Coverage of SHOC in Colorado Times Recorder

February 4, 2026

On January 29, 2026, the Colorado Times Recorder published Jamie O'Rourke's write-up of Secular Homeschoolers of Colorado, featuring comments from SHOC's Ari Armstrong.

The article begins, "In the public eye, homeschooling is closely linked to conservative Christianity. But a new group launched this month aims to raise awareness and build community for homeschoolers who aren’t religious."

To clarify, although the headline of the piece refers to "non-religious homeschoolers," religious as well as nonreligious parents can pursue a secular education for their children, meaning an education without a religious focus. Parents can opt for a secular education in the main while also sending their children to Protestant Sunday School, Catholic religious education, Hebrew school, Islamic school, Buddhist meditation, or the like.

Following are the complete comments that Ari sent to the publication, some but not all of which were quoted for the piece:

"I have long seen a need for a public face for secular homeschooling in Colorado. Although polling indicates that most families that homeschool do so partly for religious reasons (last year Pew reported that, nationally, 53% of homeschooling parents said they homeschool in part "to provide religious instruction"), many parents who homeschool seek a secular education for their children.

"So far in Colorado, the only organized, public-facing homeschooling group has been religious in nature, and I would say conservative evangelical. This creates a biased public perception, as much of the public, many policy makers, and many families considering homeschooling have the mistaken impression that homeschooling generally is religious in nature.

"In fact, various explicitly secular homeschool groups exist in Colorado, and plenty of learning materials popular among homeschoolers are explicitly secular in nature. One popular Facebook group for secular homeschoolers in Colorado has over 3,000 members (although some of those people probably are no longer active).

"Recently I was able to start SHOC because I saw the need for it, I had the time and skills to do it, and no one else seemed to want to do it. The joke I tell is that cats complain that organizing is like herding homeschoolers. That goes doubly for secular homeschoolers. Now, at least, there is a public-facing site that basically says, hello, we're here, we've been busy doing our own thing. In a few weeks we're having a meet-and-greet with legislators at the Capitol, so I'm looking forward to that."

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