Education

In a week or two, tens of thousands of school children all across the Greater Baton Rouge area will hop on yellow school buses while carrying new backpacks filled with freshly sharpened pencils and unused notebooks. I have two school-aged children, but they will not be among those fresh faces waiting to meet their new teachers. No, my children are not going back to school in the traditional sense. We homeschool. Some homeschoolers strictly follow the public school’s calendar and live by a curriculum. Others completely do their own thing, schooling on evenings and weekends and ignoring the official start and end of the school year with little to no formal curriculum. We tend to fall somewhere in the middle...

It's no secret that the Baton Rouge school system is...well....complicated. Parents of "typical" kids often struggle with the decision about whether to send their kids to public, private, magnet, charter, or home school. When your kid has special needs, there is a whole other layer of complexity added to this already complex space. And if you are anything like me, you sometimes doubt whether or not you know what the actual "right" decision is. This year since the kiddo is turning 4, our big "are we making the best decision?" dilemma has been preschool. I have a saying about our lives raising a special needs kid and maybe all parents feel this way: I feel like our lives are like an...

I can't really say it's "Back to School" for us, since this will be my two-year-old's first time in any kind of school program come August. She will begin a Mother's Day Out program, half-days, 2 or 3 times per week. It's more like, "To School." To...what I hope is a wonderful new experience not only for her, but for our whole family. To...a chance for her to be in a new environment and learn a little bit about the world outside our home. To…yes, a little time for mama to get some things done sans little one for a few hours. To...what I am almost utterly and completely dreading. My daughter is a very social, friendly child. She rarely meets a...

I homeschool my children and I never imagined that this would be my life, but I'm so glad that it is. I went to the same private school from Kindergarten to 12th grade, but it's not the same education as when I attended 20 years ago. The public school in our community is good; I mean, families move to this parish just to attend our schools. I know many of the elementary teachers personally and they are fantastic people who really love their job and their students. There are 2 more private schools within about 30 minutes of our house, but they have the same problems that my alma mater has. Here is the honest reason why I don’t send my children to...

My oldest daughter is graduating kindergarten. She has been homeschooled from day one. Our Co-Op had a lovely graduation ceremony in April. (No, we are not yet done with our schoolwork!) I apologetically invited our family to this event. I mean, kindergarten graduation? Come on! If anyone deserves a ceremony, it’s me! What are they really graduating from? Learning their letters and colors? When I sat back for a minute, I started thinking about what these young children had accomplished. Not only had my daughter mastered her colors and the alphabet, she is a budding reader and is quickly learning mathematics. Then, I started thinking about all she had accomplished in her short life: She has graduated from breastfeeding to whole milk. From...