At some point or another, a lot of homeschooling families find that they will need to turn to the traditional school system. Whether there is a major life change like a move, divorce, job change, or medical issue, sometimes families find they need to turn to public school. Sometimes they also just decide that a traditional school setting is a better fit for their family due simply to the needs of the learner or the demands of the family as a whole, and quite obviously, that is a perfectly valid choice that should be celebrated. And similarly, I think it goes without saying at this point that sometimes circumstances can push families who had been accustomed to public school into homeschooling, as so many families did during and after the covid pandemic.
Oftentimes, however, these transitions can come with a certain amount of worry, as parent and child wonder what life on the other side of the fence, so to speak, can feel like. Some of the questions I’ve heard from friends in our local community looking at this decision from either side include:
- Will my child still read for fun if they are in a school setting?
- How will I get my work done if I’m homeschooling my children?
- Will there be enough time in their day for free play if they go to school?
- What about standardized testing? Will their lives be absorbed by testing in a school setting? Alternatively, will my homeschooled children know how to take a test when they need it for college admissions or beyond?
- How could I possibly create a routine at home that feels like it’s providing the structure my particular kid needs in order to thrive while still offering a cozy and relaxed environment and relationship?
- I heard horror stories of families trying to do school at home during the pandemic, and I don’t want to repeat that. So how on earth do I offer my children a social life as deep and vibrant as what they could get in a public school setting if they are learning at home?
- Will they still be able to earn a high school diploma if they stay home?
- Will I be able to keep a homeschooled learner on track with their public school peers?
These are big questions, indeed.
I have found that being able to ask these sorts of big, sometimes scary questions of people who have been there before can offer a sense of calm wisdom that can help put the worries to bed. This is what having a community is all about: being able to bounce around big ideas, learn from the experiences of those who have walked our path before, and then share our own perspectives with others, as well.
So today, I’m going to share the first segment of a two part series on the transitions from school to home and back again that should help answer these and similar questions. The focus of today’s post will be to try to shed some light on what it is like to pull a child out of the public school system. Next week, we’ll look at what it’s like navigating the transition from homeschool to public school.
I don’t personally have experience transitioning between public school and life as a homeschooler, so I was fortunate enough to be able to chat with two friends with experience weathering this exact circumstance for this post. Crystal Bowron is a mother of three, two of whom were once in the public school system before she pulled them out, the third of whom has always been homeschooled. Kendra Andrus is a mother of six and has operated with a mix of homeschooling and public school, depending on the needs of each child.
Since our mainstream society doesn’t generally jump straight to homeschooling, it can be common for families to begin a child’s educational career with a traditional school model. Sometimes, that traditional model doesn’t end up working out for a family for whatever reason, so they start to wonder if they should homeschool. Maybe they have a neighbor who homeschools, or maybe they are just looking for alternatives and start to do research online. Whatever the motivation, at some point, they will probably end up asking themselves:
- What is it like to pull a child out of the public school system?
There are actually a lot of questions underlying that one in particular, so let’s get down to the nitty gritty and get perspective on two of the bigger questions that are at the heart of the matter.
- What are the legal complexities involved in pulling a child out of public school?
- Do I need an umbrella, or can I do this as an independent homeschooler?
Awesome. Now we’re getting somewhere.
The answers here appear to be, essentially, that it’s a pretty straightforward process, and either using an umbrella or being an independent homeschooler is perfectly fine.
As I discussed in my post about the three legal ways to homeschool, some families like having an umbrella because it can offer a sense of having a safety net. In Crystal’s case, that’s exactly what happened. She found some information about homeschooling online, reached out to The Farm for guidance and was connected with Jacki Willard, who helped to answer some of her questions. Since she enrolled with The Farm, she didn’t need to file any paperwork with her children’s school; the umbrella took care of it. When she pulled her kids out, she simply walked into the school, explained that they were enrolling with The Farm, packed up their things, and took them home.
On the other hand, Kendra has operated as an independent homeschooler, and any time she’s pulled a child out of school, she has simply walked into the office, filled out an “intent to homeschool” form, and then maintained her own records at home, which she submits to the district each year.
In each instance, the legal, nitty gritty paperwork is actually pretty simple.
Some of the other, more nebulous questions I mentioned earlier on were also explored through Crystal’s experience in pulling her children out of public school.
