After teaching high school in this county for three years, I refused to put my children in the dysfunctional public school mess. I had war with years with the county school board, superintendent, and truancy officer. We were pressured, visited, papered, lawed, and intimidated. Every bit of it was thrown back at them, and they finally went away. The school became more concerned with the state board's assessment of "pervasive fear and intimidation" in the school, loss of accreditation, a achool bus murder of a student by another in our neighborhood, and a neighbor student committing suicide by firearm in class.

This Memorial Day, we will be celebrating the return of our home schooled son from his second tour in Iraq with the 5-7 CAVALRY. We will also be celebrating his younger home schooled sister's completion of freshman year at college with honors, as well as his older home schooled sister's receiving her MBA with honors.

We would like to add to the boycott, but we have been boycotting Subway for years, after the local owner refused to turn down the religious music he blared over the booths while we tried to eat. His store, his music, his volume; like it or leave it. Subway franchisees put the real meaning of "sub" in Subway: lower than dirt.

There is currently a present-day movement in this country to discredit, and legally reject anyone who does not have a high school diploma unless you obtained it through the public school system.

The state of Tennessee recently enacted a state law that refuses to recognize a high school diploma unless it was awarded through public schools.

This should make Marx and Engels, Lenin and Stalin, and the present-day democrat party happy.

Subway - Eat fersh.

Devil's advocate comment: Maybe they think home schooled kids would have an unfair advantage.

While I know Subway isn't thinking this way, maybe subconsciously the marketing gurus realized the home-schooled kids would blow the others away. I know several home schooled kids, and they are sharp!

Well, all Subways aren't mean. One of our local's is run by a retired Coastie and uniformed services personnel get a discount. But the national franchiser is in for it having gotten Kim's attention.

Maybe because the prize is for $5000 worth of SCHOOL athletic equipment?

The co-sponsors is Scholastic magazine, maybe they insisted on regular school kids.

Sorry, but I am not boycotting, that's so KOS and DU.

By the way, I was homeschooled for one year and tried it for one of my children.

Where are people getting the idea that I support boycotting Subway? The word boycott doesn't appear anywhere in my post.

Knowing the price of athletic equipment, $5k ain't gonna go far, and would be a healthy contribution to a home school, its just that it would benefit only one rather than a bunch of kids. It would have been easy to make the prize more appropriate, if they thought that was a problem.

No outs for Subway, and adverse publicity is far more effective than boycotts. Which is what I grasp as Kim's point in the main post here. And as the individual franchise owners DON'T have a lot of control in what is passed down from above, much more appropriate.

I don't eat Subway anyway because I don't like their bread. It reminds me of a large hot dog bun and submarine sandwiches need to be on good french bread - crusty on the outside and soft on the inside...

This will keep me away from their stores.

BTW, it appears the highlighted errors in grammar/spelling have been corrected (including ones noted on other blogs), so they are paying a little attention to this. If the buzz keeps up, expect more reaction after folks get back to the main office on Tuesday!

can we say "Mmm Mmm Toasty!"

It's a bit ironic, that their main spokesman, is an individual who lost weight, but didn't do it through a formal weight loss program, such as Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig.

Home schooled weight loss, anyone?

My kids are homeschooled through a Christian Cooperative Homeschool Program. They're in a classroom with 9 other students two days a week. The other three days they have assignments to be turned in for grades. I get to pick and chose from a 'menu' of classes kind of like chosing college courses.

It's a pretty good arrangement for all involved.

The State of TN will now refuse applicants for state jobs who have homeschool diplomas, however, it doesn't say if they will refuse applicant who have a college degree in addition to the home school diploma. It also doesn't say if it will refuse applicants with home school diplomas from other states who apply for state jobs.

Some contests offer prizes for a school such as a computer lab or library books, however this doesn't appear to be the case with this Subway contest, so excluding all school-aged children from being able to enter the contest makes no sense to me either.

Wizbang is having another Melanie Bowers moment.

It woodent be fare to hav home skools kids in the conntest.

We homeschool our four children. We benefit from a network of homeschooling families in our area. The state of Florida pretty much stays out of our way.

While I'm not the boycotting type, I will probably not frequent Subway any longer... many other options for lunch.

The spelling error is NOT fixed yet.

It sounds to me as if they're prejudiced against homeschooled children because they know they can kick the public school kids' arses.

Most homeschoolers that I know are smart enough to understand the spirit of this contest and would gladly give the equipment to a nearby public or private school or even a co-op where many children would benefit. I don't know how they expect some lone homeschool family to fit that much stuff in the yard even if they did want to keep it all to themselves.

I have very close friends who Homeschool their children who admit they made a conscious decision to homeschool. They chose to take their child out of public, private and parochial schools because those schools failed to meet their standards. Each admitted by doing so they sacrificed the "rewards" of those particular school systems. Systems who are already budgeted to death. For instance in my town they cut the school budget and our children have suffered for it. It really would be nice to get a $5000.00 boost to our school. Every little bit helps especially when a major company steps up to the plate and offers something special to children. Perhaps there was going to be a Teachers and Children's contest starting next month, where a home schooled child or teacher could appropriately be compensated.