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Our Academic Journey
Our daughter, Autumn, whom we adopted when she was 8 years old. Began her fourth grade school experience at a public school. We had worked diligently to get her into a better school district, obtaining an interdistrict transfer so that she could attend a school in La Crescenta. We couldn't have been more pleased with the school, and her teacher. My husband and I are both products of the public school educational system, and we wanted Autumn to attend a school that would offer her both academic and social opportunities. We were very involved in Autumn's school, teaching in the computer lab and helping in the classroom weekly. However, upon receiving Autumn's first report card, we learned that she was in danger of failing. We felt that this was a direct result of her adjusting to her new life. We continued tracking her on a daily basis, but soon labels such as "Attention Deficit Disorder" and Learning Disabled" were starting to be linked to her name. We were encouraged to have her tested and we did, but the results showed she was above average in all academic areas. State testing concurred with these results. We all made it through fourth grade, but the end of the year didn't look much better than the beginning. She did pass the fourth grade, but it was only because we were reteaching her all of the concepts that she was supposed to have learned at school. In essence, when we look back on this time, we see that we were home schooling her as well as dealing with the challenges of having her attend school. With much trepidation, we accepted that Autumn was not going to flourish in a typical school environment at this time in her life. Autumn needed our complete involvement, supervision and guidance in order to succeed academically and socially. After much research, consideration and discussion, it became abundantly obvious that the only hope of salvaging Autumn's future was to bring her in close, under our wings, and home school her. It was not a decision we arrived at quickly or easily, but, in retrospect, it was the best choice we could have possibly made for her sake.
We joined Sunland Christian School in the summer of 2001 and began schooling Autumn for the 5th grade. Lisa organized a diverse and challenging curriculum from a variety of educational sources, including the YMCA which fulfills Autumn's Physical Education requirements through such classes as karate, swimming and fencing. Under this structure, Autumn flourished and has consistently gained 2-3 years of knowledge for every year of home schooling. By the end of the 7th grade, Autumn was testing at High School graduate level in all areas of study. Under the public or private school system, we would never have experienced this level of acceleration, or even been made aware of her extraordinary potential. Under our structure and expectations, Autumn became like a sponge soaking up information and concepts at an amazing rate. It seemed that the more we gave her, the better she did and the more she wanted to learn. As is the case with most school children, Autumn was not sufficiently challenged in the classroom environment. The phrase, "An idle id the Devil's playground" could not have been more accurate in our case.
During the first three years of home schooling, Autumn taught us that we could tailor a curriculum perfectly suited to her educational and emotional needs, as well as the meet the state criteria. In addition to the other well known benefits of home schooling, the flexibility to customize her course study has been a key advantage. Autumn is at the extreme on both ends. While she is advanced academically, her emotional maturity level falls quite short of her chronological years. These disparate issues could not have been resolved in any other situation, but through home schooling.
Our intention had always been to home school Autumn until she was up to speed and then transition her back into a classroom environment. We decided to enroll her in Village Christian School for 8th grade starting in the fall of 2004. In order to ease her transition, we placed her in a six week Summer School class at Village Christian so that she might get acclimated to the environment and perhaps make some friends. Imagine our devastation when we had to withdraw her from Village Christian after only four weeks. Academically she was excellent, but in this short time away from our supervision and influence, Autumn immediately gravitated towards the worst behaving, lowest functioning students and settled right into that clique. It was stunning to learn that even in a closely monitored surrounding such as an excellent Christian school, she immediately began her slow decent downward. Realizing that Autumn could still not handle the emotional and social aspects of a school environment, we took her back under our wings.
Initially, bringing Autumn back into the home for schooling was disruptive and distressing, particularly in consideration of the negative reasons why we had to do it. However, the flexibility of home schooling once again worked to our advantage. Since Autumn had tested at such a high scholastic level, we decided to promote her in a traditional school, because she could not even function socially at the 7th grade level, so imagine what would have happened to her around a bunch of high schoolers. Through home schooling, we have the maneuverability to challenge her academically while nurturing her regressed emotional and social aspects in a more delicate and controlled manner.
In structuring Autumn's curriculum for 9th grade, we opted to utilize sources outside of the home. Since Autumn has such advanced math skills, Mr. Neven suggested that we enroll her in college course. He believed that a mature college environment would benefit her academically, and stated that one semester of a college class would count as a year of high school credit. We decided to explore this option at our local Community College (Los Angeles Mission College). We met with Dr. Martha Soto, the Dean of Academic Affairs, who could not have been more welcoming, supportive and enthusiastic about having Autumn attend classes at her campus. In order to enroll, students must take math and English placement exams. Though we were hesitant, Dr. Soto persuaded us to allow Autumn to take both tests. Dr Soto's instincts were correct as Autumn's results placed her into Intermediate College Algebra and English 101. In the Fall of 2004, she took these courses along with a correspondence Spanish course through the YMCA. By employing these outside sources, we reduced the classes we actually teach her to Literature and her elective.
Autumn adapted extremely well to the college atmosphere and has excelled- she received A's in both her classes. In the Spring of 2005, she took Biology 1 (with Lab) and Algebra II. She is currently enrolled in a six-week Geography Summer School course at LAMC. In one school year, she will have earned one year of English, two years of science and two years of math high school requirements while simultaneously accumulating 20 college credits.
We acknowledge that our circumstances may not be applicable to all families, but we would encourage others to explore their options and be creative in their efforts to educate and nurture their children.
J and L C, Sylmar, Calif
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