From Homeschool, to Unschool, Personalized Educational Plans for 2e Students

Thursday, January 21, 2020, 7:00 to 8:30 p.m.

Is your 2e child struggling in school? Have you wondered if a different approach to schooling might be a better fit to support your child’s strengths and needs? Do you sometimes think about homeschooling or flexible schooling, but feel daunted by the prospect? Has distance learning given you fresh insight into what a more optimal educational environment might be for your child?

REEL is excited to host independent educational planner Teresa Nair, who will share her experiences helping families, in particular those with 2e and neurodivergent learners, explore non-traditional schooling pathways. As a homeschooling mom, special needs professional, and educator, Teresa’s goal is to empower and support families and students in their choice of personalized educational paths. With her vast experience and multidisciplinary background, Teresa currently consults on strengths-based and talent-focused educational planning for twice-exceptional students. Teresa has helped numerous parents navigate the range of non-traditional choices. She will provide an overview of options across all grade levels (from homeschooling via charter school to creating your own homeschool and more), talk about real-world students and their paths, address common homeschooling myths, and answer frequently asked questions. If you’ve ever asked “What might it look like to choose a completely different approach to educate my unique 2e learner?” then you will not want to miss this session!

Transcript:

A Conversation on Personalized Education

Wait, maybe she introduced me to it a year ago; it could have been. And it was great to see that this work is being done because sometimes, even when you're in the field as long as I am, you can feel like you're the only one. But you guys have done a fantastic job of connecting people, and I'm so excited and so honored to be here tonight. As Kelly said, this is just the beginning of this conversation. You'll see from the information that I present tonight that there is a lot that goes in so many directions.

You could probably get a graduate degree in 10 aspects of it or just spend your entire life as a parent searching after one aspect of it. So it's a community conversation that is living and breathing and changing for all of us, so I'll just kind of start that conversation tonight. Please feel free, wherever you're at in your personal journey, to jump in and ask questions about it when we have the time at the end because it is very personal. I've always said that special needs, but also raising a twice-exceptional child, is never a one-stop shop, and so I feel like I'm always shopping. Therefore, let's start shopping and looking for some opportunities.

I'm going to go ahead and share my screen, and you'll get all of the beauty here. Thumbs up, do you happen to see the first slide? Excellent, great. Okay, so this is a conversation that was titled "From Homeschool to Unschool: Personalized Educational Paths for 2E Students," and my name is Theresa Nair. I do want to focus tonight on the personalized educational path idea of this, and some of the aspects that we'll start to include do include homeschooling and unschooling.

The Starting Point: Recognizing Choices

Let's see, let's move forward here. Where does it all begin? I think it all begins when we start to realize that there are choices. Whether that came to you as a need or as a want, choices seem to lead a lot of us down this path of what we can do. So we're looking for choices. The other, oh gosh, it must have been back in April, I want to introduce a story about a family that kind of rang true to me. I saw this story on a Facebook group that I'm a part of, and I asked if I could share, and she said, "Sure."

I wanted to share because it's really close to me as far as it resonated. I looked at this, I saw this post, and she was talking about how it was April of 2020 and she was emptying out her son's backpack. As we all know, life changed dramatically in March of 2020, and a lot of our kids came home and were a little bit more under our noses than they used to be, and we were seeing a lot more. But she hadn't emptied the backpack, so she's emptying the backpack in April, and she sees this beautiful piece of art. Unfortunately, it really kind of struck her in the heart. I don't know if you can read it or not, but to me it looks like... I used to read a story to my kids by Dr. Seuss called "My Many Colored Days," and it looks like the teacher might have been going over that book with this young student.

Her son was in second grade at the time, and this piece of art says, "On yellow days, I feel bad and sad. Go away. I'm alone. I'm down as can be." And she sat with this for a few minutes and decided she needed to talk to her son and find out about this. She knew he wasn't happy at school, but she didn't really understand the extent, and this hit home. So she went to him and she said, "But how often did you feel this way at school? How often did you have yellow days?" And he said, "All the time, Mama. Every day was a yellow day at school."

And she said, "You know that's... I'm sorry to hear that. Now that things are a little different, we've kind of been working at home. Now we're kind of working on things you enjoy and doing a little bit more of a homeschooling approach. Well, how many yellow days are you having now?" And he said, "Only when I stubbed my toe." And I thought that was wonderful because some of us parents who've been in a place where we felt like we just couldn't save our kiddos from one bad day after another, she had found a solution where her kiddo was like, "Yeah, only when I stubbed my toe." And I was like, "Oh, you know, just having that lift off your chest and knowing that your kiddo's okay, except when they stub their toe, is good."

You know, so this story kind of brought to me this idea that for a long time we felt, when we were put in that place of how do I help my child at school when they're having these rough and tough consecutive days over again or we can't find the answers and it's just a struggle, we had two choices. Sometimes it felt like it was black and white, one or the other. How do we make our public school work? How do we make private school work? But tonight I want to talk to you guys a little bit about the reality and how we can kind of sweep that away and that the reality of it all kind of looks a little bit different. There are more colors on our palette than we might know of, and with all of those, you can create a masterpiece for your child or your child can create their own masterpiece. To whatever degree you choose to use that palette is up to you, but the choices are there.

About Me and My Journey

So let's give an overview a little bit more about what I'm going to talk about. So who am I and why am I here talking about this? Well, my name is Theresa Nair as we mentioned, and a couple years ago I had one of my colleagues introduce me to a new client. And I think this is a new client that I was going to start working with. They were down in Los Angeles and in the email to the client he referred to me as an "out-of-the-box educator." And that kind of made me chuckle because I've been in education off and on for about 20 years.

As Kelly mentioned, I started in high-tech, so I was working in Chicago for Fortune 500 companies, traveling the world, designing multimedia presentations. It was great, and I decided to volunteer in a middle school classroom teaching technology. I don't really know where that came from, but I did. I started volunteering in a middle school classroom and I realized that I loved it. I loved teaching, and I loved working with middle schoolers specifically. And so I went back to school and worked on my master's in the arts of teaching English degrees. I hit it hard and I had a wonderful opportunity for several years to work in public and private schools. I worked in one of the best private schools in the nation for several years, and it focused on gifted students, so I had a great view into these wonderful programs.

