yes have been opened to what is possible, how learning can be done differently.

"During the spring and summer months, Adam also loved to dig in the dirt."

- [Michelle] Janet Kasenga living room functions more like a classroom.

- 15.

- [Janet] There you go.

- [Michelle] Her 6-year-old daughter, Lucy, practices her multiples of five here as she hops onto the right answer.

- [Janet] An adjective.

- [Michelle] It's also where Kasenga's 9-year-old son, James, learns the different parts of speech through a game of Mad Libs.

- And their feathers great for making Legos.

He's really into "Minecraft."

So he is got "Minecraft" Mad Libs.

And it asks you, you know, put down a noun and an adjective and a verb.

And at the beginning, he struggled with it.

But what I did is I sat on my couch, and I'd look at the room, and I'd say, what's that TV?

Like, describe the TV.

It's a rectangle.

It's black.

7 times 7?

- 49.

- Okay.

- [Michelle] By teaching her son at home in a relaxed, fun way, Kasenga says she helped him learn faster than he would've in a traditional school.

- What comes in between 10 and 20?

- [Lucy] 15.

- [Michelle] Kasenga began homeschooling during the pandemic.

The mother of three says the biggest appeal is getting to customize her children's curriculum.

She purchases them online.

- It can be so overwhelming of how much is available out there for curriculums that I just picked one.

(laughs) - If not for the pandemic, do you think you would still be homeschooling?

- We would not be homeschooling.

I had asked my husband, when my oldest was two, if I could homeschool, and he said no.

He wanted him in school.

And then once the pandemic hit, I knew it was something that I had always wanted to do, but then my husband didn't have any issues with it, because we didn't want him in school, or at public schools with masks.

And then we didn't want him on the computer either.

- Now a lot of homeschoolers are moving away from something.

- [Michelle] Melissa Robb is the advocacy director for ENRICHri, the largest secular homeschooling organization in the state.

She says many parents were frustrated watching their children struggle with remote learning.

- They saw that that wasn't working, and they just said, we need something else.

- It gave people a real chance to regroup and reassess their family and have that bond that they didn't know they were missing.

- [Michelle] Robb helps families interested in homeschooling.

So does Jen Curry.

She is the state coordinator for the Rhode Island Guild of Home Teachers, a Christian-led support group for homeschoolers.

They say there's one main message they've heard from many parents who began educating from home after COVID hit.

- I always wanted to homeschool.

I didn't know how, or I didn't take the time to figure out how- - It was the catalyst.

It was the jumpstart.

- Yeah.

- The number of homeschooled students in Rhode Island surged during the pandemic.

It's declined since its COVID era peak but is 67% higher than pre-pandemic.

We asked Rhode Island Education Commissioner, Angelica Infante-Green, about the uptick.

That's a really large increase.

What do you make of that?

- Yeah, so it's pretty aligned with the rest of the nation.

I would rather that they be in our school system, but I think parents make different kinds of choices for different reasons.

Many of the parents are now working remotely, and many of them prefer the convenience, prefer the way that they teach their kids.

- James Dwyer, professor of law at William and Mary, has been studying home education for decades and co-authored a book on the subject.

Are you seeing a shift in why parents are choosing to homeschool?

- I think people that had strong religious convictions that would support homeschooling were already doing it pre-pandemic.

So the new people are mostly not doing it for that reason.

It's mostly that they have enjoyed the educational experience and the side benefits of greater freedom, flexibility.

You can do it while you're traveling.

- When you are done, you're gonna do this page.

It's the same thing that you did yesterday.

- Janet Kasenga says religion and politics did not factor into her decision to teach at home in East Greenwich.

She worries about school shootings and bullies.

She and her husband agreed that she teach their children while he works outside of the home.

You live in East Greenwich, which has one of the best school districts in the state.

People move here for the schools.

Why not take advantage of that?

- We did move to East Greenwich for the public schools when we thought we were gonna be putting them in public school.

I see that they get so much more of a benefit being home than if they were in a public school.

- [Michelle] But Infante-Green says there are many benefits to having kids in school that can't be replicated at home.

- Our concern, because we saw this during the pandemic, is the kids socializing, right, the kids having the interactions.

Because school is about the academics, but it's the social-emotional piece as well.

- What did the bee do to tell the other bees where the food was?

- So it did a special dance, like- - What's the biggest misconception that people have about families who homeschool?

