In 1988, I started homeschooling my 2 daughters, then 5 and 8. My oldest, Adriyel, had been in private school through 3rd grade; my youngest, Irina, had gone to preschool primarily so we could find friends for her to play with. In those days when I told someone I was homeschooling, I usually got a blank look; most people had no clue what homeschooling was, that it was legal or why anyone would want to do it (I'd get bizarre questions like "how can you stand to be with your kids all day?"). And of course, there was that question that still surfaces: "What about socialization?" It wasn't til later that I had the easy answer to that ("I don't want my kids socialized the way they are in school").

At preschool, Irina had met Meghan Low, and her mom Ann and I had become friends. Ann also began homeschooling shortly after we did. After a couple of years, we were both frustrated by going it primarily alone, and all support groups we'd found or heard of were religiously based. Neither of us could have signed an article of faith nor were we otherwise a good fit for such groups.

During the school year of 1990-91, we sat in the waiting room of the Terpsichore dance studio when our girls were in classes and talked with some of the other parents about education, homeschooling and what we could do to find more support for ourselves with homeschooling, like field trips or classes during school hours perhaps or at least finding other homeschooled kids for our kids to play with during the school day. We figured there had to be others out there like us, homeschoolers looking for a support group without religious connections and content.

As that school year began to end, Ann and I realized that since such a group didn't seem to exist, we really ought to try to create one. We hemmed and hawed, neither of us sure we wanted to take on that commitment, but, of course, being a parent means you do things you never otherwise would have dreamed you'd do. So we bit the bullet and began to further our brainstorming.

Ann was a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church on Cliff Valley Road which was also the home of the preschool the girls had gone to. We'd initially thought we'd try to get meeting space there and wrote a letter to the church making that request. Of course, before we could write a letter, we had to sound official and have a name; we came up with the Atlanta Alternative Education Network (we didn't think it through enough to come up with something that would have had a really cool acronym - just AAEN, which is a little hard even to say - sorry (-: ). Since the church was incredibly booked forever, Ann offered her house as a place for an initial meeting and we put up notices in grocery stores and libraries. We didn't know if anyone would show up at her house or not, but we'd opened the door to possibility.

Ten families were represented at that first AAEN meeting in July 1991. Pam Roe, AAEN's first and long time treasurer and organizer of many of the early field trips, was there with her kids Richard, Katie and Emily, as was the late Jane Kelley with daughter Neil, who were members for many years (Jane was very active and later organized homeschool classes at the Lutheran church in Decatur, including networking a couple of years of all day classes with some Waldorf school parents). Maletia Blanchard became the first newsletter editor; she remained with the group for about a year (I cannot remember the name of her then teenage son who must now be 30 something!). I ended up president, inheriting the newsletter when Maletia moved on, and Ann ended up as vice president.

It was difficult to find some place to meet that was free and had minimal religious connection, so we instituted weekly playdays at one of the parks in the Ansley Park neighborhood (no bathroom )-: ) and had periodic meetings at members' homes. The last of those home meetings in those early days was at the Roe's and 60+ people showed up, overwhelming her home and yard and making us realize it was time to consider other options. We started having business meetings at playday and liked the idea that we were consolidating activities, doing away with the need for folks to come to a separate place at a separate time to do the necessary AAEN business, a practice we continue today.

Bit by bit, AAEN began to grow. We had members from as far away as Sharpsburg and Dallas, though primarily the members were in north Atlanta. People were thrilled to find a group that welcomed anyone, regardless of religious outlook, ethnicity, political views, etc., a group that allowed any member to participate in decision making. The highest paying membership we've had was about 140 families, but we've always had a loose membership setup that welcomed anyone to our events, playdays and meetings, so determining how many AAEN members there were was never exact. Until recently it was simply a newsletter subscription fee, not actually a membership fee; if you wanted a newsletter, you paid, but you could be considered a member even if you didn't get a newsletter.

We moved our playday to Chastain Park and had art classes (and access to a bathroom!) at the Chastain Art Center before playday, set up by then field trip coordinator Helen Noviello, and we occasionally had other classes taught by parents at the park. We have an impressive list of past field trips and other activities, thanks to many of our volunteers. We sang holiday carols at the Jerusalem House Christmas party for a number of years, arranged by one of our volunteers who'd lost her brother to AIDS; we were the only outsiders who showed up at the Jerusalem House, and we showed up with kids and were very welcomed and appreciated. We had many wonderful nature awareness weekends with 50+ members at Pepperland Farm Camp in western North Carolina. We had quarterly potlucks that we'd have a some park in different quadrants of town in consideration of our members from the far south, east or west of town.

AAEN was integrally involved in the founding of HEIR (Home Education Information Resource - www.heir.org). The first meeting of what would become HEIR was at my house with some AAEN members, a representative from GFE (Georgians for Freedom in Education, the original statewide group that lobbied for and won us our current laws) and representatives from Harvest Home Educators. We also helped GFE put on one of its last homeschool conferences (an amazing amount of work!).

We've had (and still have) very talented, committed and generous volunteers. An amazing aspect of AAEN is the very high percentage of volunteers from the member families. Most groups of any kind I know of do not come close to even half of our percentage, so I've pondered this over the years. I think it has something to do with the type of homeschoolers who want to join us, and the level of commitment they have for their families, their children and their community - and AAEN is a big part of their community. I think it has to do with the fact that AAEN is not hierarchal, that we welcome and value input from everyone. I think there's also a piece that comes from our intention that family comes first for our volunteers and if services are delayed - well, family comes first - and even so, services have rarely been delayed for long.

I cannot thank all these volunteers enough! It's amazing to see that idea that germinated with Ann and me waiting for our kids in dance class has led 14 years later to a continued dynamic community of far-flung homeschoolers who are committed to the process and each other. AAEN continues to function today only because of these wonderful volunteers and AAEN exists only because of all its members. Thank you all!