We were waitlisted this year because we’re just barely over the income cutoff for Tier 1. It’s tough as a family of seven with only one income, but I’m glad that those even worse off were given priority. I love being home with my children and personalizing their educations to their needs. They each have unique strengths and also areas where they need to improve and could use more support than I can provide or afford.
For example, Joseph is autistic and incredibly gifted intellectually. He’d be better off in a private online school, but we do what we can afford and he’s doing great in his first year of high school. I’d love to see him thrive by being enrolled at BYU Online High School so he can develop more social skills but still excel academically.
Our fourth, Ben, is in 1st grade and doing great learning to read. He was born severely premature and was on oxygen for just over a year. He’s had multiple surgeries and is very small for his age. One challenge he faces, common to many preemies, is muscle spasticity. He takes a gymnastics class one hour a week and it’s so great for flexibility and muscle growth. It’s helping his attention span, too, which is huge because preemies are also commonly diagnosed with ADHD. If we could afford it, he would benefit from more classes and some at-home equipment. He’s a true miracle. Chronic lung disease was a big issue for Ben early on and when 2020 hit, he was still a tiny toddler with serious lung issues. Getting through 2 1/2 years of COVID isolation was so much easier because we were homeschooling everyone and could protect him aggressively. We came out of that isolation and prices for all the classes and museum memberships we’d used before had skyrocketed, so it’s been hard. The scholarship would help for sure.
I hope that next year the scholarship will be expanded so that we can have the opportunity to better meet the many education needs of each of our children. I’m grateful to have the freedom to homeschool in Utah and to have access to the many amazing community resources out there.
