Nesha Havili and her son Liam at the photo booth during a homeschool back-to-school event at Camp Humphreys, South Korea, Aug. 9, 2025. (Trevares Johnson/Stars and Stripes)
CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea — With a new school year only days away, about 30 homeschooled children took over a corner of the massive Collier Community Fitness Center here recently for their own back-to-school event.
They wielded water toys, stood still for face painting and drew in chalk while their parents chatted and dined on a potluck lunch at the Aug. 9 get-together.
“I feel like homeschoolers and their families and the work that the kids do and the moms do, they deserve to be celebrated just as much as public-school kids,” said Serena Hanlon, a homeschooling mother of three.
Hanlon said she organized the event for the Camp Humphreys Christian Homeschool Co-op, which sponsored the event for all homeschool families at Humphreys.
Homeschooling is a well-established practice in the U.S. military, even though the Defense Department schools for military families were rated higher than average last year on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
About 12% of U.S. military families homeschool their children, twice the 6% rate among the U.S. civilian population, according to a 2023-2024 study by the Johns Hopkins University School of Education.
Why military families choose to homeschool their children is not well understood, according to the Johns Hopkins survey, but parents at the Humphreys event voiced a few reasons of their own.
“The main reason I homeschool is just for more time with the kids,” said Nesha Havili at the event. Havili homeschools her four children.
Neither she nor Hanlon are members of the Christian Homeschool Co-op, they said.
The opportunity to maintain their own academic records is a plus for military families that change duty stations frequently, along with setting their own schedules, spending more time with their children and, for some, including religious instruction in their curriculum, according to Hanlon.
In May, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a review across all services of the support provided by the DOD to homeschooling families, “as well as best practices, including the feasibility of providing facilities or access to other resources for those students,” according to the order.
“Homeschooling offers an individualized approach for students and highlights the significant role parents play in the educational process,” the order states.
Hegseth’s order did not set a deadline for the review.
Hanlon also runs several Facebook groups in support of homeschooling families, including Wild and Blooming Camp Humphreys Co-Op, which meets biweekly for nature lessons outside Humphreys and other events, and Where the Wild Readers Are, a children’s book club.
Hanlon said she and her husband, Capt. Hunter Hanlon of the 2nd Infantry Division, once they return to the U.S. would like to organize a group to advocate for homeschooling military families.
“I want to make it bigger than what it is, and just more official and follow what stateside guidelines are,” she said. “I love doing this so much and it’s giving me practice for when I want to do something bigger”
