My daughter Belle, age 11, received the Utah Fits All Scholarship for the 2024-2025 school year. She had been enrolled and attending a special needs program at a local public school for the last three years. Last year they moved her to a new school and they were not able to meet her needs. She started regressing and made little to no progress in key areas like reading and math. I spent the whole year advocating for her and trying to get the school to make adjustments to help her, to no avail. We have homeschooled our other children, but didn’t have the income to provide the special resources Belle needs until we were awarded the scholarship. When we found out we received it, we decided to bring her home for her education and see if she could start moving forward.
Belle has surpassed all of our expectations this year. Parental involvement has been key for her. Her progress has come so quickly from having an instructor who knows her thoroughly, believes in her, and instructs her in a consistent and systematic way. In her public school classroom she often had different aides or teachers working with her in different subject areas all the time. I think the lack of consistency in who was teaching her, how they were teaching her, and what they were teaching her really hindered her progress. We have overcome that barrier by having her at home.
It is only December and she has already made more progress in her reading, handwriting, typing and braille skills than we have ever seen her make in an entire year in public school! The scholarship has allowed us to purchase a highly tactile reading curriculum with lots of colorful visuals that keep her engaged. It also allowed us to purchase a high contrast keyboard for students with visual impairments to help her with her typing. We were able to purchase an iPad just for her as technology skills will be vital to any future independence she might have. We could also afford her expensive Braille curriculum, which will give her another option in how to engage with the world around her as she grows. All of this was thanks to the funds she received through the Utah Fits All Scholarship.
Having her at home has allowed us to discover why she has not been able to make any progress in math at school (some major gaps in foundational math concept understanding). Once we recognized what was going on we were able to hire a private math tutor for her that specializes in children with special needs. She gets two private sessions per week and we are excited to see her start moving forward in some basic math concepts. The cost for this type of private instruction would have put it out of reach for us if it wasn’t for her scholarship.
Finally, Belle has an interest in drawing and swimming, but she doesn’t function well in group lesson type settings. This scholarship will allow us to provide private, one-on-one opportunities for her to pursue these interests. It’s nice to be able to let her grow in some things she loves alongside all the hard work she is putting in on the subjects that she needs.
