Rochester-area public school students will create social change using video games at the AT&T & RIT ROCtheChange Game Jam held Jan. 15—the first free youth game jam in the region.
At the event, local students in grades 8-12 will learn about programming and get hands-on experience creating functional digital video games. With the event taking place on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, students will be challenged to create games with the theme of social change and social good.
To eliminate economic barriers, the game jam is free. All technology and meals will be provided. Additionally, students are not required to have any previous experience with computer coding or digital game design.
The game jam is a collaboration between RIT’s School of Interactive Games and Media and AT&T. It aims to expand digital literacy skills and coding and game development opportunities for Rochester-area students—especially those from underrepresented schools and communities. The program seeks to help youth from all backgrounds and economic situations consider careers in the growing technology job market, an industry that is known for its lack of diversity.
The AT&T & RIT ROCtheChange Game Jam will take place from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Jan. 15, in RIT’s Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences building. Parents can register their children on the Eventbrite page by Dec. 31, 2021. The event is limited to 65 students.
Throughout the day, professors and students from RIT’s School of Interactive Games and Media will help participants learn the basic technology and digital skills needed to create digital games. Additionally, game makers will be there to talk about what it’s like to have a career in game design and development.
When creating the games, students will incorporate ideas of social change into the themes and actions of the gameplay. Topics can include Go Green, Stand Up, Speak Up, Equality for All, and Mental Health Awareness/Support. The projects will then be scored by a panel of judges made up of game developers, local tech experts, community leaders, education experts, and elected officials.
AT&T’s partnership with RIT to develop and offer the free game jam aligns with AT&T’s legacy of supporting the digital divide and educational programs focused on digital literacy and STEM disciplines in New York, through the AT&T Aspire initiative. Aspire is one of the nation’s largest corporate commitments focused on advancing education, creating opportunities, strengthening communities, and improving lives, particularly amongst historically underserved populations, by creating new learning environments and educational delivery systems that promote racial equity in academic and economic achievement.
RIT’s School of Interactive Games and Media offers some of the best programs for aspiring game developers in the world, according to international rankings from The Princeton Review.
The Hawaiʻi State Department of Education (HIDOE) today named Waiākea High School teacher Whitney Aragaki the 2022 Hawaiʻi State Teacher of the Year. Aragaki received the state’s top teaching award from Gov. David Ige and Interim Superintendent Keith Hayashi during a virtual awards ceremony this afternoon.
Aragaki will represent Hawaiʻi in the National Teacher of the Year program. The honor is presented annually to a classroom teacher selected from more than 13,000 HIDOE educators. Aragaki was among 15 Complex Area Teachers of the Year and the Charter School Teacher of the Year recognized today.
“Whitney’s innovative approach to teaching offers students meaningful cultural and place-based learning opportunities that are both rigorous and relevant to our young learners,” Interim Superintendent Hayashi said. “Science can be an intimidating subject for students, but Whitney successfully engages her students in exciting and empowering ways.
Aragaki has been teaching at Waiākea High for 10 years and currently serves as a 10th-grade biology and Advanced Placement (AP) Environmental Science teacher. Her classroom activities are known to put students in touch with their local communities and are designed around learning through problem solving. Beyond science, Arakgaki’s educational activities offer students opportunities to elevate their leadership and civic responsibility within the community.
In 2018 the Department awarded Aragaki an innovation grant to support her proposal for Science Buddies, a program where AP science students could make an impact on the next generation of science learners in their own community by creating standards-based lessons for elementary classrooms. What resulted from the program were hands-on, locally based, and academically rigorous activities for over 250 students in grades 3-5.
While challenging, Aragaki’s methods of teaching have invited students to explore the world of science. “Mrs. Aragaki perseveres on a daily basis to provide her students with the proper experience, knowledge and environment they need to open up to being willing to engage in STEM,” Waiākea High alumna Lela DeVine shared. “The honesty and transparency throughout the classroom that allows her students to feel safe and inclusive is what sets Mrs. Aragaki apart from any teacher I have ever had.”
