The new face of home-schooling

Jen Kocher
NLJ Correspondent
 
Hannah Gross joked about the looks she gets from strangers when they learn that she is home-schooled. It’s almost as if they’re surprised she has social skills and are not real sure what to think, she said. Friend and fellow home-schooled student KateLynn Slaamot agreed. 
“People are definitely curious,” she said, “because it’s so different.”
This, the girls think, is fueled largely by misguided perceptions that home-schooled kids are either freakishly religious or lack social skills, which is why their parents keep them home from school. Others wonder if they get to sit around in their pajamas watching TV and playing video games.
The truth, however, is that their day pretty much models that of their public-school peers as far as structure and curriculum. Both are fully dressed and began their days well before 8 a.m., diligently working through their assignments for the day. The difference is in the venue, which instead of a desk in a classroom filled with other teenagers, typically entails a computer at the kitchen table or in the living room alongside their siblings, with their mothers close at hand.
When KateLynn was small, her mother set up an actual classroom for her and her brother, Cole, now a senior, complete with whiteboard. Computers have changed the course of their curriculum, which is now mostly online. 
And though some kids might find it oppressive to study alongside their siblings, both Hannah and KateLynn said they love the arrangement and the opportunity to have their family close at hand. 
Now sophomores in high school, the two girls met years ago at Gateway Fellowship Church after their families relocated to Newcastle. Hannah’s younger brothers, 13-year-old Ramsey and 10-year-old Harrison, are also taught at home. KateLynn studies alongside her brother, Cole, a senior, who has a very different learning style. Unlike his sister, he tends to get distracted more easily, whereas KateLynn is more self-directed and organized, and where her day typically ends before 3 p.m., his often extends into the evening hours as he rushes to get his work done.
Catering to both children’s different learning styles has been a trick for KateLynn’s mother, Heidi, who has learned to adjust their curriculum to fit each child’s learning style.
That’s one of the major advantages of home-schooling, according to Heidi, and Hannah’s mom, Teresa, who enjoy being able to cull from various online curriculums to cater to both grade level and learning style.
The U.S. Supreme Court protects a parent’s fundamental right to direct the education of their children, and every state has its own requirements for curriculum. In Wyoming, home-based educational programs must be registered with the state and have to meet the basic requirements of that state’s academic program. Every year, parents are required to submit their curriculum to the Weston County School District #1 Board for approval, which has to include the required subjects of reading, writing, math, science, history and civics.  
Parents choose to home-school for various reasons. According to a 2016 report by the National Center for Education Statistics, the most common reason parents cite is concern about the school environment, such as safety, drugs or negative peer pressure. A secondary concern is dissatisfaction with formal academic instruction, followed narrowly by a desire to provide religious instruction.
In KateLynn’s and Hannah’s case, home-schooling is a better fit with their families’ faith-based values.
Their family doesn’t consider it a religion, according to KateLynn.
“We have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ,” she said. “It’s not just a set of rules and rituals, and our faith is really the first and most important reason my parents decided to home-school — to provide us with a solid home base and implement our core values in us from a young age to help us along, while also having a strong family life.” 
Both Heidi and Teresa want to be clear that their decision to teach their children at home has nothing to do with the school district per se or with the safety of the school environment.
In fact, quite the contrary, according to Teresa, who is very grateful to Weston County Superintendent Brad LaCroix, who has been incredibly open to allowing home-schooled students to also partake in classes and activities.
Not all school districts are so accommodating, said Heidi, who in the past found school districts to be pretty exclusive when it comes to home-schooled kids. LaCroix is the exception. Not only does he invite local home-schooled kids to participate on sport’s teams (as long as they pay the customary $100 participation fee per sport), but he also welcomes their attendance in classes and other activities.
“He’s been absolutely amazing,” Teresa said. Parents who take their children out of school because they’re mad at the district are often home-schooling for all the wrong reasons, she said.
As far as she and Heidi are concerned, the choice to home-school is personal. And while their families and faith are a big part of their lives, the girls also actively participate socially with lots of other teens, both home-schooled and other, and both participate in sports, classes and other activities. 
