Today was our open house to kick off National School Choice Week. Now, I was thrilled to have an open house and get people here to paint and tour Rowanwood, but I have to say, School Choice is a thing that is near and dear to my heart.
Back in the mid 80's I heard about homeschooling for the first time. My school years were not a happy time for me. I was a bright kid, teachers liked me and I WANTED to learn! Every year I would start school all excited to get new books and hope that this was the year we would really start learning the interesting stuff. Uh no. In addition, I was bullied and harassed. By 10th grade I had had enough. I signed myself out of school (Mother was furious) and never went back. I took a 2 year break, went to 3 months of GED classes and graduated at the same time as my high school class. ( With high scores I might add)
So as a young mom in the 80's I heard about home schooling. I had 2 kids in school at that time. I attended a few meetings of local home school associations and decided I could do it. The first battle was with the school district. It wasn't as easy then as it is now to get textbooks and supplies and it was expensive! I maintained that I lived in the district and paid taxes, so my kids were entitled to the books they would have used at school that year. They did not agree. Finally, to shut me up, they let me have access to the discarded book room.
The next year we moved to a different state that had it on the ballot to make homeschooling illegal. That was voted down but public opinion was pretty negative toward homeschooling. And I get it. Some people are just too lazy to send kids to school and some are hiding abuse. I get how the system can be abused. And I am ashamed to admit that a few times I threw my hands up and put my kids in public school. It never worked for us so I would start homeschooling again. By the time my youngest two were in school, a great thing called the internet had been invented and a tiny town in Colorado had started an online program for their students that sometimes had to miss school for bad weather and the program was so successful that they opened it up for enrollment to kids outside their district. Online public school. For my family it was the best of both worlds.
Today there are choices. Public school, charter school, private school, online public school, home school and the GED is still a thing! Half of my grandkids go to public schools and half are in online public school. And that's ok. Because for me it's all about having the choice to do what is right for your family.
So, I liked being able to get Rowanwood involved in kicking off this week. I don't know if our event will impact that many people, but maybe it will. Maybe a few more people know they have choices. That's pretty cool.
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