My husband and I then moved from the Midwest, the Chicago area, here to the Bay Area. He's in tech, I'm in tech, and we decided, "Okay, you know what, for myself, I thought maybe I'd give high-tech a chance here in the heart of part of the tech industry." So I went back and started working for companies like PayPal and eBay, and I did that knowingly, not that I was leaving education forever, but one of the things I feel that is important to bring to education and to the experience and the people that I work with, and especially the students that I work with, is the understanding of what they're working towards and what the real world is. Sometimes it breaks my heart if an educator is preparing a child for a real world but they've never been outside of education.

So I really embraced the idea of wanting to know what I am preparing my high school students for in this class that were, you know, here five days a week and however many hours. What am I preparing my middle school students for? And so I got a chance to work for some high-tech companies here in the Bay Area, and it was a reality check. It was another aspect of what the world is expecting from people and what the what industry is and things like that. And so then I went back into education and I worked here locally at a couple wonderful private schools.

During that time, I became a mother and I am a wife, and so you'll see that a lot of this pathway for myself was non-traditional too. But we'll see kind of how that fits in. As I was going through that, in the last seven or eight years, I started to work with the homeschooling community. Now, I want to explain to everybody that this is an interesting time because I did not think I'd be having this conversation, but I think it's important to have this conversation.

Homeschooling vs. Crisis Schooling

In March of 2020, things got confused and I heard a lot of families saying, "Oh, homeschooling is horrible! Oh my gosh, I could never homeschool!" And my son and I had been homeschooling for two years at that time, and I thought, "Oh my goodness, this crisis schooling that all of us were thrown into, including myself, because my daughter was still at a traditional school, this crisis schooling that we were thrown into in March for children, for families, for teachers, for administration, it is not homeschooling." And it's very important, I believe, to make that differentiation so that we can have a clearer conversation.

So, like I said, my daughter was still in a traditional school, and so when she came home in March and was going to do her distance learning, we thought, "Oh, you know, my son and I, like, 'Hey, we got you know, Evie's home with us and and we'll all be homeschooling together.'" But it was hard, and I found myself actually spending more time with her than I did with my son, and I was running interference, and I was caught up. It was a time of crisis definitely, but I started to think about, "Why is it so difficult to help her in this school from home versus my son who I've been homeschooling for two years?" Was it just new?

And I started to realize that there is a fundamental difference. For those of you that are learning that your children are learning from home, you're doing what somebody else wants, when they want it, and how they want it, and it's brought into your living space. And that might work for some people. It might be helpful for some people to have somebody tell you what to do, when to do, and how to do it. "Thank you, that's great, I need that." For us, it didn't work.

I realized we were homeschoolers, and so the traditional homeschooling idea and foundation is, as a parent, you get to choose what you want to do, how you want to do it, and when you want to do it. So you could choose to do a public school distance learning program, but you know, understanding that when you talk about homeschooling, it's a lifestyle, they like to say, because it does, it changes so much of the experience because of where its foundation is.

So we're going to talk about kind of the spectrum in between that of distance learning from home and the possibilities there, but also this possibility of the lifestyle homeschooling, making all those choices, and what that could mean also.

Legal Pathways for Homeschooling in California

When we talk about homeschooling, we need to remind everybody that every state is different, and that's what's really interesting. There is actually no true homeschooling in California, as I used to think it was like, "You just... kid comes home and you start to educate." No, actually, there's a lot of organization that can help you along the way as homeschoolers, and so I wanted to mention first off, hsc.org is one of the resources that I'm going to talk about tonight. This is the Homeschool Association of California. It's volunteer-run, it's a wonderful organization. They actually have a Homeschooling 101 meeting in February. I think it's on the 10th, but they've got this quick start guide and they know what they're doing. They are really helpful. They have a support line you can call, and what they do is they can help you organize not only your resources but the idea of what it means to homeschool in California.

So there are three of the most popular ways to homeschool in California: is to apply for the PSA, which is the Private School Affidavit program, the PSP, which is the Private School Satellite Program, and then the third one that's popular is the Public Independent Study. Now, like I said, each one of these is different, but they're all supported by the state of California. This is how you legally homeschool in California: by following and going through one of these programs.

The first program, the PSA, is where you, as a family or as a mother, however you choose to do it, you make your home your institution. Your itty-bitty school is just you and your child or your children. That is the private school that you have formed, and you are the administrator and the director of that, and you will only be educating your children. And you file that with your state, and you tell the state that you're going to be keeping the records that you need to keep. There are information... there's information of, you know, folders and files and and forms you can do to fill those out if you'd like to, but the PSA is quite a popular option right now. And one of the things about that is that once again, it's the true homeschooling of the parent is in charge, and they can seek as much support and organization and help as they would like or not like. So this is freedom to choose. And let's say you follow this all the way through high school, your child would be graduating, and you would be giving them the diploma from the institution or the private school that you had created. And so keeping the records, creating the program, however you choose and whatever support you choose, is part of the PSA, and there's varying degrees of that.

The next one is more of a private satellite program (PSP). This is where somebody else has created a private school, and the amount of leniency and opportunities and choices that you have is going to be based on their program, but they usually keep the records and things like that. One of the things we'd like to highlight and say about the PSP is, you know, you'll want to know what private school you're joining. And some of them are faith-based, some of them might have particular curriculums that they use and things like that, but it's another opportunity that sometimes really allows you flexibility, but keep in mind what that means.

And the third one, the public independent study, is a complicated one only in the fact that, of course, everything changed in March of 2020. But this would be... like my son is enrolled in a public school. He goes to a charter school, a public charter school called Ocean Grove, and they support us. Now, because of his age, because of the program that we choose, we check in once a month with our specialist, our education specialist. We don't have a particular curriculum that we're supposed to follow, but they'd like us to do science and they'd like us to do math and things like that. So we have a scaffolding that they help us with, and I usually get to choose how we're going to approach that and what we're going to do with that. And as the child gets older, there are more resources, maybe, but what it is is more structured. And so they help you take the steps through a graduation program so that then your child would graduate from that public independent study school.

Now what I've heard, and I'm just starting to get more familiar with, is that public schools in the area are starting to wake up on the possibilities of what this can do as far as helping the students in their districts right now. And so I have a friend who lives out in the Santa Teresa area, and I believe, I can't remember exactly where it is, but she had talked about how her public school... she would lose her son's quote-unquote personal physical place to re-enroll into the classroom if they chose to go in public or in-person eventually. But the program that they were putting together to support the homeschooling students that chose to go through this public independence study was actually turning out to be really robust, and she thought it was pretty valuable. So as things are changing right now, I'm not discounting your local public schools. I think it's important to look at them and see how they can help you on this.

