Is CAPE-NM Irrelevant?
So, you’ve been homeschooling for 5, 10, or 15 years. You have your system worked out. You know what curriculum you are going to use. You’ve heard all the convention speakers before. You have no reason to attend the homeschool convention put on each year by the Christian Association of Parent Educators-NM (CAPE-NM). Or maybe……
Did you know that not long ago – in the 1980s – it was illegal to homeschool your child in New Mexico? Back then, you could be subject to punishment under compulsory school laws. And just recently, changes to the New Mexico law caused the Public Education Department to exert itself in an attempt to exercise greater control over homeschooling parents, but CAPE lobbied extensively to preserve the right, without oversight, we have to homeschool in New Mexico. Every year CAPE spends hours reviewing legislation and meeting with law makers to ensure that your right to homeschool is preserved. The right to homeschool is under attack, and CAPE-NM is your first line of defense.
But how did you get to where you are now? Did you have a mentor who showed you how to get started homeschooling? Maybe you had someone share their used curriculum with you? And where did you meet that person? Perhaps you went to a homeschool convention when you were just getting started and heard that one speaker who said you don’t have a choice – God has commanded you to educate your own children – and thus you had the resolve to carry on. Or maybe you were encouraged when you watched the showcase and saw that, far from being unsocialized weirdos, homeschooled students were amazing, bright, talented, and funny, and you could only hope your child would turn out so well.
But that was then, and things are different now…. virtual homeschool conventions bring speakers right to your home computer, you can buy used curriculum on-line, the Facebook homeschool group is your support now. Or maybe, just maybe – we need, now more than ever, to demonstrate a strong homeschool community for those who want to pull their kids out of public school but have no idea how. Maybe, just maybe, building real face-to-face relationships is the only way to withstand the attacks on our freedom and our rights. Maybe, just maybe, it’s not you that needs CAPE-NM – it’s CAPE-NM that needs YOU!
CAPE-NM is just a name, a legal entity – but legal entities don’t act, people act. So, if you are one of those claiming that CAPE-NM has outlived its usefulness, that it is outdated and unnecessary; if you think CAPE-NM is failing in its mission to inform, encourage, and educate homeschooling families; you should ask yourself – who then should do those things? Who should inform, encourage, and support a new generation of homeschool families? Shouldn’t it be you? CAPE-NM is a means for you to act, to inform, to encourage and to educate other families. CAPE is You, CAPE is me, CAPE is us – Are we irrelevant?