Also an alumna of Waiākea High, Aragaki has worked to further improve her school community through the creation of the peer-to-peer Warrior Professional Learning Community (PLC). After noticing a large turnover of teachers at her school, Aragaki initiated this teacher induction and mentoring group for those both new to the school and new to the profession to help foster a greater sense of school culture and belonging. Through the New Warrior PLC, new teachers receive training on career academies, how to support future first-generation college students, classroom technology integration, and other professional development sessions by school-based teacher leaders.
“Mrs. Aragaki’s commitment to excellence goes far beyond her teaching and the four corners of her classroom,” Waiākea High Principal Kelcy Koga said. “She sees the benefits that a sound education can provide, and is willing to go above and beyond the call of duty to not only serve her students but her colleagues and school community as well.”
In addition to her classroom teacher role, Aragaki has taught AP Environmental Science, AP Statistics and AP Computer Science Principles for the statewide Hawaiʻi Virtual Learning Network’s E-School since 2013. She is the lead teacher of the Waiākea High Public Services Academy, which was recognized as a National Model Academy under the National Career Academy Coalition in 2018. A National Board Certified Teacher, Aragaki was also a 2019 and 2021 state finalist for the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST).
The full list of finalists honored today are, in alphabetical order:
ʻĀina Akamu, Ka‘ū-Keaʻau-Pāhoa Complex Area, Kaʻū High & Pāhala Elementary.
Heather Geoghan, a Large Faculty Bodily Schooling Instructor at Greely Large College in Cumberland, has been named the Maine Association for Health, Bodily Instruction, Recreation, and Dance (MAHPERD) 2021 High College Bodily Education and learning Teacher of the Yr.
Heather functions to assure that learners are learning all areas of the method, and with any luck , significantly additional than movement abilities, match strategy, and exercise ideas. She addresses the Form The us studying standards in each and every class, instructing a extensive variety of motor competencies and movement patterns as properly as enabling college students enough option to follow these abilities.
Heather has up to date the physical education application to enable learners to select from a large assortment of offerings, allowing them to test a little something new or extend on present-day awareness in a unique space of curiosity to them. Learners continually share with Heather how astonished they are that they were ready to make sizeable gains in the course of the semester.
A single of her key objectives is for pupils to leave the semester with sufficient knowledge and a toolbox of nominal or no-machines exercises that they can create and continue on on their very own soon after class finishes. 1 of Heather’s common course expectations focuses on student’s attitude, effort and hard work, and inclusion of all. She will work hard to make sure that the gym, area, keep track of, pool, and court docket are a places that all pupils experience comfy and welcome. She firmly thinks that classroom administration and the atmosphere comes from the tone set from the instructor.
In response to the pandemic, Heather developed an overall curriculum through Google Classroom, in which learners had been equipped to effectively complete assignments at house and demonstrate their function by means of knowledge, images, video clips, and conditioning log completion for each assignment. She gathered above 20 GPS physical fitness trackers and watches from close friends and neighborhood members who had been inclined to donate their gadgets so that learners could keep track of perform at house.
Heather has shown a impressive capacity to link with youthful persons, a eager and unique potential to build and instruct actual physical education curriculum, and an structured and detailed strategy to schoolwide matters. She is an energetic and passionate teacher of physical education and learning with a shown focus on assembly learners where they are, receiving to know them, and setting anticipations for them in collaboration with their fascination, skill, and determination.
Maine Association for Health and fitness, Actual physical Training, Recreation, and Dance (MAHPERD) Honor Awards are introduced to MAHPERD customers in recognition of their excellence to their job by demonstrating excellent determination to their pupils and profession. To understand additional about MAHPERD pay a visit to maineahperd.org.
Oakville elementary college students collected outside the 68-year-outdated elementary creating Monday afternoon didn’t have an understanding of why the outdated composition necessary to be torn down.
But as soon as they have been instructed the demolition intended they would get a new school with its possess cafeteria house — indicating they would not have to march to the health club or the large school’s cafeteria for lunch every day — they cheered.
