Have you ever been confused whether you should call our school AP Homeschoolers or PA Homeschoolers? Well, look no further! The board is planning to settle on one name in the upcoming months. In honor of this, let’s take a look back at the origin of both names, and the pros and cons of each name.
As Maya Inspektor writes,
The basic history of the debate over the name is that the business started out as Pennsylvania Homeschoolers many years ago-- my parents (Howard and Susan Richman) were homeschooling leaders in Pennsylvania dating back to the 1980s, and they started a homeschooling newsletter called Pennsylvania Homeschoolers that used to have around 2000 subscribers back in the days before the Internet. When they started teaching online AP courses in the 1990s, their business was still called Pennsylvania Homeschoolers and was at the domain name www.pahomeschoolers.com. Some time later, they purchased the domain www.aphomeschoolers.com and started calling themselves AP Homeschoolers as well, and since then the business has essentially gone by both names.
Some of the benefits of each name:
AP Homeschoolers
Doesn’t imply that we serve students only in Pennsylvania
Implies that most of our classes (and the most popular one) are AP classes, which imply rigour
Great for search results
PA Homeschoolers
Doesn’t imply that we serve only AP classes
Business’s historical name
Pennsylvania has some of strictest homeschool laws in the US, so it could imply that the classes had to pass some kind of high standard
What name do you associate our school with: AP Homeschoolers or PA Homeschoolers? Which do you think would draw the most new students in? We’d love to hear your thoughts in our name survey.
Gaia Daniel is a sophomore from Minneapolis, MN, taking AP Lit with Mrs. Inspektor, AP US Gov with Mr. Munson, and AP Macro with Mr. Burns. Outside school, Gaia is a prizewinner of national and international piano competitions, most notably recently being named a ‘25-'26 NPR From The Top Fellow.