We almost forgot to file our R4

Last night, around 10:30 pm as we were getting into bed, Henry asked me if I had filed our R4 (Private School Affidavit). Theoretically, we should file between October 1st and October 15th. The answer was "no." So, I dutifully got out of bed and filed. I was surprised to see that our confirmation number was almost 98,000.

I wonder how many of those 98,000 "private schools" are homeschool families.

This website lists the commercials schools by county. Coming up with a definitive number of private schools gets a bit complicated since high schools and grade schools are listed separately. A school which offers K-12 would be listed twice.

On this list, there were almost 1300 private high schools in California. It is probably safe to say that there are less than 30,000 private schools total. (I'm didn't take the time to compare the two lists to come up with an exact number).

I found another resource at here. This is a list of all the private schools which filed R4's in California with more than 6 students. Some of those are homeschoolers with large families. (For example, I see the registration for my friend with 6 children). This list had about 3300 private schools.

I guessing that we have about 70, 000+ registered homeschools in California.

Of course, not all homeschoolers file an R4 and not all those we file an R4 will continue to homeschool the entire academic year. (I've had a number of friends file an R4, try to homeschool and give up a few weeks are months later.)

Still, I was rather impressed by the number.