Biopark History w/ Homeschoolers

Original Email sent to Councilor Cadigan 2/13/07
I am eager to speak with you or someone in your office regarding the ability of homeschoolers to use the Biopark facilities in the City of Albuquerque. I have spoken with the mayor's office as well as the Director of Admissions at the Biopark but I feel that this is something that needs to be addressed further in order to see a resolution.
Our issue is that each homeschooling family must provide their certificate from the state showing they are homeschooling before they are able to schedule a field trip or class in order to get the same group rates as school groups. It is city policy that each school group must show these type of forms. Because of the larger number of homeschoolers in the area we find this to be more than a mere annoyance not only for the logistics of having everyone turn in their forms before we can even schedule an event but they are also kept on file and that seems to be a privacy concern on the part of our families to have this information sitting in a file cabinet.
We would like to ask that this be addressed to provide an exemption for homeschoolers as there are no other facilities or classes that require these forms. The state does not consider homeschooling families each as individual schools and it is not the City's job to police whether homeschoolers are registered with the state or not.
Just for your information:

Years ago this policy was not a problem when you had one or two families joining together to form a 'school group' but today you have entire cooperatives and communities wanting field trips and classes. Even though this policy has been in place with the city for years the fact that so many people are turning to homeschooling makes this a priority at this time for our community. I just contacted the State office that oversees the homeschooling registration and was told that as of today there are approximately 7,185 homeschooling families in this state, that of course does not take into account individual numbers of students within those families. In the Albuquerque and surrounding areas are a huge portion of these numbers.
Many museums and zoos around the country are making homeschoolers a welcome part of their facilities and accomodating them with classes and 'homeschooler days', even NASA is drawing huge numbers of homeschoolers to their facilities. At this time both the Denver Zoo and Houston Space Center have these types of events and that merely draws homeschoolers from our state out. I would like to see the Biopark and other city run facilities work with the homeschooling community to draw more families in to our city that would not otherwise make the drive.
Please contact me at the information above for more information to see how this can be resolved and for more details.
FYI: The Explora Science Center is already hosting science club classes for homeschoolers and this has grown from originally 1 class years ago to currently 7 for grades K-12. Staff within the Biopark as well as the Albuquerque Museum have repeatedly told homeschoolers that their business is not needed and I think this is a sad comment when so many homeschoolers are members of these facilities and shutting out an entire portion of Albuquerque residents.

Email sent to homeschooling community 6/25/07

History:
Prior to my contact this year many homeschooling groups and organizations have contacted both the mayor's office as well as the Biopark directly in order to get this policy changed.

February 13, 2007:
Email to the NM Homeschool Community Network:
This requirement of wanting to have homeschoolers forms on file for group rates has been going on for years. (This is not the case when they -the Biopark-have free presentations of a subject.) I decided to call and ask why...so I started with the Mayor's office...they put the Director of Admissions of the Biopark in touch with me....well apparently this is 'city policy' any school who wants group rates has to show their school form and they then keep them on file and they consider each homeschooling family to be a school.
I told him that there are no classes or museums or anywhere we have had to show proof of homeschooling in this manner not even the museum run by the State of NM. I told him that we would like to see cooperative 'homeschooler days' such as the Denver Zoo and many museums around the country run that it would be in the best interests of the Biopark to be the first one to do this in the state.
I discussed that not only is this a privacy issue with homeschoolers to keep our notices on file there but that it is quite a hassle to get the forms of 30+ homeschoolers in a group before we can schedule a class or field trip. Not only are most of us already members but this has put a strain on relations between the homeschooling community and the Biopark. I requested that there be an exemption made for homeschoolers and he said that he would talk to the Director of the Biopark as well as the Mayor's office.
He wanted to know how many homeschoolers were out there and I said within the CABQ there are hundreds, possibly close to a 1,000 and that you also had to consider the homeschoolers who come to visit from the state and areas surrounding ABQ. He said that this policy was put there because initially they were getting small family groups wanting group rates as homeschoolers and turning in the forms was not a huge deal but that now he is seeing an increase in homeschooling and he does see how it can be a problem when co-ops or larger groups are looking to schedule trips and classes.
By his reaction I think I made him think and pushed some good buttons SOOO I believe that this policy can be changed in our favor but it will take some firm but gentle nudging on our part to start with....I am calling the Mayor;s office again tomorrow and my city councilor and will let you know what happens from there.

February 15, 2007:

Response received last night from Michael J. Cadigan, CABQ City Councilor:
""I will certainly look into this. Any ideas on how to streamline the policy? At a minimum the biopark probably needs one person who is responsible for giving the zoo a headcount so they can keep track of the number of kids getting field trip rates.""
Response from me back to him:
Thank you so much for responding. I absolutely agree that the Biopark needs a contact person when setting up field trips and/or classes for homeschooling groups. As far as streamlining the process it would merely be a matter of the group wanting the event calling and setting up the details and providing contact information and a final head count before the event is scheduled to occur. That is what other facilities have done and are currently doing.
While there may be concern over students who are getting the school discount who are not homeschooling or not registered, pretty much any child of school age within a homeschooling group should be taken at face value that they are homeschooling and it should not be the concern of the Biopark to police whether they are actually registered or not, that is state policy between that family and the State of New Mexico. They could even have a special category for homeschoolers in their numbers, if needed, for an annual count of who attended the facilities.
Homeschoolers tend to come in multi-age groups so that would not be a factor as far as field trips go but if a certain class had a grade/age requirement that needs to be something for the Biopark to decide upon when setting up that particular class or field trip. It is a learning process for facilities that have never dealt with homeschoolers, it is hard to think outside the box, but we, as a community, have met with great success locally and I have seen fantastic relationships between homeschoolers and facilities such as these around the country.

