continues to grow so others can reach out to fellow homeschoolers. May God bless you."
Karla in Iowa
"Great site! And very well done. You seem to have thought of everything. Thanks so much for doing this."
Betsy in West Virginia
"I just wanted to thank you for doing such a great job for our community. I felt so alone where I lived because nobody homeschools around me. With your program I have met some people and we enjoy each others ideas and actually we have met some... You have opened so many doors for us..."
Rozy in Texas
"Just a brief but sincere 'thank you' for your site, through which we have just made contact with a family in California.
Alison in France
You may not think of yourself as a valuable resource for other homeschoolers, but you are, even if you have only today started thinking about whether the homeschooling lifestyle is right for your family. Look: we're all doing the best we can for our children. No one is an expert, or a novice. This is wisdom that is passed on from person to person. It doesn't come down from on-high. As you talk to other people who are thinking about homeschooling, or already homeschooling, or finished homeschooling, you become an important part of the homeschooling community and you are helping it to grow as your family grows.
If you are already homeschooling, this is your chance to "pass it on" - to help others get started with homeschooling, as others probably helped you when you were starting. And you'll be able to do it without giving up your privacy. You can show your listing to allow other members to contact you. And, you can post in the Homeschool Wiki to help newcomers to your area or to homeschooling come up to speed on the homeschooling scene there.
If you are contemplating homeschooling, being on the Register is a great way to contact experienced homeschoolers in your area. You'll find that they will almost always be happy to talk to you and help you get started.
The Homeschool Social Register is a free service and listing yourself on it is easily accomplished online in a couple of minutes. You can reveal as much or as little about your family as you wish. There is a "notes" area where you can post any information you want, such as the favorite activities and interests of your children, link to your home page, etc. This information is only revealed to people who are also members of the Register.
If you decide that you no longer wish to be in the Homeschool Social Register, it is very easy to delete your listing.
To sign up on the Homeschool Social Register, you provide your first name (or an alias) and an email address. All other information is optional and will be posted on the site. However, information that you provide in the "Notes" area of your listing may be viewed only by other registered members of the Homeschool Social Register and the web site will demand their password first.
You decide on which Register pages your listing appears. When one of these pages is viewed, the first name or alias that you gave will be listed. If you provided the year you began homeschooling, your homeschooling style, or the birth year and gender of your children, this information will also be displayed.
When someone clicks on your first name, he or she will be shown a page devoted to you, including any notes that you've entered. However, unlike the Register's index pages, anyone wanting to view your notes must be a member also, and will be required to enter her (or his) password first. Keep in mind though, that if you put your email address in there, anyone who signs up will be able to see it.
When you delete your listing from the Homeschool Social Register, all of your personal information, including your email address, and all messages you sent or received, will be deleted.
Your email address will never be posted on the web site and will never be sold, traded, or otherwise given out to any third parties. I will not use your email address to send third-party advertisements or promotions to you.
The web site will send an Email to notify you that someone has sent you a message. The actual message will be accessible from the Message Center.
Email will also be sent to you in response to a request that you make to add a new town or a link to a homeschool support group to the Register.
When you provide an email address as the link to your homeschool support group, it is recommended that you not use your personal email address. However, the site obscures email addresses to make them invisible to spammer robots that trawl the web looking for email addresses.
The Homeschool Social Register allows other people who are also registered to send messages to you. These are not emails - all messages are maintained on the web site and may be viewed by going to the Message Center. You will receive an email telling you that the message is waiting for you. The web site requires log in with password before allowing the Message Center to be viewed.
I sometimes "spot check" messages, to make sure that no one is spamming people with advertisements or sending other inappropriate messages. People who persist in sending inappropriate messages will be banned from the site. If you receive such a message, a button is provided near the bottom of the page displaying the message which is labeled "Inappropriate Message". Clicking this button will delete the message from your list and will also notify me.
This web site can be used without cookies but will not work very well (it will keep asking you to log in each time you access any pages that are password-protected ). A cookie is left on your computer which contains your client identification number. As a convenience and at your request only, your login password can also be kept in the cookie. Then the web site automatically logs you in when required. Information in the cookie is never provided to any other organization.
If you want to delete this cookie from your computer, simply click the "LOG OUT" button in the upper right hand corner. The cookie is also deleted if you delete your listing.
