Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

This week the Home School Legal Defense Association is celebrating our 20th Anniversary. Today on Home School Heartbeat, Mike Farris continues his look back at the history of HSLDA and the early days of modern homeschooling.

Mike:


Vickie and I began homeschooling in 1982. Soon, word got out that there was a Christian lawyer who was also a homeschooling dad, and other homeschooling families who were having legal struggles started contacting me for help. They wanted a good, Christian lawyer, but most couldn't afford to pay for legal representation.


My heart went out to the individual families who were being bullied by their school districts. And I also recognized that a negative decision against one homeschooling family would set bad precedent and could put everyone's freedom at risk.


Later on that year my contacts took me to a California lawyer named Mike Smith who was a homeschooling father and in private practice. Mike and his wife Elizabeth had begun homeschooling in 1981. He soon found himself inundated with requests for assistance from homeschooling families in southern California.


I described my idea of starting a legal defense association for homeschooling families to Mike. My thinking was that if the education establishment attacked one homeschooling family, the whole homeschooling community would effectively come to their defense. Families would gain the comfort of knowing that they would be able to defend themselves.


Mike Smith loved the idea, and together we set out to make it happen. In March of 1983, my wife and I, along with Mike and Elizabeth Smith, became the founding board members of Home School Legal Defense Association. I'm Mike Farris.