…being able to ask these sorts of big, sometimes scary questions of people who have been there before can offer a sense of calm wisdom that can help put the worries to bed…
As it was, both of her kids had already stayed home for preschool, as crystal ran an in-home daycare when they were little. She was working two jobs, the daycare during the day and then also a second job at night. When it was time for her older child to go to school, homeschooling just wasn’t even on her radar. Over time, she remembers being a bit sad that it was time for him to go to school, but she didn’t feel that she had the bandwidth to even consider doing anything else. At first, their family’s experience with public school was fine. There were no big issues, and in fact, her oldest was a very curious, outgoing, engaged learner who loved to read and was placed in the Encore program – the gifted and talented program – with MNPS.
But then, when her oldest was going into 5th grade, it was the first year where 5th graders were included in the middle school, and there was a huge age difference among the 5th and the 8th graders. This sudden transition from elementary school to middle school was not a good situation for her child. They lived in a somewhat disenfranchised part of town, the schools were struggling, and he was getting bullied a lot. There were a few reasons for this. He was in Encore, which meant they would pull him out of his regular class to go do fun things that the other kids didn’t get to do, so he was singled out in that way. Also, the teachers were stretched pretty thin, so they often ended up asking him to act as a tutor or teacher’s aid, which also singled him out and caused him to feel a bit as though he was essentially being punished. This all caused him a lot of anxiety and stress, and among his peers, it was causing significant social problems.
Crystal recounted that she watched with dismay as her child went from funny and happy and full of life, to withdrawn and worried. After being in that fifth grade classroom for a few months, he was just a completely different kid. She attended a parent teacher conference, and during the meeting, the teacher mentioned that she only had one issue and it was that her son was always reading in class after he was done with his tests. Thinking that, perhaps she was suggesting that her son was rushing through the content of the tests and therefore not doing well, Crystal asked what his grade was. The teacher responded that it was an A, and that he was doing well on his tests. She couldn’t articulate what the exact problem was – just that he was supposed to sit without anything else after a test was done and that having the book was problematic.
This was a bit of a final straw for Crystal, as the logic of that situation sounded completely unreasonable. So they ended up pulling both kids out after Thanksgiving break. This took some sacrificing as a family, as she took the opportunity of having a lull in daycare families and they decided ultimately not to restart the daycare so Crystal could focus on homeschooling her children. She and her husband ultimately made do, as they worked other jobs and figured out the financial piece as they began their homeschooling journey. Sometimes, as they would take on jobs, they would include their children’s education in each of them. But at the end of the day, Crystal felt like the financial struggle that this decision entailed was worth it all as she watched her child become more like himself again.
You might be wondering how the kids felt about this decision. Crystal shared with me that they felt great. They had never heard of homeschooling before, and they were suddenly all excited to learn about the idea of getting a curriculum together, having the opportunity to do more things as a family, and that Crystal would be their “teacher.” So she set up a little school at home, and – much like so many families discovered during the pandemic – it very quickly became evident that that model wasn’t going to work.
As she was struggling with some of the details, she ended up reading some articles about unschooling and found out that there could be ways to do some pretty unconventional things that could be adapted to their family. To be sure, some of what she found were personal experiences from adults who had been unschoolers who were very unhappy with the way things had gone for them. So she wanted to be sure to avoid the potential pitfalls, while acknowledging that there will inevitably be things that some people are more cut out for while other skills are just not necessarily their thing. While balancing this awareness, she realized that for her kids, most of the time, learning had to be something that they decided they wanted to opt into. None of it would stick if they didn’t have a built in, intrinsic desire to learn what they were studying.
…it has all worked out quite well.
Crystal now has an adult child who is working in his chosen field, and an 18 year old who is about to graduate with a diploma from The Farm before going off to college at Tennessee Technical University in the fall to pursue a degree in electrical engineering. Her second child buckled down and learned the math he would need for that sort of career choice, then took and passed the ACT and SAT with flying colors, and was accepted to his chosen school. Her third child is eleven years old and loves being homeschooled. As she looks back on their respective educational journeys, she feels an overwhelming sense that it has all worked out quite well.
I’ll share more of my conversation with Crystal in a few weeks as we dig deeper on what it’s like to be an unschooler, and I must say, it was a great and enlightening chat. Next week, I’ll share more of my conversation with Kendra as I explore part two of this series and discuss the transition from homeschooling to public school. Be sure to check back here for those upcoming posts, and as always, be sure to sign up for our newsletter and don’t hesitate to reach out for support through our contact page.
Happy Homeschooling!
diverse. inclusive. community.
Nashville Secular Homeschoolers 