FHE Policies

2023-2024

Parental Responsibility

It is parents’ responsibility to ensure adequate supervision of their own children at all times and assess the safety of activities. Participation is at your own risk. Parents (or designated guardian) must always be directly supervising their own children at FHE events except under specific circumstances (outlined below).

Participation Eligibility

Events appearing in our website are for our member families only. Some exceptions may apply for specific events where other homeschool groups are invited to participate with us.

Membership and the associated activities organized by FHE extends to parents and their homeschool-aged children as indicated on the registration form. Additional children may be added throughout the year if they begin homeschooling.

The majority of activities are intended for homeschooled students only. Occasionally, there will be events where whole families may participate regardless of schooling method. Often these events are during non-school hours. Examples of these types of events include: gym nights, potluck dinners, park dates.

Many events allow for younger children to tag along, but this is not guaranteed and the event description will typically indicate if an event is for a specific age range.

Nut-Free Environments/Allergies

We have a nut free policy at events. Parents are responsible to identify and monitor potential allergy risks at all events.

Events

There are 3 different types of events that could be offered from within our group.

1. Official FHE Sponsored Events

These events are typically larger scale events that are headed up by Executive members with the help of our general members. The events are entirely dependent on the available volunteers to help, the venue availability, timing etc. None of them are guaranteed for any year and we try to offer as many as possible. In past years these may have included:

Science, Geography or History Fairs
School Picture Day
Park Days
Christmas Craft Day
String Quartet Performances
Field House Activities
Track and Field Day
Year End Party

If you are interested in volunteering to help with any of these items, please let us know. Events with low volunteer numbers may or may not proceed.

Note: All of these events will follow our group policies and guidelines and will appear on the official FHE calendar.

2. Privately Planned Field Trips and Events (These are not official FHE events.)

Our members are encouraged to plan private smaller scale events that appeal to them and their family and offer up for other families to join them. Any of these events would not be FHE sponsored calendar events, so the organizer is free to plan them how they choose. For example, these events could be open to 1 other family or have 50 spots. The member organizer of the event would handle all signups and the collection of any fees and book anything under their own name. These events can be advertised by posting in the chat forum and private events section of the website. Once you post under the private events heading, your listing will be emailed to all members. Some examples of private field trips that have been organized in the past are:

Fire Station
Police Station
Apple Picking
King’s Landing
Museums
Maple Sugar Tours
Nature Walks
Co-op Get Togethers
Aquarium
Course you are offering

If someone has planned an event at a date and time that doesn’t work for your family or an event got filled quickly, we encourage you to plan another event at the same location at a different date and time.

Please do not have people sign up for your private event on our FHE member facebook page. We prefer you handle that through your own email, phone or other personal means. You are able to make a post to the facebook group saying something like this “Hey I created an event for King’s Landing. Check out the private events tab on the website for more info.”

Note: Since these would not be FHE sponsored events, we would hold no financial or physical liability for how these events were run. We cannot guarantee the appropriateness for your family. We always encourage our members to assess whether an event is a good fit for their family.

If you have any questions on how to advertise your event or about this process, please email Chantelle Anderson ([email protected]) or Heather Milbury ([email protected])

3. Casual Get Togethers (These are not official FHE events.)

Anytime you want to invite others to an informal casual get together the private facebook and/or the forum section of our website may be used. These are typically events where there are no sign ups needed. Since these would not be FHE sponsored events, we would hold no financial or physical liability for how these get together are run.

Examples of these kind of informal meet ups:

“Hey, I am going to the Nature Park tomorrow at 1pm, anyone want to join us?”
“Hey, we are thinking about going to King’s Landing next week, any one else wants to join us?"

Drop-Off Event Policies

Drop-off events are NOT permitted for children under the age of 12.

Clearly specified drop-off events for children 12 years of age and over (no exceptions) are permitted under the following conditions:

A minimum of two (2) unrelated parent volunteers are present. To become a parent volunteer, you must be approved by FHE Executive by completing volunteer screening.
Reasonable steps have been taken to restrict unsupervised access to the children. Where parent volunteers are responsible for children, no-one should have unsupervised access to a child. There should always be two (2) unrelated adults present.

3rd Party Events

Events being organized via another organization are permitted to be shared via email or facebook if the organization is clearly identified and if the other organization is collecting registration forms and payments. It must be clear that FHE is NOT organizing the event.

Insurance Certificates

For some FHE official events involving physical risk, the need for an insurance certificate through HSLDA may be required. The risk level and the potential need for insurance will be evaluated by the Executive before an event is advertised.

Sensitive Offers

Events that may be a sensitive offer or that do not comply with our Statement of Faith and Purpose will not be permitted or advertised through FHE. FHE Executive reserve the right to choose what will be endorsed by way of activities, events and/or content and withhold what could be deemed unsuitable by the majority of the membership. We understand that there are varying opinions on different topics and that there will not always be agreement. Please use discernment when selecting activities suitable for your children. On the rare occasion when something may be viewed as a sensitive offer, we ask you to graciously support the Executive’s decisions.

Event Attendance & Commitments

In many cases, non-refundable prepayment will be required for events. Only sign-up for events if you are serious about following through in order to avoid FHE being left to pay for a cancellation.

We often partner with other organizations to put on events. Carefully maintaining a positive reputation within our community is important to provide opportunities to our children in the future. In most cases, we need to confirm attendance in advance based on sign-ups. We want our partnering organizations to feel that their efforts on our behalf were appreciated. Please follow through with commitments.

Social Media Photographs

Pictures of children will not be featured on our website or public facebook page without parental permission. Pictures may be shared in our private facebook page and/or secure website, which is only viewable by our members. We ask that our members not share any photos of other children on their personal social media account without parental permission.

Invitations to the Media/Special Guests

Do not invite media, politicians or special guests to events or speak to the media on behalf of FHE.

Advertising

Within the secure section of our website we have a business directory, where you are able to submit your company information for approval. Other members may contact you if they are interested in your services/products.

The following educational items may be shared in our secure website/private facebook page as long as it doesn't become excessive:

Used books or vendors of books (like Usborne and Scholastics)
Other educational products that are typically of interest to home educators.

Note: The executive team reserves the right to deny any listing in the business directory that is deemed unsuitable for the majority of our members and/or that may not be respectful of our Statement of Faith.