SPRINGFIELD, La. – Arliya Martin accepted her high school diploma with relief and gratitude.It was her ticket to better-paying work, she felt, after getting kicked out of high school and toiling for eight years at factory jobs to support her children.
“This is a new path for me to get on with my life,” she said.But Martin didn’t take any classes or pass any tests to receive her degree. She got it in July from a school where students can get a high school diploma for $465.Unlike public schools, formal homeschooling programs or traditional private schools, nearly 9,000 private schools in Louisiana don’t need state approval to grant degrees. Nearly every one of those unapproved schools was created to serve a single homeschooling family, but some have buildings, classrooms, teachers and dozens of students.
While unapproved schools account for a small percentage of the state’s students, those in Louisiana’s off-the-grid school system are a rapidly growing example of the nation’s continuing fallout from COVID-19: families disengaging from traditional education.U.S. public school enrollment fell by more than 1.2 million students in the first two years of the pandemic. Many switched to private school or told their state they were homeschooling. Thousands of others could not be accounted for at all, according to an analysis from The Associated Press and its partners.The students in Louisiana’s off-the-grid school system aren’t missing. But there’s no way to tell what kind of education they’re getting, or whether they’re getting one at all. Over 21,000 students are enrolled in the state’s unapproved schools, nearly double the number from before the pandemic, according to data obtained through a public records request by the AP and The Advocate, a partner news outlet in Louisiana.
To supporters of the system, avoiding state oversight is entirely the point. Advocates say Louisiana’s unapproved schools are a natural extension of the doctrine of parental rights.The place where Martin got her diploma, Springfield Preparatory School, bills itself as an umbrella school for Christian homeschoolers. Most students there do attend the school to work toward an education through actual classes or tutoring.However, principal Kitty Sibley Morrison is also willing to grant a diploma to anyone whose parents say they were homeschooled, even years earlier.“Sometimes it takes two or three times to explain to them that they are free,” Sibley Morrison said. “Their parents are in charge of them, not the state.
A HANDS-OFF OPTION FOR HOMESCHOOLING
Sibley Morrison says she is not selling diplomas, but rather lifetime services for homeschooling families.
“We’re not here to make money,” she said.
Yet a list of prices is taped to the front window of the school building: $250 for diploma services, a $50 application fee, $35 for a diploma cover and $130 to walk in a cap and gown at a ceremony.
The number of students in unapproved private schools like Springfield has nearly doubled, from around 11,600 in the 2017-18 school year to over 21,000 in 2022-23, according to state records.
There’s precious little information available about these schools, which the state calls “nonpublic schools not seeking state approval.” To start one, an adult must only report their school’s name and address, their contact information and how many students they have. Some schools have whimsical names such as the “Ballerina Jedi Academy” and the “Unicorn Princess School.” Others proclaim their independence with names like “Freedom First.”Most of the schools are tiny, single-family home schools. However, last year, 30 of Louisiana’s unapproved schools reported they had at least 50 children enrolled.There is no way for the government to verify safety, quality or even whether a school exists, said Laura Hawkins, a former state Department of Education official who worked on its school choice efforts up to 2020.
