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by Tom Coombe
After recent declines, the number of home-schooled students in the Ely School Districts has risen.
According to numbers presented at Monday’s regular school board meeting, 28 children are being home-schooled within the district’s boundaries.
That’s up from a total of 23 reported this time a year ago.
In 2022, that number was 27 and in 2021 there were 32 students.
Over the last decade or so, the home-school numbers have yo-yo’d, climbing during the Covid-19 pandemic from a recent low of 17 in 2019, then inching back down before this year’s increase.
Board member Tony Colarich, who serves as the district’s home-school liaison, said, “I’m on the committee, to some extent I feel powerless. Where do we turn? What do we do next? How do we get that number to decrease?”
“I don’t have that answer,” said superintendent Anne Oelke. “I think that during Covid, parents got a choice of how to educate their families and got a glimpse of things and there’s a lot of different options now. There’s a whole plethora of online schools that families can choose and if it works for their family, it works for their family.”
Religion was at one time viewed as a leading reason for home-school decisions, but Oelke said “it’s not just for religious purposes anymore.”
“There are a variety of reasons,” she said. “For some, there are too many mandates and assessments that we are required to do. I think there’s a big wide variety of families that are not choosing to do a traditional public school.”
The current number is expected to rise, given that the Ely district “lost a couple more out of elementary already” this year to home-school options.
While home-school numbers remain higher than they were prior to the pandemic, the totals are nowhere near as high as they once were.
As recently as 2009, 44 children were receiving instruction at home within the Ely district.
Once considered a big factor in a decline in student enrollment, home-schooling in Ely now isn’t as prevalent.
Off and on through the years, the district has reached out to home-school families in an effort to attract more children to the district and boost enrollment, which is linked to state funding.
The board has also traditionally had a member serve as a liaison to home-school families, but there has been little formal activity on that front.
Parents who choose to home-school their children are required by law to report to the school district where they live.
The statistics are limited to Ely School District boundaries only and would not include any children home-schooled in Fall Lake Township, which is part of the Two Harbors-based Lake Superior School District.
