Explore Dream Discover. Adventures in Homeschooling

  First Day of School This was the summer that never ended. Super fun, but it kept going and going. I decided to start At Your Pace Academy when Lucille’s Pace started, on September 5th, the day after Labor Day. Luckily, we had our cousins visiting when Chesterfield County Schools started back, otherwise, I think I would have been sad.  The first day of school was a day of competing needs. We had Lucille’s first day of school at a new school with a new routine and a special opening ceremony. This was especially important as it was the inaugural class and they made it extra special. It also happened to be her birthday so we had to throw in all our typical birthday traditions. Then it also was Hendryx’s first day at At Your Pace Academy and my first day as a principal/teacher/classmate. There was a lot to remember.  But I think we did a good job: Birthday lights and decorations - ✔️ Birthday donut with candles - ✔️ Morning birthday present - ✔️ First-day photos - ✔️ Pace In...

In the late summer of 2023 I was interviewed by The Richmond Times Dispatch to tell our story as part of a larger story they were doing on Exceptional Education in Chesterfield County and Virginia. I was a bit nervous discussing it in public as I had already felt the repercussions of our contentious IEP meeting in our small community while I was out and about interacting with people from the school. I decided to share our experience so that way I might be able to help others who are still within the system. They released the article today. I know we had our own difficult experience and I have talked with other families, but I had no idea how bad it was in Chesterfield and throughout Virginia.  You can find it here: https://richmond.com/.../article_1971991c-4cd3-11ee-8fc4...

Once I sorted out the academic aspects of Hendryx’s Educational Plan, I moved on to planning the therapy, life, and social skills pieces. Therapy is something we are more than familiar with already having been actively doing various types since he was born. But once we decided to homeschool I came to the realization I would no longer have to cram all of his therapies before or after school every day. This is especially exhilarating, and may not seem like a big deal to a typical family, but for me, it is incredibly liberating: I no longer have to fight to get the right therapist, at the right time and day; we no longer have to eat breakfasts and dinners in the car to and from appointments; we no longer have to forgo playdates and afterschool activities that other kids get to participate in. For nine years life has been dominated by Hendryx's therapies. (And that is why I honestly breathed a sigh of relief during COVID when we couldn't do any of them.) Now we can weave them in se...

As I dove into the world of homeschooling I was surprised. I held the stereotype (that I am sure many of you have) that homeschooling is for religious fanatics who don't like government control. This very much exists, but it is only a small slice of all of the ways to homeschool: there are Traditional, Classical, Eclectic, Unschoolers, Socratic, Homestead, Roadschoolers, Montessori, Worldschoolers -a personal fave- and I am sure a bunch I haven't heard of yet. One realization I made quickly was like our family, many families had a neurodivergent child who also floundered in the public school system. Here I thought we were forging a new path by pulling Hendryx from public school only to discover that many other families had already changed course to better serve their child(ren).  This was both uplifting and upsetting. I am happy that we aren't alone in this process and hopefully will have a ready-made community that shares our challenges, but at the same time, I can't h...

Once we made the decision to pull the kids from school I got busy looking for private schools. Pretty quickly we discovered that there wasn't an adequate solution for a kiddo like Hendryx who walks the line between typical and neurodivergent with his primary need being support in how he learns. In fact he is usually a therapist/teachers's dream because with individual attention, he learns quickly. Still the search was not for naught. While looking for a school for Hendryx, I did stumble on to a school that I thought might be a great fit for Lucille.  The Pace Academy was a brand new school based on the Acton program founded in Austin, Texas. Its mission is to inspire each learner to find his or her unique calling. Education is learner driven based on socratic discussion and self-paced challenges that equip learners to be lifelong independent pendant thinkers. We felt like this methodology would compliment Lucille's learning style and allow for her to make mistakes in a safe...