Mar. 24, 2008 - Moving to / Living in.. Las Vegas
Often, when people are looking at a potential move, they check the area out first. I'm always getting, "So, what's it like to live in Las Vegas? What are the laws (homeschool) like? Is it ALL about gambling?"
I wrote up the below letter to help calm nerves about potentially moving to Las Vegas! I'll share it with you...oh, and our Homeschooling laws are SPECTACULAR! Check out http://www.nevadahomeschoolnetwork. One time (with exceptions) Filing of Notice of Intent , no testing, no record keeping, no meeting state standards, parent determines child's level and needs. FABULOUS!
I just want to take a moment to assure you that while it may seem scary to contemplate a move to "sin city", this city has SO many great educational opportunities and a HUGE amount of homeschoolers.
Las Vegas encompasses a HUGE area. It runs right into an area called Henderson and an area called Summerlin. We have the NE, SE, SW and NW parts of town, and in the middle and now the outskirts, North Las Vegas (parts are inner city-ish as Las Vegas grew AROUND North Las Vegas but there are now parts that extend out past Las Vegas, which are really nice …Aliente etc)
I personally love the NW side of town and find it extremely full of homeschooling activities. In part it is because there are a few support groups based on this side of town, but also in part because many of us "active folk" live over here and always host events! It is also a nice area, full of new parks and developments.
I used to live in the NE area, and found it to be much more central to everything. Of course, I had to do more driving to get to many of the activities we liked. Now, it is an area that is older, and some parts are very run down.
You should take a bit of time to explore and look at a map. There are many nice nice areas, and many areas that are far far from everything!
If you look at www.nevadahomeschoolnetwork.com click on SUPPORT GROUPS , then Clark County it shows list of support groups.
There are support groups for various sides of town, various philosophies of education, various religious affiliations, etc. Some support groups have a church home, or other “base” which allows them to have monthly parent meetings, some are more informal and based online with YahooGroups.
For example: Eagles is a Christian group on the NW side of town, a ministry of Canyon Ridge Christian Church. It offers a yearbook, graduation, monthly parents meetings, field trips, Teen co-op classes, and a variety of other events.
NWLVHsers is an inclusive group and is member run. Most of our ongoing park days and events like that are hosted in the NW, but we also offer field trips out of our region! There is no hierarchy, if your child wants to take a class on fencing, u find a fencing instructor, get a group rate and offer it to the group, etc.
In addition to Support Groups, many Community Centers/Rec Centers in town have homeschool classes, there are educational programs at Lake Mead and Red Rock Canyon, community college which offers non credit courses such as Freaky Fractions etc, all sorts of resources!
We have over 3000 registered homeschoolers in Las Vegas. There are a few teacher supply stores in town, Learning is Fun and Lakeshore Learning. While they don’t offer homeschool discounts, many others places do! Barnes and Noble, Borders, Michaels, Joann’s, etc etc
Hope this helps...if you have any more specific questions, please don’t hesitate to ask them!
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