If money for classes and facility use is a hurdle there are ways and means to obtain grants so that these are not obstacles any longer. I understand that a lot of resources are tied up in public and private school visits but our kids have just as many rights to these programs. The Biopark Beginnings classes for children under 6 has had a huge response and is a wonderful resource but once kids are too old for the program they are left without these great educational opportunities. I did speak to Robert Henderson, Director of Admissions at the Biopark regarding these matters and he assured me that he would talk to his Director as well as the Educational Department.
Please let me know if you require any more information and if needed we can have representatives from our community available for meetings. I am confident that this is going to be a simple matter.

I understand that relations between our community and the Biopark have been a bit strained on this point and I am hoping that with understanding and better education we can benefit both groups.

Since then:
I have made numerous phone calls to the Albuquerque mayor's office with the only result being that they have priority issues that come before this issue. I can completely understand when political issues take precedent over a seemly insignificant admissions issue at one of their local city facilities.

The main issue points are:

A.) Individual family homeschools are not each considered a 'school' by NM State Policy, each family is registered as a homeschool yes but not required to call themselves a school nor do they have any policies addressing each family as a school . It is the Biopark's prerogative to decide that they want to consider each family it's own school but it is certainly not a common admission standard used by other public or private facilities.
B.) When scheduling a field trip of a group of homeschoolers the Biopark requires each family to have turned in a copy of their NM State Registration form BEFORE a reservation can even be made. http://www.cabq.gov/biopark/common/SchoolFieldTrips.html This is not only time consuming but practically impossible to coordinate when you are dealing with large groups of homeschoolers in which every family has to turn in their forms before the reservation can even be made. This is also a violation of our personal privacy since the Biopark has informed me that they store the forms in case a family wants to come again and these forms have all of our family information as well as children's names.
C.) None of these things come in to play when a family has a membership to the Biopark. These are only issues when a group is looking for admission using a school group discount. There are a large number of homeschooling families who already do have memberships at the Biopark.
D.) There are currently thousands of homeschoolers in this state. This policy can make it extremely difficult for some members of our community to enjoy the Biopark.
E.) We would like to raise community awareness of the needs of the homeschooling community and show how zoos, museums, theme parks and government facilities around the country are successfully benefiting from holding classes and special days specifically for homeschoolers, including many public and private entities within the City of Albuquerque and State of New Mexico. Homeschooling is growing legal family choice of education and community resources are a valuable addition to our children's learning experiences.

The resolution is: Make an exception for homeschoolers when they are looking to bring a group and get group discounts to Biopark facilities. Do not require forms to be turned in at all, just ask that a field trip be scheduled a certain amount of time in advance and for the contact person to call in numbers attending before the event is to occur. All members of the field trip would then be required to enter the Biopark together so that they can be accurately counted and the correct people entering can be given the special discount. All policies on cancellation, group size etc. that are stated on their admissions page for school groups would still apply. It is the act of turning the form for each family that is of issue.

I believe that this entire policy is just a misunderstanding of homeschoolers and a confusion about where our families' fall in terms of being counted as a school. I do not believe that this is a malicious policy dedicated to singling out homeschoolers. This policy was put in place when homeschooling was not as prevalent or accepted and homeschooling families were not around in such large numbers. From the Biopark's point of view I believe they are trying to streamline homeschoolers within their school group discounts because they are afraid of people abusing their discount prices. I personally do not think this should be a concern because any child of school age not in school is most likely homeschooling-exceptions can always happen but the majority of homeschoolers are honest and are not going to take advantage. Perhaps their concern also is that homeschoolers are legally registered within the State of New Mexico's guidelines, this is not the burden of the City of Albuquerque but the responsibility of each homeschooling families and State.

These are fabulous facilities and they have meant so much to a lot of homeschooling families as a part of our learning experiences. Our request is reasonable and with our community's involvement I can only foresee success. The time has come when one voice is just not loud enough to be heard. I/We need the voices of many. Please contact the City of Albuquerque's Mayor's office and/or your city councilor in Albuquerque and let them know what the Biopark has meant to your family. If you are a member of the Biopark, had personal issues with this policy, even if you are from out of town and regularly bring your group or family to the Biopark please send an email, fax or make a phone call, you can even call in to his Saturday morning radio show. This policy affects any homeschoolers in New Mexico that plan on taking a field trip to the Biopark not just those in the Albuquerque Area. If you do send an email please copy me personally so that I may add it to our blog comments-I can make it anonymous on the blog.

After the Bill was passed http://nmhomeschoolcommunity.blogspot.com/2007/10/tale-of-success-for-homeshoolers-at.html

Resolution passed by City Council http://nmhomeschoolcommunity.blogspot.com/2007/09/forgot-cabq-bill-attachment-sorry-folks.html