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I received a call this week from a concerned mother in our local school district. I listened as she described the issues her 10 year old son has been having in school. His struggles are all too familiar to our family and many more. He’s falling behind, he’s been bullied and he’s so discouraged and school is so overwhelming that he wants to quit. I wish I could say this is the first of these types of calls that I’ve received, but unfortunately it’s not. In the last two years alone I’ve received over a dozen of calls similar to this.
Without fail, every parent that calls me has one question: What are the educational choices available for my child? Much like our family, most of these parents simply cannot afford private schools or a tutor. The school their child must attend has been chosen by the district because of where they live, and is not determined by the needs or abilities the child has.
We had to make a very difficult decision two years ago. That decision was whether to keep my son in a school where he was slipping farther on daily basis or change schools. We didn’t even know where to start, or what choices we had. The more we searched, the more we realized how limited our choices really were. As I mentioned previously, finances kept us from choosing private schools, homeschooling seemed so overwhelming (even though I have dozens of friends who do it remarkably well), and there wasn’t a single charter school within 30 miles of our home. Was there anything else? (more…)