- That we aren't social.

(laughs) - And you would say what?

- We're too social.

(laughs) - Is that Ancient Box?

- On this day, Kasenga's children were playing "Pokemon" with other homeschoolers.

Kasenga says many families form close relationships with one another.

It's a way for both parents and children to develop friendships.

The growth in homeschooling since the pandemic is the latest part of a long-term trend.

There are nearly 1,400 more students being homeschooled in Rhode Island now than there were in 2013.

What do you think the increase in homeschooling says about the quality of public schools in Rhode Island?

- I don't know if it actually says anything related to the quality.

It's not only in Rhode Island.

It is a nationwide increase that we saw happen during the pandemic, and in many places it has not gone down.

- [Michelle] Commissioner Infante-Green says the growing group of homeschoolers is affecting funding for local school districts, but it's hard to identify the full extent.

- Even if you lose, let's say, 20 kids, that's a classroom.

But you don't usually lose them all in one class, on the same grade.

You lose two here, three there.

So you feel the financial impact, but you can't actually consolidate or figure another way out to budget, because it is not all in one shot.

- [Michelle] As more parents nationwide opt to educate at home, Professor Dwyer wants lawmakers to tighten regulations.

He's worried about parents who have a history with child protective services, or CPS.

- You would just check CPS records and make sure this isn't a parent who's, you know, seriously CPS involved and perhaps removing the child from school for that reason.

There's a huge downside potential in the absence of any kind of state oversight, that some children are terribly disserved by the practice.

- [Michelle] Parents don't need to have a teaching certificate to homeschool in Rhode Island.

They have to agree to provide thorough and efficient instruction.

Dwyer says that's not enough.

- Parents ought to have accomplished something academically themselves, either high school diploma or a GED.

I think, you know, if you can't complete that minimal academic program yourself, then entrusting you completely with the education of your child is unwarranted.

- Today's noon dinner was codfish hash.

- [Michelle] Amanda Campbell says more families are discovering what she's long loved about homeschooling.

- We refer to ourselves as secular homeschoolers.

So we don't teach from a Christian worldview.

We teach very open.

All knowledge is encouraged and open to my kids.

- [Michelle] She began educating from her home in Cumberland a decade ago when her oldest daughter was five.

- I just kept looking at her, thinking like, I don't wanna put you on a bus and send you away for the whole day and miss the joy, really, of watching you learn.

So let's put the big one in the middle.

- [Michelle] One of Campbell's philosophies is letting her two children, 8-year-old Elowen and 15-year-old Willow, lead with their interest while working to mastery.

- [Instructor] So 3 times 3 is 9.

- [Michelle] On this day, Willow needed help multiplying decimals.

- Multiplying by a 10th is the same as dividing by 10, right?

- [Michelle] So she turned on a video tutorial to get up to speed.

- This is a pretty easy one.

- [Michelle] Meanwhile, Elowen was in the kitchen practicing long multiplication.

- In the hopes of finding the- - [Michelle] Campbell's husband works full time while she focuses on teaching her daughters.

She says people often assume only wealthy people are homeschooling.

- We have lots of friends who consciously choose to live in smaller houses, in less nice neighborhoods, because they don't care about the school system, so that they can live on one income, so that they can homeschool.

- [Michelle] Campbell offers her daughters the option to go to a traditional school, but neither one is interested in it right now.

- We're different.

We're quirky.

We like to learn.

We like to do weird things.

Right now, I'm really into science and nature, specifically like biology and also in, like, the marine field.

So that's definitely something I've explored a lot.

- If I'm in school, I'd be stuck doing the same stuff that all the other third graders are, 'cause, like, it's hard to teach each, like, different people to do different maths at the same time.

- [Janet] Eggs are stored here while they are waiting to hatch.

- [Michelle] Back in East Greenwich, Janet Kasenga also says she hasn't ruled out eventually sending her kids to public school.

- I think my husband would like them in school by sixth grade.

If it goes with that, my son will be in school in two years.

My daughter, you know, she wants to be with us, so her opinion might change in like a year or two, but right now she says, "I don't ever wanna go to school.

I wanna stay homeschooling."

- [Michelle] Commissioner Infante-Green says she'd like to hear from homeschooling parents who are considering putting their children in public school.

- If there are things that would bring them back into the system, we would love to hear it.

We would love to hear what those things are and try to provide them as much as possible.