Marilyn Boyers of Rustburg taught her children to hide under the bed when someone came to the door. She was teaching her children at home at the time --1983 -- and was afraid of being discovered.

The year before, state courts had refused to allow Boyers and her husband, Rick, to home-school and she had to use a small room at a nearby Christian school for what many Americans now consider a basic right: teaching their children.

In 1984, the Virginia legislature passed a law allowing home schooling as an education option. Until then, it was illegal and the few who dared say they were subject to persecution.

Today, nearly 27,000 children in the state are taught at home, and the number is growing 10 percent to 15 percent a year, said Jim Bentley, executive director of the Home Educators Association of Virginia.

Nearly 10,000 participants -- the largest gathering to date -- are visiting HEAV's convention at the Greater Richmond Convention Center. The three-day event, open to paid-registration only, ends tonight.

"It grew one family at a time, one court case at a time," Cris Loop, a home educator from Northern Virginia, said yesterday.

"I believe in my heart that God is behind the home-school movement," said Boyers, a mother of 14. "God used this to make my kids passionate about freedom." Her oldest son, Rick, is in law school and plans to become a constitutional lawyer.

HEAV President Anne Miller said, "I think people in the United States do not realized the freedom and liberties we have. "

The home-school movement, once considered suspect, steadily is becoming mainstream. Its proponents point out success home-schooled children have had on standardized tests and in high-profile competitions such as the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Once relegated to using teaching materials from private schools, home schooling has spawned countless cottage industries that sell everything from textbooks to T-shirts. Nearly 200 vendors (including the Boyers family, selling books and recordings) are on hand at the convention.

Home-school musicians performed throughout the day yesterday at locations in the convention center. Families hauled wheeled suitcases and carts loaded with instructional materials and navigated strollers through the masses. Many families also stocked up on supplies at the used curriculum sale.

Joshua Childress and wife, Wendy, came from Virginia Beach and were looking for materials for son Caleb, 5, who'll be starting school soon. "We're buying a year's worth of kindergarten curriculum," he said.

The event features numerous workshops on topics ranging from budgeting to filmmaking to teaching abstinence-based sex education.

HEAV is the largest home-school organization in the state, Bentley said. "We are biblical in our view, but we certainly work with other organizations that are more secular," such as the Organization of Virginia Homeschoolers. Advocates often come together to support legislation, he said.

Yvonne Bunn, HEAV's director of home-school support, said she also has a healthy working relationship with school superintendents and works closely with Virginia's Department of Education and legislators.

A recent California ruling declared home schooling illegal unless the parent had a teaching degree. The thought that they might lose the right to educate their children sent shock waves across home-schoolers throughout the nation.

"California was a wake-up call," said Miller, who educated eight children at home. HEAV plans to continue to work with Virginia legislators and examine thousands of bills that may affect home education, she said.

"We don't want people to take these freedoms for granted."
Contact Lisa Crutchfield at (804) 649-6362 or lcrutchfield@timesdispatch.com.