I have four children on the Utah Fits All Scholarship. They are Parker (kindergarten), Taysom (grade 2), Jake (grade 4), and Zander (grade 5). Jake and Parker both have autism. When Jake was three, I took him to my local school district at the time to have him evaluated for services. I was told that “those kids” aren’t capable of true academics. As a former SPED teacher, I knew better. I have homeschooled all of my children since then. Zander was in preschool at the time. This is my fifth year of homeschooling. All of my children, including Jake and Parker are far beyond grade level in every subject. Home school allows my children to have the one-on-one attention they need to reach their academic potential.
Before this year, I had to buy everything out-of-pocket, and it was a huge strain on our yearly budget. We had one laptop and one iPad to share between all of my children. Field trips were almost completely out of the question because big families can’t afford those things, and because my husband is a school teacher. This year with the scholarship we are experiencing so many more educational opportunities in our community. My children can finally learn from places like Thanksgiving Point, the aquarium, and the planetarium.
The scholarship made it possible to add technology to our curriculum. All of my children are learning programming, and my two oldest are learning complicated, computer programming languages. They have now developed an interest to pursue programming as a future career..
