FAQs

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  We believe that children are a gift of God and God has called, equipped and given us personally the responsibility of raising and teaching our children.  We take to heart the Scripture in Proberbs 22:6, which says "train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." and "All your children should be taught by the Lord, and  great shall be the peace of your children", which is Isaiah 54:13.    

In accordance with our deeply held  biblical beliefs and conservative christian worldview, you can expect to see prayer before our co-ops, meetings  and gatherings, some of our classes contain christian content, for example; any  science classes will be taught from a creationist standpoint, we teach  traditional family values of  marriage between one man to one woman, we teach God assigned  biological genders only and use only he/him and she/her pronouns, and  we often use bible references.   For the purposes of facility usage - we use the facilitiy of the biological gender we were assigned at birth by God.  We offer prayer for anyone who needs or asks for it,

We desire to include any homeschool families who hold to traditional  christian beliefs who want  to  unite with us toward our common goal of building our lives together and developing relationships through our home school adventure.  If you align with our reasons for homeschooling AND  agree with our biblical stance  then we invite you to apply for membership.

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We are seeing more and more of this as homeschooling gains popularity.  Our goal is to build relationships with like-minded people and to work together through the homeschool journey - having children attend without their parents participation is not our intended goal and situations like this will normally not be allowed.   Under certain circumstances, situations like this  will be evaluated on a case by case basis and our Administrator will have final say as to the conditions and terms of membership in these types of situations and if they will even allow it..  

IF allowed, at a minimum, the parents with legal custody will be REQUIRED to have their own, individual  membership in this group.  All of the legal forms will need to be completed by the legal guardians and they will need to at least have a face to face meeting with the administration so that we know who they are.   The ultimate responsibility for the child(ren)  WILL always  be the legal parents/guardians. The legal parents will have to fulfill every condition of membership that we expect of our parents who participate with their own kids.  This inlcudes the  Event Coordination Committment, and cooperative duties. 

In certain limited situations we may allow you to delegate some of your duties to another adult (ie. cooperative duties, ECC committment, etc)  but the ultimate responsibility will remain with the legal guardian/parents.

 If the person you designate is  unfamiliar to us and does not have their own HEES membership, we may require a Background Check - the expense for that test will be your own and you must file the results with the Administration BEFORE that person may be delegated your responsibilities. At all times the administration and teachers will need to know who is supervising and responsible for all children.  

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HEES is not a ministry associated with the  Grace Community, or any denomination.  HEES  pays a daily fee to use the church building and facilities but the church does not oversee any of  HEES operations although we do have an agreement not to teach or facilitate anything that would go against their biblical values.

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YES!!  If you can see the event on the public calendar (the calendar that you see from the home page without having to enter a username and password) and there is an "S" or "Sign Up" after the event, then you are eligible to attend this event.  Please feel free to click on the event and sign up each individual that will be attending including any adults if it is a family event or field trip or the childrens names if it is a children's only event. For instance, the Family Outdoor Field Day on Thursdays - you should sign up every person who is intending to play in the games.  Make sure you leave a phone number or way to contact  you in case we have to cancel or move it to a different location last minute.

Please keep in mind that any events that are held at our HOST CHURCH, regardless if you are a HEES  member or not, all participants and by-standers  will need to adhere to their rules regarding the use of the building, facilities and grounds. 

For some events there is an event coordination fee for all Non-HEES members - this is to offset the cost of planning and paperwork organization required in putting together an event/field trip.  The benefit to you  is that you still get to take part in the group discounted rate and attend with a group of other people.

HEES members, please login with your username and password to see the complete calendar, we have many more events and options open to you once you login. 

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Yes, you would just request membership in our support group only.  The co-op is just another option for our support group members but it is not mandatory.  ALL events, field trips and activities happen within our support group.  You would be expected to be an active member in our group, showing up a different events and activities throughout the year and organizing or assisting in organizing at least one event for the whole group per year.  If this sounds good, click on the request membership tab and we can start the process now.  

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 Yes, you do need to register and be accepted into our support group.  Once your registration is accepted and your support group fees have been received then you will be allowed full access to all our group has to offer; this includes our co-op.

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For the 2023/2024  school year the support group fees are $55.00 per family,  The amount of the co-op fees depend on how many of the cooperatives/tutorials you will be attending.  We have the  Science Cooperative, the History Cooperative and the Wednesday Afternoon Cooperative.