So what that means though is once again, so we've got these options. There are structures put in place. California can help you along those lines, and those programs are there. What makes it different now is we get to choose the resources and how we're going to go about this, and that actually is kind of where things get a little messy. No, I'm just kidding, that's where they kind of get a little exciting. So it can be very different and very colorful for everybody in the way that it looks. So I don't see it as messy, I see it as an opportunity.

Finding Your Homeschooling Style

And so, let's talk about what that means. Where would you even start, you know, now that you've got these three possibilities in California? I don't even know what that means though. Well, let me tell you a little bit about what that means. So the links that I'm sharing with you tonight are a great place to get started because you could Google every single one of these words that I give you or topics that I give you, but I've done a lot of research and I've helped several clients, and these are good ones. They're not necessarily the end-all, be-all great, but these are some good ones.

And so I wanted to point out that you can take a quiz, and this is one from Homeschool On, and this is kind of a good way to start because what it does is it exposes you to some of the different styles of homeschooling. And so you can literally take this quiz. You start the quiz and it says things like, "I want to do school with my kids. Model the value of learning, reading, and writing." "Yeah, I agree with that." So let's agree with that one. You can also answer, "I prefer workbooks. I want to have children working independently." Now, this is where you start. Just think about this. "Oh, you know, I guess I never realized it, but yeah, I think workbooks are great and I would like my child to work independently quite a bit," so I'm going to agree with that.

And there are, as you can see, 32 questions. I'm not sure what their, you know, analog is and how it all gets down to it, but at the end you're going to fit into one of these categories. And like I said, it's just a place to get started. It's not going to define you and it's not going to make you know who you are for the rest of your homeschooling lives or for the rest of your independent journey lives, but what it's going to do is it's going to give you some information.

So let's say you didn't know it, but you fell into the traditional style, and that gives you a jumping off point. What does it mean to be a traditional homeschool style? Well, here on the side it'll tell you, "Well, that probably means that you like little desks and you probably love workbooks and you probably love schedules and planners. You probably make sure that you write down when recess is." And so this is when you enjoy the opportunity of bringing school into your home and replicating that how it's going to work for your family. You might fall into a traditional homeschooling kind of mold, and that's great.

And there are others, so if that doesn't sound like something you want to do, it could be classical. Classical is a very logic-based; they, I heard, I read somewhere that they kind of rule out color, and that makes lazy. They have lots of repetition and studying Latin and grammar and things like that, that there's a lot of public speaking and memorizing, and it's a very beautiful program. Most of it is faith-based also, I believe in the Christian faith. There are unit studies and then there's the unschooling style and the eclectic and then Charlotte Mason. So it might be fun to take this quiz and see what it comes up with, but read a little bit about all of them because it'll then take you on a journey about maybe what what's your style, what are you even starting to look for.

Unschooling and Deschooling

One of the ones that we wanted to talk about tonight was a little bit of what is this unschooling. Unschooling is probably something that you've heard about, and one of the things that I like to tell my clients and the families that I talk with who do unschool, they talk a lot about how it's more about facilitating. It's not necessarily that you just, you know, let your kid sit on their, you know, phone all day and do nothing. You become a facilitator and figure out how to help your child when they find things they're interested in. I've even had one unschooling mom talk about how she would place books, interesting books on topics that she thought her son would really enjoy. She'd strategically place them around the house so when he had, like, downtime or no-tech time and he was just, you know, wandering around looking for something to do, she knew he'd run across some of those books. And if you just happen to kind of express an interest in something, she'd be like, "Hmm, well, what if we enroll in this class or how about we do a Google search on this?" And so she would kind of start to facilitate that interest and then back off whenever they wanted her to jump in and, you know, however it needs to be.

This is a great source if you're interested in kind of getting to know that style a little bit more. I really like her work; I believe her name is Sue Patterson, I might have got that wrong, maybe it's Peterson. Let's see, it's right down here. Yeah, Sue Patterson. And as you can see, she's got a beautiful site and there's an FAQ, and if you're going to choose the unschooling route, I would recommend looking into deschooling. I don't know if you've heard of this one yet either or not, but especially if you're going to just really leave the system behind and let your child do what they want to do or if you come from a dramatic degree... if you're coming from a traumatic experience, deschooling is really helpful in this because I, as a parent, needed to deschool. I needed to get out of the idea of what school had to look like, and my child had to deschool and let go of some of the trauma. So look into deschooling. She has great resources here. She also has wonderful resources on research in homeschooling and unschooling.

So as the night goes on and as my conversation hopefully goes on with all of you, it's going to be about knowing that there's support out there. You're going to be not necessarily recreating the wheel, you're going to be recreating whatever vehicle you want, and there is a lot of support out there to do that. So looking through these and understanding them a little bit more is helpful. She's got great videos, she's got "Find local groups," she's got guides, so we can start to point you in the direction of maybe a style that you're interested in or getting to know something a little bit more.

My Family's Homeschooling Style: Secular Eclectic

Now my family... so like I said, I might have mentioned my son and I started homeschooling about two or three years ago when he was having trouble at school, and he was definitely not enjoying the experience. I was missing him every morning. I would look at him and he'd say, "Mama, do I have a temperature?" And I would... it would just break my heart. He did not want to go. He was hoping he was sick as opposed to going to school, and those kind of things just kept coming and coming. And so when we decided to homeschool, like I said, I'd been working in the community for several years. I still felt like I was jumping off into this, "I am on my own," but you're not. Let me... that's why I'm here and that's what I'm hoping to help everybody understand is whichever path you choose, now is a really exciting time.

So what we chose and what I've kind of found out over the last couple years is that we are secular eclectic somewhat unit homeschoolers. And so what does that mean? Well, the secular means that we don't... we're not faith-based. We don't practice through a specific religion. We're eclectic in the fact that I choose my resources from everywhere. I really am a believer that people and children can learn from everywhere, but that doesn't mean I don't buy curriculum out of the box and that I don't have steps and help along the way, that's for sure. I like some organization there too, and I say a lot of times that part of what we do is I get a curriculum that I enjoy and then we jump off, and I pull in novels and I'll pull in a movie or I'll pull in a class.

