My Journey into Homeschooling

I heard about homeschooling when my daughters were 4 years old. I had always stayed home with them, so the thought of preschool was not what I was leaning towards, but I had another friend with twins who had her older daughter in a co-op style preschool and just raved about it. I checked it out and found out that because I would have twins in the program, I would be working every-other day of the 2 day a week preschool! That seemed like enough of a parent-involved program for me, so I enrolled my daughters. It ended up being a very nurturing experience, which had everything to do with the preschool teacher, who is still a friend of mine to this day. During my time at the preschool, I met mom who was a friend of another mom in the preschool. She was very creative and hosted a wonderful dress-up Valentine's Day party for all of our 4-yr-old girls. She was eclectic and different and had a heart of gold. She was the first homeschool mom I had ever met.

Kindergarten in our neighborhood was 1/2 day and we got afternoons, which was perfect for our laid back lifestyle. I decided to put my girls into different classes and they were each fortunate to get wonderful teachers. I was room-mom for one, but the doors to the two classrooms were connected, so I was very involved with both classes. Again, we had a nurturing, hands-on experience with no forced reading or pressure. Then, on the first day of the last week of kindergarten, the school had a bomb threat called in on it. I arrived in the afternoon, only to be turned away because of the bomb threat. It was shocking and frightening. I didn't want to send my daughters to school the next day, but there were so many fun things planned for the last week, that I did return the next day and asked the teachers if I could just stay at school the rest of the final week with my daughters. They were fine with that and said that there was lots to do to close up the school year, if I wanted to help, which I did. But the experience put a thorn in my heart about school.

I had been talking to another mom about homeschooling during the year and thought that it might be something that I would do for Junior High and High School, because the look of the kids attending at that age worried me, but I thought elementary school would be harmless. After learning about the "Jonesboro Massacre" in March of '98 and our own very real bomb threat, I was now completely disillusioned about school and very stressed about sending my dear daughters into this mess of institutionalized schooling in our country.

But I decided to hang in there for another year and in first grade, my daughters were, again, in separate classes. One had a wonderful and experienced teacher, but the other got a new teacher that seemed very sweet, but was simultaneously planning her wedding while teaching her fist year. She was nice, but a little distracted. Luckily, my daughter who was in her class was a very independent worker, so she fared well. That was my first experience with a teacher that I was less than happy with, but I wasn't so unhappy or worried that I felt

that I should pull her out. I thought that we'll just get through this year. Then, in April 1999,

the Columbine School Tragedy occurred in Colorado. The town seemed so much like the one I live in. It just felt too close. And I still had memories of our previous year's bomb threat and how helpless I felt with that. My husband was out of town when it occurred and I was on the phone with him, in tears, telling him that I didn't want to send our girls to school the next day. It frightened me to my core, that something like that was possible.

The summer after first grade I attended a local curriculum faire and purchased some used curriculum to 'play' with over the summer. I also purchased a book called "Homeschooling: A Patchwork of Days: Share a Day With 30 Homeschooling Families" and read to my daughters chapters out of that book. It described a day in the life of several different homeschooling families. We had also got to know three homeschooling families. The one I met when my daughters were in pre-school; another girl from Girl Scouts; and another girl whom my daughters were in gymnastics with (who also attended our church). As the school year approached I was feeling confident about homeschooling, but my husband, who is slow to make changes, wanted to try one more year in school. I considered this decision to homeschool a family choice and without his support to give it a try at this point, I went along with his idea to put the girls in for one more year.

Our second grade school year began with another bomb threat on the second day. I was not there for this one, but you can be sure that I was at school the next day talking to the vice-principal. I wanted to know what was the procedure for this type of incident and how this particular incident was handled. After school, I went to the sheriff's department to find out what their procedures were for a bomb threat on a school. None of the answers I received were encouraging.

My daughters attended school on that day, while I stayed on campus discussing the situation with school officials and other parents. The other parents were upset, but just shrugged about what they could do about it. I, on the other hand, was prepared to take my girls out of this school. I decided to find out about inter-district transfers, homeschooling through the local school district, homeschool charters that were available in our area, as well as private independent study programs (ISP) which allowed you to homeschool. While I was investigating our options and waiting to see if my inter-district transfer would go through, my daughters went on independent study from their current school. We basically began homeschooling through our school. In the end, we were offered an inter-district transfer. So, wanting to include my daughters in this decision, I ask them separately, (explaining that their decision wasn't going to be the final decision, but we wanted to know what they thought) if they would want to attend the transfer school or homeschool. One didn't mind which way we went, the other wanted to homeschool. At this point, my husband was allowing my decision to reign. He hadn't investigated the practice of homeschooling enough to be confident about it, but he could tell that I was not going to send our daughters back into that school.

So, our homeschooling journey began on the second week of second grade. I pulled them out and, after interviewing with representatives from several of our options, went with a local charter school. We were blessed with a wonderful ES (Education Specialist, as the charter refers to the teacher that we were to meet with every 20 school days.) She was our ES throughout our charter experience. We followed her through three different charters during our time homeschooling. We left the charter after ninth grade and joined a private ISP. (More about that decision later.) I know that some don't consider belonging to a charter true homeschooling, but it was our path and it worked for us.

~Debbie in So. Cal.