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Help! Moving to New York from Brazil
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I hope that someone can help me! We are a South African family, currently living in Brazil and we will be relocating to New York in November this year. My husband will be working in Manhattan but we will likely live somewhere in the Westchester area, although this is not confirmed yet. We will consider New Jersey or Connecticut, depending on taxes and commute times. I am homeschooling my ds7 (will be 8 in November) and my dd4 is tagging along.
Questions!
Looking for some Christian homeschool groups in the White Plains/Westchester area.
Also, recommendations on Bible teaching churches would be much appreciated, if anyone has any.
And, the homeschooling laws….I’ve browsed some websites and have friends who’ve told me NY State is tightly regulated as far as HS laws go. We have just started Module 2 history and so were not planning to get to American History until it comes up in the later modules, a few years from now. But, I understand that I will have to teach American History according to the laws. Any comments or advice will be much appreciated on this. Also, some have said that since we are not American Citizens, we won’t have to register/comply with the HS laws, while others have said we will because we will have temporary residency there, and possibly in the future, we do plan on staying in the U.S to put down some roots (God willing!). So, if I have to register and comply, that’s ok, it’s just that I’ve never had to do this before
Looking forward to hearing from you ladies!
Hello Nolene, what an exciting time for your family! You can find out information on home education laws here: http://www.hslda.org/laws/. It looks like Connecticut and New Jersey are much easier places to home educate than New York. Personally, I would try to stick to a location that is home ed friendly.
If it helps New Jersey is one of the LEAST regulated states for homeschoolers – in the ENTIRE country. When we lived there, there were NO requirements to report to the state, nor any hourly requirements – just broad subject requirements if I remember correctly. If you have a choice, I’d live in New Jersey for that reason alone. The property taxes are high, but I’m guessing they’ll be high in NY as well. The car taxes in NJ are VERY low, but there are tolls to make up for it. I’ve got lots of good friends in the Monmouth County area that I can put you in contact with – about an hour commute from the city – depending on where in NYC your hubby will work. There’s also a very large Brazilian population in Long Branch, in case you want to continue to imerse yourself in that culture.
If at all possible, I’d stay out of New York for homeschooling. Whenever I read a nightmare story about home educators – it’s generally based in New York. But if God calls you to live there, don’t fear! That’s what the HSLDA is for!
Blessings,
Rebekah
I live in CT and so far no one has ever asked me to report anything as far as homeschooling.
The taxes in CT vary greatly from one town to the next, when you go close to NY it is pretty expensive.
There are a lot of homeschooling families and different groups in CT.
For great Bible teaching churches, try church where Tim Keller is senior pastor http://www.redeemer.com/
http://www.hslda.org/laws/analysis/Connecticut.pdf – Here’s the link for Connecticut requirements – they are pretty lax, but you DO have to file a notice of intent.
http://www.hslda.org/laws/analysis/New_Jersey.pdf – Here’s the link for NJ – no notice of intent required.
http://www.hslda.org/laws/analysis/New_York.pdf And New York – which are seriously specific as to what to teach and how to report to the state.
Thank-you everyone, for your advice and help! I am so glad I was able to get on to the HSLDA website from your links, because for a while now, I could not access the website from here.
I hear what you say about the stringent laws in NY, but I wish we could make our where-to-live decision on homeschool laws alone! We have to factor in commute times for my husband, and we feel that 1 hour one-way is too much. Also, we’ve been told that if we live in a different state to where my husband works, we will have to pay double tax, which, apparently can be claimed back, but you don’t get all of it.
Connecticut looks lovely, but again, we’d have to live closer to NY to make the commute times reasonable, and yes, it gets expensive, from what we’ve seen on the internet.
I think the best thing is to wait until we get there so we can actually drive around and see for ourselves, as well as learn all the tax implications and test the commuting. In the meantime, when we get to NY in November, we will have to stay in temporary accommodation until we find a house.
We have given this over to the Lord, and are praying that He will guide us in all the decisions we have to make in the coming months!
Many thanks again
Renting first would probably be best, it’d even be better if you could visit and stay in hotels in the area you think you might want to live. An hour is a fairly reasonable commute for someone working in the city… it could even take an hour to commute from one part of the city to another depending on which trains you have to take. Do you know what part of Manhattan your dh will be working in? My husband went to law school downtown and lived and commuted to the city from various places within New York as well as New Jersey. I still have a number of friends that commute to the city. If your husband is working downtown – you could live in New Jersey and he could have a 20 minute commute depending on how close you live to a train/Path station.
If you want to PM me more details, I’d be happy to put you in touch with a few friends that currently live in Hoboken and commute to the city. I’m sure your husband can also ask people at his new office what they do and why as well.
Thanks Rebekah, my husband will be working on 530 5th Ave, I think it’s mid-town? About a block away from Grand Central, so a bit longer to come in from the NJ side, we’ve been told. I’ve seen Hoboken on the map but didn’t consider it as it looked quite built up? I know I sound difficult, but we’ve been living in Sao Paulo, a city with 18mil people in it and would really like to get out into the suburbs and away from all this concrete
Thank-you so much for your offer to put me in touch with your friends, I really appreciate it and may just take you up on it as we get further into this process…..
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