My daughter's a big history buff, so she decided she wanted to do the Titanic. So as an eclectic homeschooler, I can now start to pull together some of those things, but then I also keep an eye on standards and where she's at and things like that, so I'll talk a little bit more about that. That's the idea of eclectic, it's taking from a lot of different places. Unit studies being kind of the idea of the unit of the Titanic being that single unit and how do we make it work. Like I said, I don't fully necessarily do unit all the way, but to each his own. Once you get this understanding of, "I have a style, I kind of like the idea of traditional. Tell me what is California public schools doing right now and how do I find that and where are the workbooks," and we're going to go through that and thank you very much that's great.

There are traditional curriculums out there. You can see some of them will be possibly faith-based, you can choose not to use that one. There are... there are some that aren't. You'll see that there are a lot of places to go once you start to dabble in this and a lot of things to choose from. Now as I said, resources are going to be everywhere.

Resources and Getting Started

I want to flip back and kind of give you guys one little short slide that might help out because resources might seem overwhelming, but let me give you just a quick summary of these links that I went over tonight. Okay, you can start with figuring out what does California allow, and that's the hsc.org link that will help you know what are the rules and regulations around what I can do in California as a quote-unquote homeschooler. Hsc.org is a good place to start.

"What kind of homeschooler am I?" Here's the quiz link, so if you want to screenshot this and look at it later, or I have a feeling that the wonderful REAL group will put this together for you guys too. We can get you these links, but what I've done is I've chosen places for you to start on this journey instead of getting overwhelmed with a Google search. These are pretty good places to start and get curious.

The Secular Eclectic Academic one that I spoke about, this SEA, they have a magnificent private Facebook group with over 70,000 members. It's amazing, it's extremely active, it's extremely inspiring, but their website is also fantastic, and so is their magazine. You don't have to recreate the wheel in so many ways, and you can just be inspired by a lot of what's out there. I wanted to point out that in the fall issue they actually have "Teaching the 2E Learners," so the community of homeschooling is beginning to be familiar with and embracing the understanding that we have unique learners, our twice-exceptional children. Sometimes do well with their own path, and so Kimberly Joseph wrote a wonderful article even in this magazine. So there's representation out there, there's information out there, and we're going to keep exploring a little bit more about that.

Creating a Personalized Educational Plan

So what does it mean though? What do I do? Well, usually families come to me and they're ready to figure out what does this look for like for them personally, and I want to thank everybody who signed up tonight. Several of you, many, many of you put responses in the comments and had specific questions, and that was really helpful. So what Cali now and I decided to do was create some profiles of hypothetical students based on my experience, based on some of the feedback and comments that we got in registration, and how would I create a personalized education plan for a twice-exceptional student based on some of the comments and feedback that we got. So thank you for being a part of that.

None of the students that I talk about going forward are actual one child, okay? This is an amalgamation of a lot of different kids. And so I usually start with a family, and and we start out talking about what are your priorities as a family? It's really important to know what's important, what do you want for your child, what do you want for your for your family as a unit? Does it mean, "We... I both of our, both of us in the family are working and we really don't have a whole lot of time, so we want to take our child out of the school system because it's not working for us. We're ready to go full bore, but we need as much support as possible." Okay, or, "We would like to make sure that our child maintains bilingual and is fluent within these two languages," and we can make that work too. So it's really this very personalized time to to look at what it means for your family, what are your priorities as a family, and make a list and have conversations.

One of the conversations I had with my daughter when she decided she wanted to finally homeschool... my son and I have been homeschooling for a couple years and she's always had the choice to join us but she's chosen school and she loved the school she was at. When she did decide to start homeschooling, I was like, "Okay, well, so what's important to you, sweetie? What are you interested in? What do you want to do?" And she said, "I want to study history." And I thought, "Great, okay." So these are important conversations because they can then help us create this unique path.

As a parent, I would also ask, what's working? What is working for your child at school? What is working with any of the extracurriculars that they're doing? What is working, and what's not working? And what's not working can be, they just can't be on Zoom for eight hours straight or six hours straight, or what's not working is their organizational skills. And so then we start to piece together this... it's not a puzzle because we don't know what it's going to look like in the end. I'd say it's a quilt. We start to piece together these these pieces of a beautiful quilt that we don't know what's going to look like the shape or size of all these pieces, but they're all important, and so you start to organize them.

One of the main things... I come from a strength-based background, strength, faith, talent-focused. It's important. And so when does your child shine? Dr. Susan Baum, I can remember sitting, having a one-on-one conversation with her, and she she looked at me and she said, "You know, it comes down to when does that child shine, you know?" And I think that's wonderful, and I want all of my parents and everybody that I work with to think hard on that and identify it. You know, I can remember thinking, my son, I didn't see him shine very much first and second grade, personally or academically. He was struggling, it was hard, but when he was out on the soccer field, he was just lit up, beautiful, happy. I mean, he was in a good place. So how do I build off of that as a mom? How do I build off of that as somebody hoping to find a larger educational experience on the things that make him shine? I also started to realize math made him shine. I didn't know that, and so we started having conversations.

As a parent though, don't forget what makes you shine and take time to sit with that question and flesh it out and analyze it for yourself because you don't want to be doing something for several hours a day that doesn't work for you either. So for me, workbooks work every now and then, but we're good conversation hackers. We like to talk, and I shine when I have time to research before I sit down and then time to research together. And so I shine with time, I shine with research, and so finding those things out because that's necessary then for me to start planning this educational journey for our family. So these are some questions that I would start with. Then the next thing I ask everybody to kind of keep in mind is that look at this picture and think about what this picture means to you. What does it mean to you?

Redefining the Educational Path

What does it mean to you in general and what does it mean to you in the idea of possibly education or in your child's well-being? I thought this was a great visual because a lot of times we forget, and especially in our asynchronous, twice-exceptional children's journeys. I've been working with gifted children for decades now, and I'm working on my doctorate in twice-exceptional cognitive diversity and education, and these asynchronicities play a big role in our journey and in our child's journey. When that leap is too big, it can stop the whole process, but what could that mean?