The Oakville School District formally broke ground Monday on a series of initiatives funded by a $5.6 million bond measure passed by Oakville voters in February 2020, the greatest of which is the demolition of the old elementary developing and the design of a brand new elementary college.
“This setting up, we foresee, is likely to be much more state of the artwork and give pupils a greater possibility to learn,” explained Superintendent Rich Staley at Monday’s groundbreaking, held outside the previous Oakville Elementary School.
The new building will have four general education and learning school rooms and a single unique schooling classroom, a waiting around home, an business and a multipurpose-cafeteria area, Staley said.
Tacoma-based mostly architect company Erickson McGovern created the new elementary school and Pease Design, a Lakewood-primarily based corporation, has been contracted to do the demolition and design of the elementary college, alongside with the renovations to the substantial faculty. Oakville’s preschool, kindergarten and 3rd-grade lessons are at present held in the adjacent principal college developing, when the remaining elementary grades work out of a wing in the district’s principal setting up. They will continue to be in which they are until eventually the new faculty is total, at which time most of the students will move into the new making, Staley mentioned.
Substantial college college students and staff members, nevertheless, are in the method of vacating that making so personnel can begin on the next section of the district’s bond venture: a complete renovation of the high school.
The significant college renovation will consist of updating the engineering and mastering areas, renovating the bogs, modifying the music room to enhance acoustics and make it less complicated for learners to get devices in and out, incorporating a new classroom near the kitchen, updating the office environment space, and installing new ceilings, flooring, furnishings and doorways in all lecture rooms.
“Our substantial faculty is at the moment evacuating the constructing to give the group comprehensive entry to that creating in the hopes that that will boost the pace they can do the operate,” Staley stated.
As of Monday’s groundbreaking ceremony, the large university renovations have been approximated to consider 9 months.
For the foreseeable foreseeable future, superior faculty lessons will be carried out in the outdated gym, on the school’s stage and in the new music home. Band has moved into the wooden store, principals and counselors are functioning out of closets, and the district business will work out of a development trailer.
The momentary classroom areas are larger sized than the school’s present lecture rooms, and with the campus’s recently-installed HVAC procedure in place, Staley is not anticipating any difficulties pursuing COVID-19 safety measures.
But that does not indicate the new circumstance is not going to bring about some limited-term strife for students and team.
“It’s likely to be a mad experience for us here for the future couple of months but we know it can be likely to be short-term ache for extensive-term gain for our pupils,” Staley said. “We talk to for persistence from the community and from the learners and employees due to the fact we know it is not going to be effortless on any of us. It is really now been tricky.”
Staley thanked university staff members, Oakville voters, group associates and local businesses for their ongoing guidance of the faculty district as they perform to update the campus.
The bond funding the renovation tasks handed in February 2020 with 66{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of the vote, or 312 of 472 whole votes, in accordance to earlier Chronicle coverage.
“Our learners are really heading to benefit from these gifts from our citizens and we know that Oakville values its pupils by way of this gift and so we’re grateful for that,” Staley explained.
In addition to the two main assignments, the bond is also funding updates to fireplace and stability programs all over the campus, renovations to the baseball and softball fields, the design of new protected seating outside the house the football subject, paving all the schools’ parking a lot and upgrading the elementary playground.
“Our target at Oakville Educational institutions is to personalize discovering for every pupil and assistance them attain accomplishment, for regardless of what that will search like for them, and this work will help us in staying ready to satisfy that vision and see that aim by,” Staley mentioned.
Earlier this 12 months, the faculty district completed renovating the campus’s kitchen area and installing a new campus HVAC procedure, new lighting, new roof and new windows. Individuals projects were funded by a $4.6 million tiny colleges modernization grant and $500,000 from the Legislature’s money job funds, according to former Chronicle reporting.
While private schools around the country had a tumultuous time during the pandemic, with some seeing enrollment spikes while others experienced declines, private high schools in Los Angeles have remained a stable option for parents considering education choices.