There is no charge to become a member of the Homeschool Social Register, and all you need is a valid email address that belongs to you (see my Privacy Policy). Simply click the "SIGN UP!" tab at the top right of the page and follow the instructions.
To make sure that the email address is valid and belongs to you, I send you an "email check code" to the address you give. When you receive the email check code, just copy or enter it into the space provided, and you'll be ready to go. See Get my email check code for more information about the email check code.
You must be logged in to change your listing in the Homeschool Social Register. If you are not logged in, click the "LOG IN" button at the top right of the page and follow the instructions to log in. See How to Log In for further information.
After you are signed in, click the "MY LISTING" tab and follow the instructions to edit your listing.
Alternatively, you can go to one of the INDEX pages of the Register where your listing appears, and click on your first name to view your listing. There will be a link near the bottom of the page that says "This is YOUR listing. Click here if you want to change it."
Once you are on the "MY LISTING" page, just change anything you want and then click the "Update" button at the bottom. If you want to change your email address, however, click the "Change Email Address" button.
If you change your password, don't forget to enter it twice in the boxes provided.
When your email address has tested bad for more than 30 days, the "MY LISTING" button will be flashing when you go to the Homeschool Social Register. Please fix it as soon as possible. If it tests bad for 60 days, your listing will be automatically deleted.
I'm sorry, but if you can't receive the email with the check code then you will need to use a different email address to join the Homeschool Social Register.
Email is central to the service provided by the Homeschool Social Register. If you can't get email from the Register, then you won't know it when other people try to contact you, and they will think you are just ignoring them.
The email containing the email check code is like a test: if you receive it, it proves that the email address you gave is working and belongs to you. Furthermore, it also proves that your ISP is not mistakenly rejecting email from my server as spam.
That being said, here are some common problems and solutions that may be of help. If you are getting an error message, check this list:
If the email with the check code appeared to go through, but you didn't receive it, check this list of suggestions:
Spam has grown to be a very large problem on the Internet. Many email services now have algorithms that attempt to identify and filter out spam by checking for various phrases which often appear in spam, and these algorithms sometimes get a bit overzealous. My emails for the check code used to have a subject line of "your email check code", and sometimes got bounced because the phrase "your email" often appears in spam! And there may be other innocuous phrases in my emails that are triggering a false positive on spam filters your ISP has put into place. I try to keep up with these, but it's a never-ending battle. If your email provider gives you any control over spam filters, you might try looking into that.
Another spam-blocking technology that is often used is to remember the names of servers that have sent spam before, and block all email from those servers. It turns out that I share my server with 100 or so other web sites, and in the past some spammers were able to sneak on there and do their dirty work. Unfortunately, the outside world cannot distinguish which web site on the server is actually sending the emails. So one spammer can give a bad name to all the other web sites on the same server. My server's domain name is "HOST20.WEBSERVER1010.COM", so if you want you can ask your ISP if emails from this server are being blocked. If you are getting a "Relaying Denied" error this could be what is happening.
As far as I know, there are no anti-spam measures blocking emails from the Register at the largest ISP's such as aol.com, yahoo.com, hotmail.com, msn.com, comcast.net, and earthlink.net. However, if you have an AOL email address and you get an error that starts with "554-(RLY:B1)", that means that AOL is blocking everything from my server. It usually takes at least 48 hours to clear this up with them. You can try again in two days, or if you have a non-AOL email account, please use that instead.
You must be logged in to show your listing. If you are not logged in, click the "LOG IN" button at the top right of the page and follow the instructions to log in. See How to Log In for further information.
Next, click the "INDEX" tab to view the main index page of the Register. Click on your country, then state or province. Some major cities and towns will be listed there. In most cases, further down the page there will be a list of counties, areas, census areas, municipalities, parishes, or islands to select from (I'll refer to all of these as "counties" below). In the U.S., there is a box under "Digital Neighbors" where you can type in the name of your town to find out what county it is in.
In most cases you will be able to find the page for your town. Then simply click under "My Locales" on the left side of the page where it says "Add my listing to this page." You will be taken to the "MY LISTING" page, where the new locale you selected will be displayed. When you return to the "INDEX" page, your listing will appear.
Some smaller towns may not be listed. If your town is not there, enter its name into the box provided at the left side of the page under "Missing Town" and press Enter. You will be taken to a page where you can send a request to me to add the missing town to the Register. If you like, you can add your listing to the county page while you are waiting for me to add the town.