So looking at this, for me I see that in some cases we have benchmarks, achievements, timelines, and competition, and it can be overwhelming to the point where it's hard to get started on that ladder. It's hard to get started on that aspect. But I want everybody to know that when we recreate a personal journey, we get to start to fill in those extra rungs with what we need or what our child needs. So, you know what, maybe in the beginning we need a couple more extra rungs in our path for social-emotional skills, and we need a couple extra maybe just throw in one for OT, and then we definitely need some executive functioning rungs in there too because we need a little extra of that.

And so while other schools or environments might have set benchmarks, set achievements, this personalized path or whatever path you choose through these paths, through this palette of many colors, you can start to put in that little extra rung here and there by being aware of it and knowing that you have choices. So another thing I point out to parents is it's not that your child's not going to make those benchmarks or they're going to miss those benchmarks; we know as parents of twice-exceptional students that it might be possible that they reach that benchmark at the same time or they might just blow past that, but they might need more time to get to another one. It's that asynchronous experience where we need to put in place a little bit extra, but my child, their math benchmarks, he just blew those out of the water. So one of his benchmarks on a strength base is to get him a mentor. My daughter, we're going to get her a tutor, so it's all of these different ideas even within the same home of understanding. We'll get to those benchmarks. We will probably do it in a different timeline and with different steps, and that's okay. So the more you're willing to let go on this and kind of let it be, you'll kind of see it come together.

Designing an Elementary School Path

Based on some of the feedback, let's create a personalized path for an elementary student who is 2E and dyslexic. They are a big-picture thinker, they love math, have high anxiety, and this is in a social and in-school setting. So after going through some of those questions, I would start to put together some ideas, and so maybe one of the things I've seen in the past, and this worked well for us as we were going through our elementary, is I've heard that an hour per grade for direct and for direct instruction up until like third or fourth grade is about right. So as a first grader, you might want to be doing direct instruction with your first grader for only one hour. The rest of the day is playing and exploring and going and doing, which is kind of difficult but right now but it still can be done, trust me, it still can be done.

And so it's that idea that you don't have to over-instruct; you keep in mind that if you're transitioning into a non-traditional path, that can mean non-traditional hours. As a teacher, I used to say you know probably 60 to 70% of my classroom time is classroom management. It's helping kids come in and get settled down. It's making sure everybody's quiet. It's, "Does everybody have their book? Do they not?" So a lot of school time can be put in other places, and when you're one-on-one working with your child, you get more bang for your buck. It's more about quality versus quantity, so think about using your time differently and maybe even less time but to do different things.

When I have an opportunity to sit down with my daughter and do one-on-one math instruction, she gets a lot quicker, but we also repeat it several more times. I think that you'll find that these quality times will work better than quantity, so that's helpful for some parents who might be working. You might be able to find an opportunity, and this is kind of for both grades, I know of a family who does a lot of their work in the evening. As homeschooling parents, they sit around the table and instead of doing homework, they do homeschool work. It's, you know, three or four hours in the evening of sitting around, making a plan, going over lessons, homeschooling after their busy day is done. And instead of sitting down to decipher what the school wants you to do, let's sit down and decipher what it is that we want to do and what can I get you going on tomorrow during your day and well, maybe your nanny's here or a couple classes planned for you. So there are some things we can do and think about using different times now.

Because our student in this scenario has dyslexia, this is also a good opportunity. One of the things that I keep in mind and help parents understand is when you take out all of those school hours, you now have an opportunity to add in specialists and mentors. And if you have a public school... if you're paying public school or private school tuition, you've got this private school tuition now to use in other areas, and it's helpful then to be able to schedule these things during the day instead of after school when they're just tired and exhausted and going to a reading specialist is the last thing they want to do at 4:30 in the afternoon on a Tuesday. So these are things that we now schedule through the day or you could schedule throughout your day so that gets us moving on that specific neurodiversity that we can start to structure.

And I was... I've seen improvements and I know that there's some experiences here with different teachers also who've had opportunities to work one-on-one or in small groups with children specifically focused on dyslexia and reading improvement either through Orton Gillingham or the Barton method. Once you get one-on-one or small group and really give that focused time as opposed to a classroom full of several different reading groups and public school interactions and things like that, once again, quality can really help your child move forward, and they might make bigger steps and strides with that kind of opportunity as opposed to figuring it out in the in the public school classroom.

Now, these are all just possibilities in a fictitious child as we as we go forward. Moving beyond the page, I would suggest maybe that because if this child is gifted, "Moving Beyond the Page" does a really good job. It's a curriculum that has science and social studies intertwined, which works well. But if we have, let's say, auditory issues, there's a Cellus, which is a program where they have videos that your child watches a video, they listen to it, and then they can rewind it if they need to. They can get... they're asked questions and then they can rewind it to the lessons. So there's also other things that we could tailor as far as a curriculum that we would put in there. And then Outschool is a great way to bring in and sprinkle in some interest if you have an interest or talent that you'd like to explore.

Park groups and social pods, this is one I can talk into a little bit more if anybody's interested, but these are really good opportunities, and there's more and more of these cropping up and they become an important part of your child's exploratory world. And so whether it's a park group, which is really popular with elementary students, when we were homeschooling before the coronavirus, there were park groups for every single day, a different park, a different group completely. So it might be that the unschoolers were meeting on Mondays, and you know, more of a traditional was meeting or classicals were meeting on different... So there's these park groups that meet all around this area. This area is a wonderful place to take a non-traditional path, and so starting to find those and now finding out how we can work those in is a new and interesting way.

A math mentor... as I mentioned, my son loves math. He didn't need remediation and support as much as I wanted to find somebody who would inspire him and help him enjoy math and see math everywhere, and so taking that opportunity to build on those strengths and take that talent to the next level. We didn't have time to do that before, but now we've got some time, and I can find somebody special.

And getting out and involving your child... now I know some kids are not interested in team sports. I have no desire to do a team sport. There are ways to get outside that don't involve team sports, and sometimes, like tennis, I found to be kind of fun for the younger elementary students because, especially those with anxiety, because you don't necessarily... you're not, you know, necessarily communicating one-on-one with somebody or trying to make it happen, but you can still make a social connection. You're still there with somebody or maybe a golf group or things like that too. These are outside, very social distance, and at this time we can't necessarily do that, but as we get closer and things start to open up, these are more comfortable ways too instead of being in a classroom. Getting out and getting some fresh air and maybe meeting people in a less anxiety-provoking way.

