SE Texas Times

As public school enrollment continues to drop, home schooling is rising across Texas.

Almost 250,000 students, representing at least 4% of Lone Star State students, are not in school. According to a Texas 2036 report, several school districts “face lower enrollments and millions of students – especially those from low-income communities – continue to have virtual and not in-person instruction.”

Studies show that only two out of five Texas students are receiving in-person instruction. As schools try to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, more families are choosing to home school their children.

For some, that choice was made years ago.

“I had never heard of home schooling before,” Valerie Bolieu, a home-school mother from Galveston County, told the Houston Republic. “I started attending a church several years before my children were even old enough to start school. There seemed to be several families that I became friends with who home-schooled, and I started praying about that decision for our family. I really felt led to take the step into home schooling then.”

Bolieu, who is also a customer relations intervention specialist for the Texas Home School Coalition (THSC), has four children. Two have graduated and two are still in school – home school, that is.

“Home schooling is more of a personal decision for me, and I am glad to have been able to do it with all four of my children from the beginning of their education,” Bolieu said. “I do think they have instilled values that will last a lifetime that they would not have received attending a brick-and-mortar school nine months out of the year every year of their education.”

“Twenty-two years,” she said when asked for how many years she has taught her children.

Bolieu utilized several curriculums for home-schooling, Saxon for math, Apologia for science, Sonlight for great literature and others. Although she initially used the same curriculum for each of her children when they were younger, she had to try different curriculum providers to fit their needs since she is a single parent who is employed full-time.

“Now I have one child doing Teaching Textbooks online for math,” Bolieu said. “Sometimes another website to supplement some things or do some extra classes.”

Like Bolieu, many families started to transition into home-schooling since the pandemic. Some chose to wait to enroll children due to safety concerns and other uncertainties, according to the Texas 2036 report.