Good for your niece for homeschooling - but I'm sorry she feels she has no alternative in Virginia.
One of the main reasons my husband and I moved out of Delaware to Virginia was because of the superior school district.
My husband and his sisters went to public school in Delaware. after seeing what his older sister went through with her 2 girls in those same schools he swore our daughter would not be subjected to Delaware public schools.
To: squirt-gun Good for your niece for homeschooling - but I'm sorry she feels she has no alternative in Virginia.
She took her children out of a private ( a religious school of some kind) because they refused to give credence to the possibility of evolution, among other things. They Live near Marshall (I have never been there but I understand from my niece that they are in the middle of no-where.)
At any rate public schooling was not an issue, apparently it was between home schooling and this school which she and her husband felt was too far out..