Community College Daily Features CSM's Rapidly Expanding Homeschool Programs

“One of the things we do at College of Southern Maryland is try to provide solutions for our community, especially our students.” ~ Dr. Tony Warrick

The College of Southern Maryland's (CSM) was recently featured in Community College Daily -- a national publication produced by the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) -- because of CSM's homeschool program's rapid growth, and to highlight CSM's commitment to deepening relationships with southern Maryland's homeschool communities.

The following is an excerpt from the article written by wrote Tabitha Whissemore, a contributor to Community College Daily and managing editor of AACC's Community College Journal:

"As the number of home-schooling families rises, some community colleges are deepening their relationships with home-school communities and providing enrichment programming to enhance students’ education.

At College of Southern Maryland (CSM), a home-school enrichment program started with a conversation. Like all community colleges, CSM welcomes home-school students on campus for summer youth camps and dual-enrollment programs. But home-school families expressed a need for more support.

In April 2019, Tony Warrick, CSM’s youth program manager, met with 12 of these families and listened to some of their problems within the home-school system, particularly related to curriculum and ensuring their children advance academically.

“One of the things we do at College of Southern Maryland is try to provide solutions for our community, especially our students,” Warrick says.

And home-schooling families in southern Maryland are a big part of the community. More than 4,580 students were home-schooled there in the 2020-21 school year, according to data from the Maryland Home School Association (MDHSA).  

Launch and relaunch

One of the solutions was to create a couple of science and technology classes to enhance the home-school curriculum by giving students hands-on experiences. The college, after all, has access to equipment that would be too expensive for many home-school families. The classes were offered at the La Plata Campus, and enrollment for those early classes was good as word-of-mouth spread within the home-school community, Warrick says.

The program went on hiatus during Covid but relaunched in fall 2021 — and enrollment has “exploded,” Warrick says, going from less than 100 pre-pandemic, to nearly [400] enrollments for the [upcoming] semester. CSM is even expanding the program to its Leonardtown Campus.

Some of the most popular classes are the engineering and robotics courses. Many of the instructors are adjunct professors, and CSM hires some community professionals who have specific expertise and the skills to teach elementary-age children.

Beyond the academics, the students learn about classroom etiquette and are exposed to a college campus.

“The things they learn here will set them up in life,” Warrick says." 

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To read the full story in CCDaily, please visit Home School Enrichment.

There are four more weeks left for homeschool families to register for the next session of classes. For more information on CSM’s Kids’ & Teen College and to explore the class schedule, visit https://csmd.augusoft.net//info/landing/Homeschool-Courses.

To learn from homeschool families about their homeschool experience at CSM, you may be interested in reading "CSM Expands Homeschool Programming to Leonardtown Campus as Enrollment Continues to Soar."