Homeschooling is not yet legal in Romania, though some are doing it by enrolling their children in foreign schools. This option, of course, has many limitations: Most families must use English textbooks instead of Romanian (the language of the Romanian majority) or Hungarian (the language of the Hungarian minority in Romania).
So we continued to work to try to legalize homeschooling in 2011, always receiving precious help from Home School Legal Defense Association to wage this battle.
In 2011, we continued to try, as we have for years, to find a school in the United States better suited to helping our families by offering assistance, transcripts and official papers required by the authorities. Early in the year, Mike Donnelly, director of international affairs at HSLDA, aided us in this.
By God’s grace, we found a school willing to work with us in these critical areas and at a very affordable price. Golden Acres Christian School and its director, Mrs. Suzanne Sheppard, joyfully offered to enroll our Romanian children. We enrolled the first children in GACS in September 2011; I have no words to express the joy of the parents and children who are now learning at GACS.
Meanwhile, we continue to try to legalize homeschooling. This is still important since, if homeschooling can be legalized, authorities cannot hurt our work in any way. This would also open the door not to hundreds, but to many thousands in Romania to homeschool their children. And we are not discouraged with a negative vote on homeschooling in the Education Committee of the Romanian Parliament in 2010. That vote was manipulated because, at first, every deputy voted in favor of homeschooling, but after the minister of education told them the government disagreed with homeschooling, 14 of them voted against it, killing our efforts. The good news is that there are still many deputies who wish to help. We are in touch with them, and they are ready to introduce a new amendment on educational law later this year.
We will have elections in Romania this year and expect a change inside the ministry of education and parliament. Please pray for this work with our deputies and the long legalization process. Let me add that some key people in the Romanian Orthodox Church are also interested in helping us in this effort.
Another important part of our work in 2011 was to promote homeschooling throughout the nation and show that it is part of our religious freedom. We sold many Romanian copies of Chris Klicka’s book, Home Schooling: The Right Choice, and gave free copies to all interested government officials. I had the privilege to speak at a homeschool seminar organized by the Romanian American University in Bucharest, where I met many who would like to fight with us for the right to homeschool. Later we discussed how to do this as the 2012 elections approach.
In addition to HSLDA, we have been receiving valuable help from Westminster Biblical World Mission. Please pray for us in this battle to legalize homeschooling in Romania and for a growing community of homeschoolers in Romania (both Romanian and Hungarian speaking). Pray also for a large homeschool conference planned for this spring in Targu Mures, in the middle of the Transylvania Province of Romania. Thank you for helping to support your fellow homeschoolers around the world!
- The cost of enrollment in a foreign school is high.
- Parents can still be abused by the authorities.
For more news and updates, visit hslda.org.