April Letter

About CHEACT

Beliefs and Biblical Basis
What we believe and why we believe it

Benefits
How CHEACT supports you

Volunteer
There are plenty of opportunities to jump in and make things happen for home schoolers in central Texas

Home Schooling for the Glory of God!

April, 2001

CHEACT is entering into an exciting season, so I will spend my inaugural letter bringing you up to date. I am amazed at the momentum that has developed so far this year. At the end of last year, we started asking "Where are we headed next year?" Simple question. Hard answer.

As most of you know, CHEACT has spent the last two years transforming from a local home school support group ("CHEA") to a regional group that supports local support groups (CHEA of Central Texas, or "CHEACT"). Last fall, we completed the necessary changes to gain formal THSC Regional Group recognition.

In addition to our Board, we now have an advisory council made up of three men who are involved in home schooling on the state and national level. While this council is not part of our leadership, they provide an invaluable resource to us. I have already come to appreciate their prayer support and broad home school leadership experience. They have and will continue to be an asset as we move forward.

As you can imagine, much hard work went into this transition. CHEACT would like to personally thank Phill & Sara Kokajko for their many years of service in the Programs Board position. They were responsible for most of the Winter Conference content and in securing Dennis Gunderson as the keynote speaker for the upcoming "Annual Summer Home Educator's Conference & Curriculum Fair" in June.

Our sincere gratitude is also extended to Fernando and Joy Arellano, who made many of the behind-the-scenes preparations for all CHEACT-sponsored events including summer and winter conferences, the Science Fair, the Used Curriculum Sale and Family Skate Nights. Joy and Fernando served on the Board for two years as the Logistics Board members. They were also pivotal in helping us capture our organization's Vision Statement, and in clarifying our guiding Mission Statement (see below).

Finally, we would like to thank Chris and Beverly Parrish for four years of Board leadership, serving at times as the Chairman, Treasurer and Secretary. Fortunately for us, Chris will remain on the Board as an advisor for the next year. Besides his many years of CHEACT experience, Chris brings perspective from his role on the THSC board, helping us partner more effectively with state and other regional groups.

Over the past two years, we have grown from a local support group that outgrew its effectiveness, to become a "Regional Group". While this has shifted our focus, it has not helped us accomplish more work. In fact, it has been said that CHEACT is "a newsletter and conference-generating machine." While these are clearly regional responsibilities, we are very much gated by the number of Board members that we have, and consumed by these two primary activities due to our structure.

Another realization that we have come to is that we are organized functionally, to cope with getting this work done ("Treasurer", "Logistics", "Programs", "Membership"), and are necessarily inwardly focused to uphold our commitment to you, our members. However, this is starting to cause problems:

We receive over 300 inquiries a month. Many of these calls are requests for resources and guidance in home schooling Jr. & Sr. High students and those with special needs. Unfortunately, we are not currently organized to listen to or respond to these needs in any substantive way.
THSC has repeatedly asked us to find out where candidates for local government stand on issues related to home school families, and to facilitate their access to the home school community. Nevertheless, we have not done anything to organize this to date. Our attention has been on urgent matters and not on important long-term issues such as this.
There is a vacancy in many parts of our region left by CHEA as we moved out of the local support group role. To date, we do not know what groups are forming or how many families in our region are served by them. In order for us to fulfill our vision, there must be a strong support network in Central Texas, where every family connects.
While the population in Central Texas has exploded, CHEACT membership has remained fairly static. While statistics are not formally collected for this, it does not seem reasonable that this population growth would not have a proportionate amount of Christian Home Educators as well.
We have met most of the stated goals set by the previous Vision Committee, and are struggling with what is the most effective use of our resources and new position in the home school community.
We have a Mission Statement that has guided us well up to this point, but there is no far-reaching Vision Statement that leads us to the next step… and it is time to take the next step.

In summary, it is time to rethink our approach to serving Central Texas home school families.

Toward this end, the Board has been holding intense strategy meetings over the past two months to begin to chart a course for our future. This effort has produced a long-range Vision Statement, a list of key Stakeholders Groups with which we need to collaborate and has clarified our Mission Statement to support these relationships.

So, what is the Vision Statement? Simply, "Everyone Home Schools for the Glory of God". This statement has already helped us identify our key weaknesses and point the way to our next set of goals. While home schooling in Central Texas may never reach this level, it is most definitely the umbrella that covers everything we do.

To bring about this Vision, we have identified the following Stakeholder Groups:

Central Texas Families
Support Network (support groups, co-ops, clubs, camp, -bees & -offs, parties & activities, …)
CHEACT Advisory Council (see above)
Business & Ministry Partners (Book fair speakers, vendors, …)
Facilities Vendors (Palmer Auditorium, The Promise Land, churches, …)
Regional, State and National Organizations & Governments (e.g. THSC, HSLDA, FEAST, SESTHA, NTHEN, School Boards, Legislators, …)
CHEACT Workers (employees, subcontractors & volunteers including Board members).

The stronger we partner with these groups, the more effective stewards we will be of our mission.

We have refreshed the CHEACT mission statement to carve off our corner of the work required to bring about our Vision, and to encompass these Stakeholder Group relationships into which we must step to be effective in this endeavor. The revised CHEACT Mission Statement is:

"To safeguard, promote and encourage home schooling for the Glory of God in central Texas families by assuming a regional leadership role in partnership with local, regional, state and national ministries, businesses and governments."

"Home schooling for the Glory of God". That is no small order. While we know what home schooling is, as Christians it is not worth doing unless with it we glorify God. Because this is central to our mission, we would like to engage our membership in helping to develop a working definition of this term. Toward that end, we are announcing our first ever essay contest. The topic is "Home Schooling for the Glory of God - What this means to me and my family." (See newsletter for more details). We need both parents and their children to participate. A greater understanding of this principle will help our entire community as we continue in our home schooling journeys.

What can you do? We covet your prayers first. We need wisdom as to how to approach and prioritize each of our Stakeholder relationships. Second, we need volunteers. We could have the biggest "PTA" group in history, if everyone pitches in. Please be prayerfully considering how you could volunteer your time and talents. Finally, please send in your entry for the essay contest. Start with a family discussion and see what comes up. Not only will you get a chance to win a cool prize, you will help us all gain a better understanding of how we can "safeguard, promote and encourage Home Schooling for the Glory of God."

" "
Brett Adams
Chairman, CHEACT

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