Now these can be done through the PSA. This can be done because the parent decides they're going to do a small private school, they're going to make their own private school, they're going to make the choices. They're going to keep track of things, which is not that difficult; we can talk more on that if somebody wants to know. And this is your choice and how you want to do this, and maybe that's what they look for for elementary school, and that's what they're going to do. So maybe this is a PSA choice.

Questions from the Audience: Time Management and Logistics

Theresa: Yeah, I just asked a question that I'm curious about personally: this looks incredible, I wish my kids had this. How do you have the time to organize and manage this and get the kids to all these different things when you're working?

Theresa: That's a great question, and for me and for a lot of a lot of the families that I know that want to do these things, you need a flexible work schedule or you need somebody that you can hire to kind of help you get your children there. So there are a couple ways to do... we also... I mean, I know of some homeschooling families where, you know, Bev takes them on Mondays and she has the pod with her and and she takes them to activities on Mondays, and then JoJo has them on Wednesdays and she takes them to different activities on Wednesdays. And so it's kind of figuring out how you're going to organize your time, which might be outside of work hours or it might be a flexible work hour. But it's also depending a lot on each other and building connections too and sharing the opportunities. So in the homeschooling community, you kind of start to find your pod and you work with each other and say, "Oh, we're all going to take this class next week, great, can you drive them? Sure, thank you!" You know, and you're like, "And then I'll make sure to teach the lit circle in a couple weeks," you know? So it can become this really give-and-take experience where even parents who are working long schedules can find a group that they fit in with and then give back how they can.

One of the things I'd like to say, and this is this is it's a tough point, but think about how much time we as parents are investing right now in reactionary, possibly. How much are we trying to figure out how do we do this? How do we control that? How can I make this work? How can I make that? When you choose to take it on proactively, it becomes a little easier because now your your palette and your canvas get bigger. So there are possibilities, and depending on which one works for you, it can be done. There are lots of blogs out there too about parents who work full-time and how they do it.

Theresa: Great, thank you. Okay, I'm I'd love to see the middle school one because I have a middle schooler.

Theresa: Once wonderful. Okay, I can jump onto middle school if we'd like and then we can come back and circle back to each one if people have... just anybody else has a question, please share it in the chat if you'd like. Excellent.

Designing a Middle School Path

Okay, so let me jump onto middle school so we'll have some time then just to kind of flesh it out if there are specific questions, but I put together this middle school one and our student... let's see, we've got a middle school student who is twice-exceptional. He is autistic, he loves his deep dives, he's very detail-oriented, he loves history. Also has some anxiety, and that's okay. So what we're going to do is we're going to talk about this child and how we can start. Middle school specifically was my course, so I love teaching middle school for years and years, especially gifted middle school students, and one of the things you hear a lot about in middle school is this is the opportunity and this is the time for kids to take chances and learn how to fail.

Now, for some of our kids, that's really hard. Just being a perfectionist or failing in general can be painful, and so finding an opportunity in an environment and space for a child who doesn't like to fail and try new things to try a couple new things at their own pace, wherever that rung is going to fit in, is good. And so this gives us some flexibility to maybe try a gifted curriculum specifically for history and writing. If you are with the independent, the public school independence study, hold on to the IEP and see how you can use that for standardized testings that you still may need to do through the through the public school that you're with. Find out how you can get into gifted curriculum so depending on which route you go, the one of the three that we talked about, you can still use an IEP and use it well.

You might want to use a couple extra rungs, put those in there for executive functioning or, um, one of the things we talked about with my daughter was how could we start a study group, and she started a study group now, based around history, and it was kind of fun. Theater classes might be enjoyable. This is a fun way for kids who don't even necessarily want to be in theater but to take an opportunity to get them trying on new communications styles in a way that, "Hey, this is acting," but actually it's a really good opportunity to try on different communication styles and listen and watch and see what makes things, you know, work out the way they do. So I think theater classes can be wonderful, even online ones are that's, I found some wonderful ones. Writers' workshops might be interesting. A math tutor might be helpful. So let's say this particular student needs more of a remediation in math, take that time, you know.

This is a time where now you can go back and review and review and review because they might get that point, and it might take four weeks and then they get the next one in one week and then you get to move on to the next one because you I mean your time frame is your own, and so using a tutor to help you get through a subject that might be difficult for you to teach your child is another way to go. Kind of hand it off and say, "We really just do not communicate well over math. You know, I I love math and I do math and in my sleep, my child doesn't seem to understand, could you help them?" And it might be a wonderful way for you to hand it over.

I had one of my families tell me that they handed it over to grandpa because grandpa did really well with it, and it was a wonderful opportunity actually for them to bond too, and so not only do you find your tutors somewhere maybe through one of the sites, but you can also find them, you know, in your family and create these whole other opportunities. And all of a sudden you have a math tutor and grandpa, and grandpa gets to know your kid better than they ever thought over a subject they enjoy together. So there's all these possibilities once again.

Getting outdoors, hiking groups... there are several hiking groups in the Bay Area that are focused on homeschoolers, but also several of them open up to just kids who are interested in hiking during the day, and it's social distance or they have a list of some of the wider paths and some of the easier paths to take, some of the less populated paths to take. And so once you start seeking this, you can get out there and start hiking maybe, and this could be another fun way to get some fresh air. If you choose a middle school route that you want to start to make your own, so PSA...

I had a question in there, what about math? Whether it's high school or middle school, this is where you as a family would want to sit down and say, "Well, what are we doing math for? Why are we doing math?" Is it because we want to get our child into college to study something for math? Well then, maybe we need to put some more research sources behind it and look for more opportunities. Or is it just something right now that if we've got the basic bare minimum, let's stick with that and and let it be or skip it for a year because there's way too much trauma around it. As a PSA, you can choose that. You can choose to skip it for a year, especially if you're going with like, let's say, an independent study school and you've got an IEP. You can say, "Yep, they did a worksheet once a week, here's your worksheet," and let it be and don't continue to go back on it every single day if you don't need to. And that's something you can do, and I encourage families to find what they need, and we can talk a little bit more about that.

Audience Questions: IEPs and Career Exploration

Theresa: Lisa, before you move on to the high school, there were a couple of questions that had come in related to middle school, and the folks who submitted those are on the call tonight, and you kind of touched on this a little bit in terms of the IEP. And someone, Melissa, asked, "Once you leave public school for homeschool, do you lose your IEP for going back or can you save it?"