Statewide, private high school enrollment in California dipped by about 1,500 students as the pandemic struck in 2019-20, but largely bounced back in the 2020-21 school year, according to information provided by schools to the California Department of Education. Enrollment in August stood at about 150,700 students, only slightly fewer than the school year before the pandemic.
In Los Angeles County, which includes the city of Los Angeles as well as Beverly Hills, Pasadena, Santa Monica and many other cities in Southern California, the dip in enrollment was more pronounced, but still not large. Between the 2018-19 and the 2020-21 school years, enrollment at private high schools decreased by about 3.5{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf}, according to the Department of Education data.
However, the data also shows the drop in enrollment at Los Angeles County private high schools appears to be slowing year-over-year, with enrollment down almost 1,100 students in the 2019-20 school year but only about 600 in 2020-21.
Deborah Dowling, executive director of the California Association of Independent Schools, which represents 232 schools statewide and more than 50 in the Los Angeles area, says she does not see major shifts.
“Overall, 2020-21 enrollment across our association was down 2{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} from 2019-20,” she wrote in an email. “We don’t know if that will come back up for 2021-22, stay steady or drop a little further, but we don’t expect much change. Enrollment does seem to have held reasonably stable through the pandemic.”
Educational consultants are saying the same.
“Generally, private schools in Los Angeles have continued to maintain enrollment numbers despite the pandemic taking a financial toll on many segments of American society,” Akbar Rahel, admissions director at Prep Expert, a company that helps students prepare for college testing and application, wrote in an email. “Of course, this can be attributed to the fact that the pandemic had a disproportionate impact on lower-income families. Families with children already in a private school were unlikely to feel the negative financial effects of the lockdowns and restrictions.”
The average annual tuition for private high schools in California is $19,800, according to the Education Data Initiative, and top schools in Los Angeles can be $30,000 or more.
Jamie Bakal, a former teacher and veteran education consultant in Los Angeles, says there are many factors impacting educational choices and enrollment. But the smaller classes offered by private schools, along with wellness initiatives, expanded class offerings and an emphasis on college preparation, keeps interest high.
“There seems to be a push and pull from a few different things,” she says of the current climate. “But it has all kind of balanced itself out.”
Overall, she says, “I think interest is up.”
Many Private High School Options for Parents
For parents looking at private high schools in Los Angeles and the surrounding area, here is a sample of what’s available:
Brentwood School in Los Angeles serves about 1,200 K-12 students across two campuses. It has about 575 students in high school, and 46{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} identify as students of color. The average class size is 17 and the student-to-teacher ratio is 8-to-1. The school’s Veterans Center for Recreation and Education, a decades-long partnership with the West Los Angeles VA, brings a unique set of resources to the school.
The Buckley Schoolin Sherman Oaks, California, has about 830 K-12 students and an average class size of 13. The student-to-teacher ratio is 12-to-1. It offers 20 after-school programs, 40 student clubs and organizations, and 50 summer programs, according to the school.
Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences in Santa Monica, California, serves more than 1,200 K-12 students, with about 550 in high school. About 50{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of the student body identify as students of color, as well as about 38{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of the faculty. The student-to-teacher ratio is 8-to-1, according to the school.
Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles serves about 1,600 students in 7th through 12th grades. Roughly 59{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} identify as students of color. The average class size is 16 and the student-to-teacher ratio is 8-to-1, according to the school.
The International School of Los Angeles serves about 1,000 students across multiple campuses. Students represent 65 nationalities and 40 different languages are spoken, according to the school. The school features immersion in French and students can earn a French Baccalauréat or an International Baccalaureate.
Loyola High School in Los Angeles is a Catholic school serving about 1,300 boys. It features more than 80 clubs and activities; a student-to-teacher ratio of 23-to-1; and 99{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of graduates go on to attend a college or university.
New Roads School in Santa Monica, California, serves about 520 K-12 students, with a maximum class size of 20. About 40{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} identify as students of color, along with 34{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of the faculty. The school counts Amanda Gorman, the first U.S. Youth Poet Laureate, who recited her work at President Joe Biden’s inauguration, as a graduate.
