A Nontraditional Approach

For most of the past 15 years, Nancy Robbins has run a night school. Not the back-to-college kind, though — the Robbins family’s homeschool has taken on an unusual look because of Nancy’s husband’s night-shift job. “We did school at night and field trips during the day … read more

Alesia Wilson had no plans of being a homeschool mom — “none whatsoever,” she emphasizes with a laugh. Her plan was to continue working as a corporate accountant and keep “juggling all the proverbial balls of marriage, motherhood and career outside the home. Meanwhile, her husband, David, believed in a … read more

A More Relaxed Approach

After 21 years of homeschooling, Melanie Thurman has learned to relax. It wasn’t always that way.

“When we started homeschooling,” the Palm Bay resident remembers, “we took our daughter out of public school. Like so many others, I then brought school home. I had the idea that … read more

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 1 Corinthians 9:24

I have longed for my children in their personal “contests” of life to run the race that is worthy … read more

When Michelle Dean watched her oldest child, Jacob, walk the aisle at the FPEA Statewide Graduation Ceremony in May 2011, it brought tears to her eyes. This makes perfect sense — after all, what mother wouldn’t cry watching her firstborn graduate from high school? But Michelle’s tears came not so … read more

When Barbie Towner first encountered homeschoolers when meeting her then-fiancée’s family in Alaska, she “felt sorry for all that the poor kids were missing out on by not going to school.” An elementary education major who taught preschool for four years, Barbie later found herself imagining the days when her … read more

A support group in the home

For Mary Arnold, the homeschool journey began in 1998 with, of all things, an infomercial. “I was working full time as a nurse supervisor,” the St. Petersburg resident and mother of four sons recalls, “and my oldest son was enrolled in a wonderful public … read more

Accidental Homeschooler

Ruthie Delk never planned on teaching at home. In fact, as a college student majoring in special education, she wrote a research paper about the perils of homeschooling. Today, she even calls herself an “accidental homeschooler.”

You could also call Ruthie an experimental homeschooler. Through trial and error, … read more

Making Time to Help

Talk about time management: Cheryl Bastian has turned juggling her various homeschooling roles into an art form.

First, there are the children; all seven of them, including a newborn, with two boys and five girls ranging in age up to 21. The oldest is a college … read more

Starting out with fear of the unknown, Sherri Seligson had a simple philosophy about homeschooling: “I figured I couldn’t ruin kindergarten.”

This spring, 16 years later, her youngest son graduates from high school, and she has also homeschooled her other three children, two boys and a girl. She took the … read more