In many states and provinces there are unincorporated areas that are not part of any city or town. If you live in one, just sign up on the county page.
You can show your listing on several register pages - up to twelve. You can also show your listing on the "World View" pages if you want.
If you go to an Index page where your listing is already displayed, the "Add" button will be replaced by a button that says "Remove my listing from this page." Click it, and your listing will be taken off of that page (it will remain on the other pages). Click the "MY LISTING" tab if you want to quickly remove your listing from several locales.
You can delete your listing from the Homeschool Social Register, including your email address and all messages you sent or received, by following this procedure:
To protect everyone's privacy, email addresses are never posted on this web site. To get in touch with someone, you send her (or him) a message. She (or he) goes to the "MY MESSAGES" page of the web site to read the message and send a reply back to you. After you get to know someone, of course, you will not need to use the messaging feature - and that is what the Homeschool Social Register is all about! Here's how to do it:
After you send a message, you will be taken to your Message Center page, where the message you just sent will be displayed.
When someone sends a message to you, you will get an email from the web site telling you that a message is waiting for you. To read it, follow these steps:
Warning: if you don't read a message within 60 days, your listing in the Register will automatically be deleted. You don't have to reply - you just have to read it.
Click here for further information about the Message Center.
The Homeschool Social Register Main Index is organized into a heirarchy of "locales":
The main part of each index page shows the sub-locales under that locale. A country page, for instance, will show the states or provinces in that country. And the World View page (a "virtual locale") will show sub-categories such as Catholic, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim. For pages below the nation level, or below top-level virtual locales, the sub-locales are color-coded to show how many homeschoolers are showing their listings in those locales. The legend is on the left side of the page.
For each page (except the main index page), at the top of the left side there is an area called "Go Up" where you can jump directly to one of the ancestors of the page.
Next on index pages is a list of homeschoolers who are showing their listings in that locale. Click on someone's first name to see his or her listing.
The last part of the page lists homeschool resources for that locale. If you know of a link I should have, please click "Suggest a link for this page."
If you are a member of the Homeschool Social Register and are logged in, an area named "My Locales" will appear on the left hand side of the page. The locales where you have chosen to show your listing are displayed, and they link to the appropriate pages. If the page you are viewing can have homeschoolers listed on it, the "Add" button will appear, allowing you to show your listing on that page. If your listing is already on that page, the "Remove" button will appear.
The pages available in this part of the index list ALL of the resources I have on file for the selected state or province, even those that are not state-wide (i.e. listed on town and county pages). Homeschoolers are not listed on these pages. They are mainly for syndication to other web sites.
The Message Center page shows you the messages you have sent to, and received from, other members of the Homeschool Social Register. You can reply to your messages, delete them, restore deleted messages, and add on to a message that you already sent.
You must be signed in to access the Message Center. There are three ways to get there:
When someone sends you a message, the "MY MESSAGES" tab will be flashing when you go to the Homeschool Social Register. You will also receive an email telling you that a message is waiting for you. The message will be listed under the "In Box" heading. Click the "Read" button to read it.
On the screen that comes up you will see the message that was sent to you. And if you have replied before, the replies and responses back and forth will be there too. Underneath the message is a box where you can type in your reply - click Send when done. If you don't need to reply, you can click Delete to move the message to the "Deleted Items" section of your Message Center. In either case, you will be returned to the Message Center. There's also a button to just return to the Message Center without doing anything with the message.
Messages you send will appear under the heading "Sent Items". When the person you sent a message to reads the message, the "status" of the message will change from "unread" to "read". If he or she deletes it, the status will change to "deleted".
When you delete a message, it is not permanently deleted but it is moved to the "Deleted Items" page of the Message Center. Click the "View Deleted Items" button to go there. You can restore a message by clicking the "Restore" button. Messages that are more than 30 days old will automatically be moved to the "Deleted Items" page. And, once both parties to the message have left it in their "Deleted Items" area for another 30 days, the message will be permanently deleted.
If you receive a message that contains advertising or other inappropriate content, please click the "Inappropriate Message" button. This will not only delete the message, but will also notify me to look at the message and take appropriate action. I will usually contact the person and ask them to refrain from sending messages like that, and if they persist, I will ban them from the Register (so far I have only had to do this twice).