Oakwood School in North Hollywood, California, serves about 800 students in grades K-12 and has about 90 students per grade in high school, where 43{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} are students of color, according to the school. Students have made study-abroad trips to Korea, Japan, Sierra Leone and many other countries and 100{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of the school’s seniors are accepted to college.
Westridge Schoolin Pasadena, California, serves 550 girls in grades 4 to 12. It has a student-to-teacher ratio of 7-to-1 and an average class size of 15, according to the school. The school offers more than 150 student leadership roles.
Wildwood School in Los Angeles serves 725 K-12 students across two campuses, including almost 230 in high school. About 34{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} identify as students of color, along with 43{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of the faculty. The student-to-teacher ratio is 15-to-1. Internships are woven into the curriculum for juniors and seniors, allowing students to explore careers and develop workplace experience.
Samari, 10, teaches her mother, Michele Webb, how to play chess Wednesday at their home in Lewiston. Webb home-schooled her daughter last year but the two decided that public school was a better fit, and Samari is back at school this year. The girl learned how to play chess as part of her home schooling and continues to enjoy the game. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal
LEWISTON — After more than a month of hybrid learning last fall, Michele Webb decided to take on part-time work and homeschool her daughter.
While many of her peers struggled to pay attention and learn with the mix of remote and in-person classes, Webb’s daughter, Samari, excelled in her studies at home.
So when the the new school year approached, Webb again chose to homeschool her now 10-year-old daughter. They made it through a month of home schooling before Webb reenrolled her daughter in McMahon Elementary School in Lewiston at Samari’s request.
Last year, home schooling surged across the state as many parents, like Webb, chose to take on the responsibility of their children’s education. But as schools prioritized strictly in-person learning and vaccines became widely available to those who are age 12 or older, many of these one-time home-schooled children have returned to the classroom.
From October of 2019 to 2020, the number of home-schooled students in Maine increased by 78{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} to 12,082. According to the Maine Department of Education, 8,044 students homeschooled in Maine as of October this year, a 50{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} decrease from 2020, though still an overall 16{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} increase from the 6,763 in 2019.
Webb wishes she could continue home-schooling her daughter. Samari, who has been back at school for nearly three weeks, comes home each day and tells her about how easy her classwork is. Her homeroom teacher is currently out on maternity leave and the long-term substitute was sick last week, which left the students with different teachers each day.
Although Webb has nothing but good things to say about the staff at McMahon, she worries Samari is learning less in public school than she did at home. But after returning to full-time work this summer, Webb, a single mother, said it was nearly impossible to begin Samari’s schooling before 4:30 p.m. each day, even while working from home.
“I struggled this year because I knew she was missing school. And I gave into it because after a month I just saw her mental health declining, being so long into this pandemic and being away from people,” Webb said. “She was doing fantastic, but … ultimately I had to sacrifice the good education to respect the mental health part.”
In Lewiston, 106 kids were home-schooled as of October 2019, doubling to 214 in 2020. Now, the number has dropped by a quarter to 172. The Auburn School Department showed a similar trend. With 101 home-school students in 2019, the number rose to 171 in 2020, then dropped to 146 this year.
Webb isn’t the only parent who reluctantly reenrolled their child this year. Nate Turner of South Paris let his daughter return to school in May, but his frustrations with the school district have nearly convinced him to homeschool again.
‘WE’LL DO THIS AGAIN OUR WAY’
Turner was two hours away from home when the school nurse called asking him to pick up his son who began pre-kindergarten this fall.
Kolton, who is 4, was pulled from class after the teacher noticed him cough several times. Turner left his work in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and drove to Paris Elementary School to take him home.
After staying home for a couple of days, Kolton returned to school for two days before Turner was told his son would need to quarantine for an additional 10 days.