Theresa: Well, I'm I... I don't know if you can save it quote-unquote, and if there's anybody on here who wants to speak specifically to that, I've never had a family who tried to save it, and that's only because their child changed dramatically while they did the two or three years of homeschooling, and so when they came back to the table, they used the former IEP or the previous IEP as a jumping-off point, but they weren't looking for the same things. And so in and every three years, it's not unusual for educational environments, depending on whether it's private or public, to want a re-evaluation also. So you just might be in a very different place that you're not necessarily going to need that. I haven't had a family that that switched around quite quick quite that quickly, so like one year to the next. So if anybody has experienced that, I would love to know because I think that would be good to know, but my experience is usually the child has changed, and so it's a reference, but it's not the same. Does that kind of help? And I'm not an expert in this field at all, so if anyone on the chat knows more, feel free to weigh in, but I I do know like when we moved our daughter from a public school to a private school, the public school had to follow up on her IEP for a certain amount of time even though she was not enrolled there. There was some obligation on your public school district's behalf to follow that through. At some point that stopped, and I don't really know why because we didn't pursue it, but you know, it is important to keep that documentation up if you think you want accommodations for standardized testing or if you want to, you know, you really want to make sure before your child goes to college if you're going to request college accommodations. So we can maybe talk about that more at the high school, but right.

Theresa: Yeah, and another question that came in ahead of time about middle school is, you know, when you have a a child that has high curiosity, especially in a lot of these kids who are on the spectrum have just such great passion for for things, and you want to start thinking about exposing them to potential career paths to give them role models and stories and that sort of thing. And someone was asking, "How do you help introduce that at this age?"

Theresa: And that's a great question. So I was just on a seminar call with Berlin Blankin at the University of Iowa, and they were talking about career paths and how middle school... and I do some career counseling and some career working with our twice-exceptional high school students also. Middle school is a great time to explore and and yes, I know a lot of students think they know what they want, and I'm not saying deny that to them, actually enjoy it. It was funny, we had one student who was very into baseball and memorized all of the stats and statistics, and it was like, "Oh my gosh, how can we do anything around baseball statistics because that's where this child was at. This is what they lived and breathed, that's what they did." And so as coaches and as mentors and as people working with him, we tried to figure out like what can we kind of show in through that lens. And public speaking through the lens of of baseball statistics, whether or not he would study different historical aspects and and things like that happening through baseball. So those kind of things, we kind of peppered through the lens of it, but no joke, this kid ended up somehow meeting a announcer for one of the baseball media things, and he was doing his thing, and he was talking about how excited he was about baseball statistics, and the announcer said, "You know what, I need to get you with my assistant because I'd love to hire you, you are a great resource." So even though this kid focused on it for for 10, 15 years, he can do that for the rest of his life now because he found his niche. Nobody ever thought he would or that it would not work out that way, but you never know. And so it's kind of trying to expose through the lens and then just letting it be.

Theresa: Well, and another mom that has a middle schooler was noting that she already homeschools, and she'd like to know, "How do you keep your the child accountable for scheduling and time management and organization, especially because she has two other children and everyone has household things they have to do and and so, you know, in middle school you're trying to release some of that to the child more and more, so how do you kind of manage that in that environment?"

Theresa: Yeah, and that will work differently for each family depending on how also how they kind of do the discipline and the in the way things work in their house. And so for one middle school family, I know that they, you know, don't get tech... they don't get tech until after all their school work is done, and then they're allowed to have however much tech time they want as long as they've done their work and it's been done well. I know other families that have a window of time where it's no tech, and this is what school is. So from 10 to 3, find something academic to do, and you know, accomplish what you need to during that time because after that you may have your free time and choose to do whatever with it. And so it depends on the dynamics of the family. I really recommend finding what works, and it's actually something that I'm studying right now is finding what works for the child, and this is an executive functioning thing. This is finding the right kind of momentum without overwhelming, without stressing. So often we don't we we think that the pressure is going to be helpful and it's not, and so knowing your child and creating a a plan with them is something I would, you know, suggest starting with and saying, "Okay, what can you do, bud? We're going to sit down, we're going to figure out, what do you want me to hold you accountable for because you know what I'm expecting? What are you expecting? And let's be reasonable," you know? And that's one reason why I used to say I loved teaching middle school because you could start to have those conversations with them and and they were open to it sometimes. So start the conversation, find out what works, and find out in your family, you know, how you're going to structure the give and take of of earning and not earning or maybe that's not a part of you.

Theresa: Awesome, those were our middle school questions for now and then we may have some more in the general Q and A after we get through the private the high school.

Theresa: Okay, all right, so let me go through the high school real quick. And we're doing pretty good on time. I hope that leaves us a good window.

Designing a High School Path

Okay, so our high school student, this is going to be our ADHD, creative, out-of-the-box thinker with humorous aspects. They love humor, they love science, specifically going towards animals and biology. Once again, high anxiety is not unusual, and especially working on executive functioning skills is going to be something that I would throw in this mix too. Most likely it's going to be helpful.

High school is one where families start to think about whether or not there is a college path, whether or not they want one. I've worked with some, you know, homeschooling and unschooling families that it didn't matter if they wanted... if my child wants to go to college, great, we'll figure out how to get them there. And I have some that say, "You know what, we're actually homeschooling because we would like to start college at 14," and that can be done too. So there are there's a lot of flexibility here. Whether you are on a very intense academic track or just an academic track that follows the dreams of your child, your child might be ready for college courses at 14 or 15, you never know, but you can find out when you start to do these things also.

Parents are asking, "Will the child be able to go into a college?" Yes, I highly recommend that you research each college that you're looking at beforehand though. They will have information on what they need from you as a homeschooling parent, which, you know, what do they need as far as transcripts, what do they need as far as examples. And one of the things that you really have an opportunity to do if you choose to homeschool for whatever part of high school is to make your child's high school transcripts, but more along the lines of their application, really stand out. This is where you can find out how your child shines and then when they go to do the college application, they can talk about volunteering and why they chose to do it or whatever it is that made them, you know, unique and find it and use it for that college experience.

So let's say we've got this out-of-the-box thinker who wants to do some volunteering. Maybe he chose to do a stand-up routine for a senior retirement home, and on his college entrance, he's going to talk about in his essay what he chose to do to entertain senior citizens during his comedy sketch comedy sketch. And so it can be anything, but think about how out of the box that would put that unique application, and it might be fun for the child also or the student also.