Neither girl feels that she is missing out on the social life of everyday teenagers, which both say they get a good dose of through their activities and classes at Newcastle High School.
Hannah, a state-champion swimmer, is on the high school swim team and takes Spanish, while KateLynn sings in the school choir.
They don’t feel discriminated against or treated any differently by their teachers or peers, they said, and instead are pretty content with the arrangement.
There’s a lot of drama at school, Hannah pointed out, and both she and KateLynn find it easier to talk to adults than they do kids their own age. Unlike other teens, neither cares much for social media or keeping up with trends online. Instead, they talk about politics and their recent experience attending the Wyoming Legislature with fellow home-schooled students through a faith-based program, where they met with the governor and other legislators. As part of the activities, the girls ran for office, introduced bills and took part in a mock government session.
Hannah and KateLynn also intern at the News Letter Journal as cub journalists, a job they applied for after writing a passionate letter to the editor in defense of Creation, which they believe is misconstrued in secular conversation.
Katelynn laughed.
“We put a lot of time into that letter,” she said. 
The two families spend a lot of time together, and they’ve also connected with other home-schooled students in Weston County, which combined is enough to fill a classroom. About 30 other families home-school their children, according to Teresa, and the groups frequently get together
for school and social activities and field trips. They have even talked about putting together a prom. Unlike other districts, in Weston County home-schooled kids are welcome to attend school functions, such as dances and proms, though Hannah and KateLynn haven’t shown much of an interest to attend.
The internet, too, has widely changed the face of traditional home-schooling, allowing various groups to connect outside of the county and state to provide both social and academic activities and groups. The girls are currently hoping to put together a debate club, among other ideas. Also, the internet has made the logistics of online learning more readily available, thanks to YouTube videos and other accessible academic materials. Now, home-schooled families are also able to purchase a large variety of academic materials online and can mix and match curriculum. Both parents also rely heavily on the local library for books and other online resources.
Statistically speaking, there’s a strong case to be made for home-schooling. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, between 1999 and 2012, the number of home-schooled students nearly doubled from 1.7 percent to 3.4 percent. In recent years, that figure has leveled off, according to newly released data by the center, which reported that about 1.7 million, or 3.3 percent, of K-12 students in the country are currently being home-schooled.    
Home-schooled students, too, appear to fare better than their peers when it comes to higher education. According to a 2010 National Homeschool Educational Research Institute report, home-schooled students graduated college at a higher rate than their peers — 66.7 percent compared with 57.5 percent — while earning higher grade-point averages.  
The disadvantages, according to Heidi and Teresa, are the prohibitive costs of schooling their children at home. Unlike others who pay taxes to support education, there’s no government reimbursement and all learning materials come out of pocket.
Also, it often requires one of the spouses to surrender a career and income, as Teresa and Heidi have done. Both women recall lean years of getting by on a single salary. Before making the decision to stay at home, Teresa and Heidi were career women with ambitious goals. Teresa started out in media advertising, and before having children thought she would have a full-time career. Heidi, who is trained as a nurse, reduced her hours to part time to keep her certification while providing a small stipend to the family’s finances. 
Although both women gave up their ambitions up to be at home with their children, they said they have no regrets and are grateful for the opportunity to be a part of their children’s development and education.
Both said they love that the family more or less gets to learn together, which puts the family at the center of learning, where often dinner conversation becomes an extension of the classroom, as do the board games they play as a family. Another advantage, they said, is being able to control the school year and breaks. For example, Hannah and KateLynn typically wind up the school year a month earlier than their school peers because they can put in extra time in the winter, when there isn’t much going on. 
The one drawback is that home-schooled GPAs aren’t considered valid when it comes to applying for scholarships or college, and instead home-schooled kids are accepted based on their college entrance exam scores. Also, because they don’t receive a traditional high school diploma, not all schools acknowledge their admittance. 
For the girls, both Hannah and KateLynn aren’t too concerned about the potential pitfalls, and instead consider their home education to be an asset as they talk about college and their plans for the future. Already, at their ages, they’re testing above their grade level and are grateful for the time with their family that a lot of kids don’t get.