Kaycie Turner, 10, looks over to her brother, Kolton, 4, and father Nate at their home in South Paris. Kaycie was home-schooled last year and has returned to public school this year, which she says she prefers so she can be around her friends. One thing she liked about home schooling was that she was able to get through all her work much quicker. “One time I was done at 11 o’clock,” Kaycie said. She studied the history of motocross and did research papers about motocross riders while homeschooling. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal
Several arguments with school personnel have left Turner unhappy with what he said were the complicated, sometimes inconsistent COVID-19 prevention policies in the Oxford Hills School District. Last year, he chose to home-school his daughter, Kaycie, now 10, because he was not comfortable sending her to school where she would be required to wear a mask all day.
It was his daughter who asked to return to school last May so she could see her friends. But Turner said it hasn’t been easy for her.
In years past, Turner said Kaycie’s grades were near the top of her class. Now, lower grades and reprimands at school cause her to come home upset at times.
“This is the point where I’m at,” he said. “If my daughter comes home and says, ‘Hey I had another bad day,’ … All right, I’m pulling you, I’m done. We’ll do this again our way.”
In the Oxford Hills School District, 185 students were home-schooled as of 2019. That number nearly doubled in 2020 to 359, falling by 41{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} to 251 this year, according to district data.
Turner, who is self employed, got creative with his daughter’s education last year. When Kaycie struggled to write a report on a topic that she had little interest in, he assigned her to write about motocross, a type of off-road motorcycle racing. He and his children travel across the U.S. to compete in and attend motocross races.
“She knocked it out of the park,” he said. “You would have thought I wrote it.”
Still, home schooling was hard, he said. There were times when neither he nor his daughter were in the mood to focus on schoolwork.
“A lot of it was trying on (our) relationship,” he said. “When you spend 24 hours a day with someone, seven days a week, you’re going to have issues. It’s never rainbows and unicorns.”
Even so, he would be more than happy to home-school again, he said.
“I learned probably just as much as she did in this past year, between seeing how bad of days kids have,” he said. “You know, we don’t always see that at the schools.”
WON’T GO BACK
Unlike Webb and Turner, Andrea Holmes did not reenroll her children in the public school system this year. She began homeschooling her daughters, Bailey and Alyssa, in October 2020 after missing three weeks of remote school for a family matter and struggling to catch up. Instead, Holmes turned to homeschool instruction.
The pandemic gave Holmes a reason to home-school her daughters like she’s always wanted, and after a successful year, she has no plan to stop.
Bailey, 10, said her favorite part of home schooling is that it takes “two seconds” to go to school in their home in Leeds. Alyssa, 8, said likes having the extra time to complete assignments and projects.
“We like homeschooling,” she said. “We can actually slow down and do what we need to do, not in a rush, so the teachers (don’t say) ‘you need to do it quickly.’”
A couple times a week, they substitute book learning for field trips to places like the Maine Coastal Botanical Gardens. Other times, Holmes turns daily tasks like grocery shopping into teaching experiences.
“That is actually part of the curriculum, because they’re applying their math and their reading (and) because they have to read nutrition labels, so that’s all health and science,” Holmes said.
Andrea Holmes has been home-schooling her children, Bailey, middle, and Alyssa, at their home in Leeds. Holmes recently bought their home, which came with a flock of chickens, to which she added her own chickens and a gaggle of geese. The girls do much of the daily care for the birds, making sure they are getting the right amount of feed, collecting eggs and keeping their coop clean. Holmes says they have been learning biology and critical thinking skills. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal
Her mother, who moved from Arizona to Maine last year, helps her homeschool Bailey and Alyssa. Holmes works a full-time job as an independent contract nurse, squeezing a 40-hour work week between Friday and Sunday each week.
“Not everyone can (home-school) because of their work life,” she said. “I‘ve been blessed that I am capable of doing it.”
Bailey and Alyssa also miss seeing friends at school, she said, but her flexible schedule has allowed her to regularly arrange outings and activities with other home-school students.
In MSAD 52, which serves Turner, Leeds and Greene, 61 students were home-schooled in October 2019, nearly doubling to 111 in 2020. Now, 96 students in the district are home-schooled.
Holmes said she’s wary of the shifting political mindsets in schools. When her daughters reach high school age, she said she may revisit the idea of enrolling them into the public school system again. But for now, she and her daughters are happy to continue learning at home.
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