This is, like I said, a really good time to think about portfolio development. If you have a child who is in the arts or creative in any way, I say exposure, exposure, exposure, but then let them create and find ways for them to hold on to that and it will all come together and and find the people to help it come together. There are companies and people out there that help students develop their own portfolio for college applications, and this can be done and actually can be fun when you're in high school and you don't have the high school day to go through. You might have the high school curriculum to go through, but you don't have the set time of day because you chose to homeschool, and now you're going to use this time to work on your portfolio pieces a little bit more. And so these are opportunities to keep track of those things. Definitely keep track of everything in high school; it will be important and it will be helpful. There are ways to keep track of those things.

Another thing is one-on-one so you might bring in some of the one-on-one schools. They have great lab facilities or you have a child that really excels in writing and you want them to sit with a writer and an instructor that does well. This can be an opportunity where, you know, it might not be your ability to keep up with them in the sciences, but we can take that and use that with a one-on-one school that can push them and then help them succeed and help manage the science aspect of it, and they have the facilities and the labs to do that too. So it's possible now to look into one-on-one aspects because a lot of them do high school; some do middle school.

Dual enrollment is where a child can a student, I shouldn't call them children anymore because they're headed into college, they can do courses at the local community college without enrolling in the community college and sometimes get dual enrollment credits for it. Now, this is very specific to each college, to each community college and to the courses, and so you're going to want to find out what transfers and what doesn't. So literally there are books out there, and I'll I'll have to take a picture of this; I forgot to write it in the notes, but there are books out there. There are books written on this. This one actually was updated in 2018, so it's not too old. The author of it also has a blog that she does. I know families that have used her suggestions. It's called "Homeschooling for College Credit." They've used her suggestions even if they don't homeschool because what she does is shows how you can incorporate for some of our gifted students, some of our exceptional students, they're ready for a really challenging course. How can you incorporate that and make sure that it counts going forward? So there's literally books written on this topic and good resources for that, so look into dual enrollment or college credits.

This is where I would start to bring in career exploration. I work with a company that I use as a tool. It's a great tool called Greenwood, and I use it for some of my clients, some of my high school students. I think it's fantastic, and it's a tool where we look and it gives personality, it does the Myers-Briggs, it does all kinds of values, and then it gives you the top 100 careers based on your child's values and interests and personality and things like that, and then it gives the last 10 careers that they definitely shouldn't be in. Like I had one student that shouldn't be a mortician, but he should go into broadcasting, you know, and so it was kind of funny to sit down with this student and know what we knew from some of the career exploration you can start to do during this time and that you can make space for. What I do with my high schoolers that I set plans for is we we make a plan, we we will do this career exploration tool. We'll sit down and we'll say, "Okay, it looks like you're headed towards animation, computer graphic animation, specifically gaming. Are you interested in virtual reality? Let's find some people who do virtual reality gaming." We are in a spectacular area to start to look for these kind of connections, and this goes back to that little green icon I had about resources.

Building on the idea of creating a personalized educational path, high school is the ideal time to focus on career exploration and mentorships. By taking an active role in shaping your child's education, you can foster their unique interests, build on their strengths, and prepare them for a future that aligns with their passions.

Key Strategies for High School

• Career Exploration: High school is the right time to introduce serious career exploration, generally after age 15. Tools like the Greenwood platform can help identify career paths that match a student's values and personality. This allows them to "deep dive" into potential careers through mentorships, community college classes, or other hands-on experiences. For example, a student interested in gaming might connect with someone in virtual reality development to see if that path is a good fit.

• Customizing the Curriculum: This personalized approach allows for flexibility in the academic schedule. For instance, a student with dysgraphia and high anxiety might take two years to complete Algebra I, if that's what they need to master the material without stress. This is possible when you're not restricted by the standard 50-minute class period. You can focus on quality over quantity and ensure the student truly understands the material.

• Entrepreneurship: Give students time to be "dreamers and thinkers" and to pursue their ideas. This can lead to incredible entrepreneurial ventures. Simple ideas, like a dog-walking business for a student who loves animals, can become a reality when they have the time to pursue them.

Addressing Common Concerns

Finding a Mentor

Finding a mentor to manage all of the different aspects of a personalized education is a common challenge. You can hire an education consultant to help you organize a plan or work with a school that provides a framework for independent study. Additionally, you can find flexible executive functioning coaches or private assistants to help with organization and scheduling.

The Cost of Homeschooling

Homeschooling doesn't have to break the bank. Many families work together in pods or co-ops to share the cost of resources or a private teacher. You can also hire college students to tutor or mentor at a much lower cost than a professional. It's about finding creative solutions and building a supportive community.

Navigating Public School Transitions

Families often wonder about the process of moving between homeschooling and public school.

• Leaving Public School: When pulling a child from public school, especially due to trauma or high anxiety, give them time to "de-school" and heal. This period, often a year or two, allows for emotional and social growth that may not have been possible in a traditional setting.

• Returning to Public School: It is possible to return to the public school system, but it's important to be prepared. Keep detailed records of your child's academic progress and experiences so you can present a comprehensive picture to the school.

• Hybrid Models: Some independent public school programs, like Connections Academy, offer virtual learning options. While a true hybrid model of attending both public and homeschool may not be widely available, the landscape is changing, so it's worth contacting your local school district to discuss potential options.

The California High School Proficiency Exam (CHSPE)

The CHSPE is an alternative to a traditional high school diploma for California homeschool students. It allows them to demonstrate their proficiency in high school subjects and can be a good option for students who are ready to move on. However, whether this is a better route than a GED depends on the student's post-high school goals, so it's important to research the specific requirements of any colleges or programs they are interested in.

Maintaining a Positive Relationship

A good relationship with your child is crucial for a successful homeschooling experience.

• Partnership: It's essential to have your child's buy-in. Treat this journey as a partnership, discussing what each person needs to make it work.

• Flexible Schedule: A flexible schedule can reduce friction. If a child works better in the evenings, then that's when you do school.

• Not a Punishment: Avoid using homeschooling as a form of leverage or punishment. It should be a positive choice you make together to find a better educational fit.

What are your main priorities for your child's high school years, and how do you think a personalized path could help you achieve them?