Howard County Homeschooling (HCHC)

James Bougher

This is great group, I really like the smaller groups and flexibility HCHC has. Especially now during Covid-19.

Rachel Endo

I stumbled upon this homeschool through a meetup.com group. I was looking for fun, educational activities for my 2 girls (age 8 and 9) and found a homeschool group's field trip (Howard County Home School--HCHC), so I decided to join along. The first time I tagged along was for a bee apiary tour and beeswax candle making activity at Benjamin Banneker museum. My kids loved it and I ended up tagging along for every activity they organized on meetup. Eventually I discovered they had a whole homeschool program with very unique and chic (like fencing and chess!) enrichment classes. My girls now go there on Thursdays for their in-person classes where they do Japanese in the morning and piano in the afternoon. I had wanted to homeschool my kids for a while but was intimidated by the state regulations and umbrella group requirements but Rayna (the head of HCHC) was really great walking me through the process and was always very quick to answer my emails and questions. My only complaint is we can't do all the classes. I'm excited about the chess and fencing classes but my kids want to do the P.E. and art classes, but because in-person classes are only 1 day a week at the moment, I can had to prioritize the Japanese (morning class) and Piano (afternoon class). They also offer virtual classes which we also participate in--violin and guitar--but I'm most excited for the in-person classes. They also have organic farming at Mary's land farm on Wednesdays (as a supplement to the 1 day a week Thursday enrichments), but the commute was too much for us and we had to give that class up. With all the screen time being shoved down my kids throats during corona's public schooling, I found this school an incredible breath of fresh air with healthy, stimulating classes where the kids can be outside and around friends. And to my surprise when I first joined, you don't have to be a Howard County resident to enroll (my family lives in Anne Arundle County).

Lisa A

Great co-op! The quality of the classes is outstanding and you are made to feel part of the group immediately. Great variety of activities offered as well, right in the heart of Howard County and easy to get to. They have class punch cards ($20 per class) if you want flexibility, but there is rolling enrollment for the classes if you want to go Wednesdays and Fridays or just one day a week from 9:30-2pm. Some special classes, like the Equestrian Connection class, meet off-site but still in the Howard County area. Definitely a great place to feel like part of the community, foster new friendships, and learn some cool new things!

Jake Pauk

Great place! Love the teachers and community.