My name is Heather and I’m going to homeschool this year for the first time. Homeschooling is something I’ve wanted to do since my children were old enough to go to school. When first two were school-aged, financial circumstances did not allow me to entertain idea at all. I was the primary wage-earner, my work hours were constantly changing, not to mention I had no idea how do homeschool, where to start, etc. We lived in a very rural area and I had only known one homeschooling family growing up and they were the “weird” kind. You know, the kind that always seem to be the ones in the news, bringing bad stereotypes down on all homeschoolers.

I have four children. Two girls ages 16 and 13. Two boys ages 10 and 6.
My oldest daughter, who turns 16 this month, will be in 11th grade next fall. She has requested she stay in public school. I have agreed for a few reasons. The first one being she is just suited for public school. She has the personality and adaptability to succeed in that environment. Thrive even. I don’t think it’s because of the “quality education” she’s getting but rather a product of who she is, what she wants to become, and her motivation to succeed in that aspect.

My youngest daughter, age 13, is actually the reason I am jumping in with both feet. She’s always been my free spirit, free thinker, thinker of all things outside the box. She’s just not learning in school anymore.

Wait, I take that back. She’s just not learning what she needs to be learning in school anymore. She’s learning plenty about teen pregnancy, cutting, being “emo”, bi and homosexuality, sex, drugs, gangs. And she’s only just finished 8th grade. She’s been bored in school for so long. She started kindergarten at age 4, two months before her 5th birthday. She was already reading, writing, knew all the usual Kindergarten stuff and was bored. She ended up spending most of her time using her scissors to cut her hair, her clothes, paper into itty bitty bits. It was a downward spiral from there. It did get better when they finally tested her for “giftedness” in the second grade. Going to ABC was her favorite part of the school week. But then we moved to another school when she was in 4th grade and they wouldn’t put her in gifted because she “wouldn’t do her homework”. The same homework that she could do with her eyes closed, she just got fed up jumping through their hoops of ineptitude and stopped doing her “homework”. That was when it really started to go downhill. I should have started homeschooling then. She stopped being interested in learning, stopped participating in school, only gave the bare minimum in everything she did. That’s how it continued until 7th grade. Then we had a bully (or three or four) issue.

Long story short the main points are these: My daughter was assaulted over the entire second half of 7th grade. At first, she would tell a teacher or go to the office to tell them one of these girls was threatening her or pushing her or smacking her as they walked by in the hallway or at lunch. But after telling a “responsible adult” several times and absolutely nothing being done about it, she gave up. I didn’t find out about the bully situation until she was actually beaten up in the middle of the hallway. And even then, they would not let her call home. Yes, you read that right. My child was assaulted in the school hallway and they would not let her call me to come pick her up. My child, the victim, sat in the office all day until it was time to go home. Needless to say, when I found out I was LIVID. Even after I found out & started having meetings with the principal and guidance counselor the bullying didn’t stop. I had to threaten civil action against the school and criminal action against the bullies before it became “tolerable” (they still called her names but didn’t touch her). Thankfully it was the end of the school year and we didn’t have to deal with them. I should have pulled her out then.

By 8th grade she had completely lost all faith in her teachers, her principals, and guidance counselor. I mean, what had they done to protect her? I’m sad to say, I think she started losing faith in me also. We struggled through the year. Her refusing to participate, do any school work beyond the BAREST minimum. She started having a serious issue with math. I met with her teacher, who point blank said she did not like my child. Yes. She did. We tried out their school homework plan. My daughter’s responsibility would be to put her assignments in her agenda (assignment notebook thing), have her teachers in each class sign it, bring her homework home, then return it back to school. The teachers’ responsibility was to sign her agenda and make sure she had the correct homework assignment listed. My responsibility was to make sure my daughter brought her homework home, completed it, sign the agenda stating such, and make sure she was ready for class the next day.

About a month into the program, the teachers stopped signing her agenda. They were gearing up for the “State Tests” (bow down). Apparently they didn’t have time to participate in their own damn program. They stopped signing it, stopped checking it, so of course my daughter ever looking for the easiest route stopped filling in the assigments. Which left me unable to make sure she was bringing homework home. The whole “program” fell apart because the teachers who implemented it were too busy to follow through with it. How can I get my 13yo to follow through when the “responsible adults” can’t be bothered to follow through?

Along the same time we started the homework program, we (the teachers & I) decided it would be beneficial for my daughter to stay after school two days a week for extra help in math & science. By the time the State Tests (bow down) were being prepped for, I find out that the Math teacher is letting my daughter just sit at her desk with her head down the entire time she stays after. Not giving her help, not seeking her out, nothing. Just let her “sleep”.
That was the end of the end. The lack of schooling combined with the “extracurricular” schooling in sex, cutting, etc. that she was learning sealed the deal. I started looking into homeschooling her. At first I was just going to homeschool her. But the more I got to thinking about it, the more I realized I didn’t want my younger two, my boys, going to that school either. They would both have to go to that school eventually if I left them in public school. After talking it over, we decided that it would be best to homeschool all three of the younger ones.

My daughter is not happy about the decision. She is afraid she will miss her friends (and truth be told, I wouldn’t mind if she missed a few of them forever….). She is afraid she’ll never leave the house. She’s afraid I can’t possibly teach her anything because I’m “not a teacher”. That is one of the things that saddens and angers me the most. Our children are taught that only the teachers can possibly teach them anything worthwhile. Anything we teach them is immediately tossed out when they get back into that classroom.

My 10yo son was having difficulty with 3-digit multiplication. He brought home some practice worksheets and we worked on them together. I showed him the way I was taught.

Old Math

He brought it back from school the next day in tears telling me I “taught him wrong” so the teacher marked them all wrong. Apparently they are teaching them “new math”. I don’t even understand it enough to give an example. But they take the numbers apart and multiply the ones, then the tens, then the hundreds place. Then add all those together. WHAT?! He understood it the way I taught him. He didn’t (still doesn’t) get it the way they are teaching it. So yeah, just one example of the teachers telling our kids that their parents don’t know squat.

My daughter is slowly coming around. She’s resigned to the fact that she is going to be homeschooled this year. She wants to go back to public school for the rest of high school. We’ve made a compromise. If she does well homeschooling, she can TRY PS for 10th grade. But if it starts to go back the way it was before, I will give the school their “two week notice” and pull her back out.

My boys are staying home for as long as it works for us.