Ann Taylor Loft and Barnes and Noble extend their teachers’ discounts to homeschoolers, so I didn’t think I was being crazypants when I asked the clerk at Office Depot whether homeschoolers were eligible for their My Star Teacher program.
“It depends,” the clerk explained, “on what school you’re affiliated with.”
I thought I might have misheard her or maybe she misunderstood me.
“Oh no,” I said. “I was wondering about homeschoolers.”
“Right. What school are you affiliated with?” she asked.
“Well,” I said, not entirely sure what to say. “We aren’t. We homeschool.”
“Ugh,” she grimaced. “That’s so weird. What school will they graduate from?”
“That’s not how it works in this state,” I said. “Homeschools don’t operate under a school.”
“That just doesn’t make sense,” she said. “How can they …? I just don’t understand the homeschool system.”
“Clearly,” I thought.
I probably would’ve walked away from the whole transaction after such an odd and rude response, but I’d already paid. So I just said, “You know what? Nevermind,” and I picked up my binders and dry-erase markers and left.
I was still curious about the program when I got home, so I looked up Office Depot’s Terms and Conditions of the My Star Teacher program. It says that “Membership is open to Office Depot® customers who are teachers currently employed at the primary and secondary grade levels (pre-K and K through 12).” The “employed” phrasing would seem to preclude homeschoolers from eligibility.
And that’s just fine. I’ll probably be a Staples gal from now on anyway.
Edited 07/31/12 to add …
I put a link to this post on Twitter, and the Office Depot people responded with a confirmation that homeschoolers aren’t eligible for the program:
Unfortunately we currently can’t accommodate homes school teachers.They have to work for a public, private, or charter school k-12
— Office Depot (@officedepot)