The purpose of the messaging capability of the Homeschool Social Register is only to make contact with other homeschoolers in your area. Messages are limited to 1600 characters. When the messages and replies approach this size, the earlier portions will start to disappear. Soon, you will want to trade email addresses or phone numbers to get into more direct contact. And that is what the Homeschool Social Register is all about!
To protect everyone's privacy, you must log in to change your listing, to look at someone else's profile, to send an introduction message to someone, or to access the Homeschool Wiki. When you access a protected page, or if you click the "LOG IN" button at the top right of the page, the Log In page will be displayed. If you have allowed your browser to accept cookies, the web site will know who you are and will just ask you to enter your password. Otherwise, you will need to enter your email address as well. It must be the same one that is currently in your listing.
Check the box if you don't want to have to enter your password any more.
"Wiki wiki" means "quick" in Hawaiian. And on the web, "wiki" has come to mean a new method for a community to work together to build a resource that's useful for everyone. One of the best examples is Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia written entirely by unrelated people who decided to contribute an article about something. Search Google if you want to get more of the flavor of what a Wiki is and how it works.
The Homeschool Social Register now offers a Homeschool Wiki page on every town and city page (and on country pages in certain cases). The main purpose of the Homeschool Wiki is to inform people about the most painless way to satisfy the bureaucratic requirements for homeschooling legally in that area. But you can use it to post information about local homeschooling events as well.
Once you join the Homeschool Social Register, you can simply go to the page for your town (or country), and click the link to go to the Homeschool Wiki. You can read what other people posted, or follow the instructions to make a new entry of your own or modify what someone else posted if you see something wrong with it. But you shouldn't normally modify someone else's posting unless you see an obvious error in it. If it's a difference of opinion, post a new entry.
I maintain a record of who posted what. But, this information is not displayed in the Wiki. So, it is possible to make anonymous entries. You can sign your posting if you want. That may make it more likely that others will make a new posting rather than altering yours.
Always bear in mind that anyone can join the Homeschool Social Register - all they have to do is give me a valid email address that belongs to them. And this means that you shouldn't put anything in the Wiki that you wouldn't mind the whole world reading! In general, a good rule is that you should not post anything about anyone that you would not be willing to say face-to-face with that person.
IMPORTANT: any form of advertising, even of a homeschool-related family business or service, is absolutely forbidden and will result in your expulsion from the Homeschool Social Register. If you see any advertising in the Wiki, please let me know right away! And please go ahead and delete it yourself if you want.
DISCLAIMER: any information provided on a Homeschool Wiki page will (hopefully) be provided by someone who is homeschooling in that area. But I do not exercise any control or oversight over what is said on these pages unless a problem is brought to my attention. Just because something appears in the Homeschool Wiki does NOT imply that I endorse it or have checked it for accuracy.
When you make a change or addition to the Wiki page, it appears instantly. I do have a limited capability to "back out" an inappropriate posting and restore an older version of the page. Let me know if you think the situation is dire enough to call for that.
For most of the english-speaking countries of the world (U.S., Canada, U.K., Austrailia, and New Zealand), the country page of the Homeschool Social Register is another index page. You "drill down" through the country index to the state or province pages, and from there you can select county or census area pages, or major cities, and eventually arrive at the page for the town or city where you live. You show your listing on this local page, local homeschoolers and resources are displayed there, and there is a link to the corresponding Homeschool Wiki page where people can offer their advice on how to homeschool there.
For all the other countries of the world, I offer a single page. All of the resources for these countries - homeschooler and resource listings, and the link to the Wiki page, are right there on the country page.
If there is a lot of activity within a particular country, I will add the state or province pages, create a separate Wiki page for each one, move the resources to the new pages as appropriate, and ask everyone to move their listings to one of the new pages.
Do you know of a link that I should have on the Homeschool Social Register? Please tell me.
To suggest a link, navigate to the page where the link should go, and click the link near the bottom of the page that says "Suggest a link for this page." A form will appear where you can enter the information. There's an area for notes to help me decide where to put the link. If it should appear on more than one page, let me know here.
You don't have to be a member of the Homeschool Social Register to suggest a link.
Note: links to businesses are welcome, but I only accept links from companies and organizations that offer something specifically for homeschoolers.
I'm sorry, but I'm still working on this page. For further assistance, please contact me.