 COOPERATIVE FEES

To join the  cooperatives is an additional  $45.00 (includes PayPal fee),  per family

These fees are PER FAMILY and are for the entire year

 ** Please note that there will be additional supply fees for some of the classes or tutorial fees for those in Chemistry or Foreign Language classes (when we offer them)

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Yes, Home Educators of the Eastern Shore (HEES)  is  registered with paypal.  We are accepting support group and co-op dues as well as   field trips dues via paypal if that is convenient for you. If you pay via paypal, paypal fees will be added to the membership fee to cover the cost of this service.     Paypal fees should be sent to heeshomeschool@gmail.com

We will also accept cash and check that are received in a timely manner.  Checks should be made payable to HEES and mailed to :

108 Donna Anne Court, Church Hill, MD 21623

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If you join the Support Group only - your committment is to pay your dues and fees in a timely manner, sign all of the required paperwork, and either organize or co-organize one event for the whole group during the school year (this is called your Event Coordination Committment) or purchase the ECC Buyout Option which allows you to forgo for that year the requirement to organize an event. 

If you also join the cooperative classes - your committment will be all of the above for the support group PLUS the additional fees for cooperative classes, the additional paperwork that is required to attend.  Each parent, even those in the tutorial classes,  will be resposible to help with the cooperative classes by either Teaching, Aiding, Nursery, Clean-up, Set -Up duties or any mixture of these duties that is needed by the cooperative to make it run smoothly.   Admin assigns all positions except teachers and cooperative members agree to work where you are needed.

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The Event Coordination Requirement needs to be fulfilled within the current school  year of your requested membership.  Our year begins on July 1 and runs through June 30, your event will need to be scheduled within that time period.

  You do not need to fulfill this requirement alone, you may team up with another member (thus both of you meeting your requirements) and plan an event (if the event warrants needing more than one person to plan).   Some ideas will be a field trip, a holiday party, planning a Moms Night Out, a Family Game Night,   a family picnic, organizing the Science or History Fair, putting on an Art Show,  being our fundraiser/donation  coordinator for the year, cookie baking gathering, etc   

The event must be for all HEES members - open to everyone in our group that fits within the demographics,   it can not be an invitation only event.  The event  must go on the group calendar and must adhere to all HEES policies and guidelines, including the dress code.  The event can not be  a community event that is taking place  organized by someone else, or a home school opportunity that you brought to the attention of the group.  It must take some of your  effort to organize.  You must attend the event and oversee it from set up to take down. (that is not to say that you won't have help but it is ultimately your responsibility to organize and make sure the venue was left the way we found it).  The event MUST be on the HEES website  calendarvwith all information and sign up capable,  for at least 2 weeks prior to the event.

Holiday parties are for HEES members only (unless we are inviting a potential member to join us and meet the  group) but is not open to the public.

Field Trips/Events organized by our members with the intention to fulfill your event coordination committment are to benefit HEES  members.  If you are opening the field trip/event up to other groups or people, then HEES members are to receive the lowest participation rate.  Anyone who is not an HEES member  are to pay an event coordination fee to participate with our group.  This participation fee will go into the group's general fund to be used for the benefit of the group.  If the event is free then an event coordination fee will still apply to all non-members.

 In some cases the admin can approve a waiver of the event coordination fee for all non members on a case by case basis.

If you are still not sure whether your event qualifies, contact the admins. Admin has the authority to approve or disapprove any event to be sponsored by HEES.

We really do want and  thrive on the participation of our members but if you find that you absolutely can not meet the event coordination requirement, there is a $35 buy-out option that would still keep your family in good standing with the group.  

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The calendar events are color coded and the codes signify different things.  The main ones that you need to be concerned with are:

        PINK - means that it is an HEES ORGANIZED EVENT (someone in our group has put this together as their event committment and some of  our members will be attending.  Most of these events require you to sign up to attend.

        GREEN - this is just a COMMUNITY EVENT - we did not organize this it is just an event that the community is putting on that we thought you would like to know about.

        MAUVE - This is an HEES DEADLINE notification - usually indicates a payment is due

        BLUE - indicates a HOLIDAY

       MUSTARD YELLOW - this information is for the Wednesday afternoon co-op members only

        RASPBERRY - this information is for the Science Cooperative  members only

The rest of the colors pertain to leadership meetings and will be of no significance.

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Unfortunately, No,  the Wednesday Afternoon Cooperative requires that you participate in both of the afternoon classes and that parents stay on the premises the entire time.  Due to the nature of the classes and and variety of subject matter and ages, we need all parents help in making the afternoon cooperative work.  There is a study hall class option if you don't find a class that you are interested in for one of the periods.  Please feel free to bring work from home.