Brand new with general home-ed questions? Please read.

[Meredith]

It's that time of year again, folks, the start of the school year is upon many folk in the US and elsewhere and panicky parents are coming out of the woodwork asking basic questions.

As daunting as it can seem when you're brand new, you'll have much better luck if you ask the right questions in the right places! 

If you have bare bones basic questions about homeschooling a good omnibus site is here:

http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/

Questions about anything specific to your area are better asked on local lists and groups. This is really important because local laws, procedures and loopholes vary a whole lot. That includes questions about evaluators, umbrella schools, charters, and learning plans. The site above will have links to a large number of homeschooling groups: national, international, and local. There are some local unschooling groups in the Groups section of RUN, and there are more listed here:

http://sandradodd.com/world

If you don't find an unschooling specific group, do a search for local homeschool groups - they often have the info you're looking for, especially if you're new. 

Since this is a network for radical unschooling families, it's not a good place to ask about other kinds of homeschooling - not even to ask for a critique of them. It's also not a good place to ask questions about curricula or teaching here other than "how do kids learn x without being taught?" If you're still in the process of figuring out what unschooling is, and how "radical unschooling" is different, you might like to read around these two sites:

http://joyfullyrejoycing.com/

http://sandradodd.com/unschooling

If you're scratching your head wondering "what's the difference between radical unschooling and unschooling" there's a handy page with definitions by a number of people here:

http://sandradodd.com/unschool/radical

Hope that's helpful. Welcome new unschoolers and remember

DON'T PANIC

Someone can lend you a towel if you need one.