S1: What if the way you picture school isn't the way it actually feels? For a lot of people , school means crowded hallways , early mornings , and sitting in the same desk every day. Wait. The same desk every day. Yeah , like same seat , same room , same routine. That already sounds exhausting. But for others , school looks completely different. No bells , no packed classrooms. No one size fits all schedule. Okay , that part actually sounds kind of nice. I'm not gonna lie. Yeah. When people hear the word homeschool , they usually imagine being stuck at home , working alone. Missing out? Yeah. Like , no friends and no social life. Yeah. Like you just never leave your house. But that's not the full story. Because for some students , homeschool isn't about isolation. It's about finding space. Space to focus , space to breathe , and sometimes space to feel safe again. That part that people don't really think about. Yeah , they really don't. And for many , it's not even a fresh choice. It's something they turn to when something else isn't working. When traditional schools becomes overwhelming , unfair , even harmful. And for others , it becomes the place where things finally start to make sense. So it's not just one thing. Nope. Not even close. So what is homeschool really like and why do so many assumptions about it get it wrong? This is voices don't homeschool isn't the stereotype. And in this episode we're talking about homeschool from the students who actually lived it. When people hear homeschool , they usually picture the same thing staying home , working alone , missing out. But for a lot of students , homeschool doesn't look like that at all. Sometimes it's a choice and sometimes it isn't. Welcome to Voices Divide. This is our homeschool episode. I'm Athena and I'm here with. I'm Arabella , and we went to a school called Imperial Valley Homeschool Academy. So let's talk about what exactly homeschool is , because when people hear like , oh , you're homeschool going from homeschool , what a freak or like , weirdo. Yeah , like , they think I'm gonna lift up my shirt and.
S2: Say , you want to see my secret freckle.
S1: Like that? We don't have friends and we don't go out , and all we do is just do work at home. Yeah , but it's it's not true. Um , our school is pretty unique in the sense that it was.
S2: More sort of like independent studies , like , almost like hybrid learning.
S1: Which means is like in the sense that if you didn't want to go to school , you really didn't have to. We have a like a curriculum of the stuff we needed to do throughout the week and get it turned in by Friday , and it wasn't that heavy. It's basically what you have to do at normal school , like public school , but we had the choice to go in three times a week if we wanted to. So like Monday , Wednesday you go in and you have your teacher and they just teach you what's on the ground.
S2: And it was nice because it was the days were shorter than a regular school day , so it was almost like a half day. You would be there at first. Homeschool can feel completely different from what people expect.
S1: Yeah , and then on Fridays , everybody in school would go and it would just be like a fun Friday. It was pretty. It was pretty cool.
S2: You do like science experiments. And do you remember do you remember when the. We tried to make those , like , lava lamps and it exploded?
S1: Oh , really? And there was like , a blue stain on the ceiling for a very long time. It's not always structured the same way as traditional school , but probably the best thing is that if you really didn't want to go to school and you just wanted to do home school , then nobody would judge you and they'd be fine with it.
S2: They had the option. You know , I sort of miss that. Like being able to wake up and be like , ah , I don't wanna go to school today.
S1: I know , go back to sleep. Yeah.
S2: Now I wake up and I'm like , huh? I have to go to school. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. My mom was always telling me , don't you wish you were homeschooled again? Dang it. It's nice to be able to sleep in. Yes.
S2: Yes.
S1: To understand it better , we talk to someone who's never experienced homeschool. Hello.
S3: Hello. My name is Dominic , and I have been in the public school system since I was in kindergarten. And I have a couple of questions.
S2: Thanks for being here , Dom.
S3: Oh , yeah. No. No problem. My first question is , how long were you guys homeschooled?
S1: So I was homeschooled my first year of kindergarten , and then I was like , I was begging my mom , mom , I want to go to public school. I want , I want to go to the school where my grandma worked. And at that time , my grandma was working at Meadows Union , um , elementary and it's a K through eighth. And I really wanted to go because she worked there as a computer lab tech. And so I went there from after kindergarten. Once I graduated , they said that homeschool didn't count , so I had to redo kinder at public school. So I was supposed to be a senior , but I'm a junior right now because I did kinder twice. So I did kinder first and second grade in public school , and then my mom took me out. She was like , oh no , no , we're done here. Because unfortunately , I was getting bullied pretty consistently and the teachers didn't like my grandma and how she was. And I was basically guilty by association. And for a lot of students , that change matters. So going back and then third grade , I went to Ibiza again , Imperial Valley Homeschool Academy , and I stayed there until eighth grade graduation.
S2: So I actually have a similar reasoning for so I started homeschool in seventh grade , so really my only experience I had had elementary school like regular public school. So my whole since preschool up until middle school , really , and my parents had decided to take me and my brother out of the regular public school system because we had been bullied pretty regularly at this school that we were attending , and we had tried to get moved into other public schools. Like , I was trying to go to Frank Wright and Kaufman and all the other schools in the Valley. I didn't have time to do an inner district and they wouldn't accept me. And so the only other option for me to be continuing school was Imperial Valley Homeschool Academy. I'm very grateful for IVC because , I mean , the entire reason that we had been switched out of the public school system was me and my brother. We experienced like a lot of bullying , like getting death threats , and we would have been like harassed on a normal basis in the public school and they never really did anything about it. But once we switched over to the homeschool academy , it really it gave us a place where we could feel safe and everybody was really welcoming.
S3: Wow , guys , those are some pretty crazy stories , honestly. I had a public school. I never really dealt with that. No , not really any bullying. I went to Danza over there. It was a K through eight school , so literally everyone there grew up with each other. Everyone was kind of like brother and sister. They're like , I don't know , it's kind of weird to hear someone bullying another person.
S4: One of the biggest assumptions about homeschool is that students don't have a social life.
S1: It might look different , but the connections are still there.
S3: When you guys were homeschooled , it must have been hard for you guys to meet new people because you guys weren't really growing up with each other at the same time , you know? So how did you guys make new friends?
S2: So I actually did sports my whole life , like I did jujitsu and wrestling , and so I had that friend group , um , that I would consistently see and I would grow up with them and meet new people all the time. And it helped my , like , social grow , my sociability , I should say , grow a lot more. So when I got to homeschool , it was different because I wouldn't see them a lot of the time. But , you know , it was they they were people like me , you know , and it wasn't really hard to make friends because they were all there for a similar reasons. Or , you know , they were all really cool , nice people.
S1: For me , making friends was a little bit different. I didn't have like that consistent thing that I was going to like how Arabella always went to wrestling. Um , so when I went from going to public school to homeschool in third grade , it was basically like everything knew what you would expect just walking into a new classroom. But the teachers were always really nice , especially Mrs. Negrete. She was my third grade teacher and she had two sons , but they went to sunflower , which was a school next door , so I didn't get to meet them until like later on when they transferred into my school in like seventh. Yeah , seventh or eighth grade.
S2: Something that was like around the same time that I started to. Yeah.
S1: Yeah.
S2: When Covid changed school for everyone , homeschooled students experienced it differently.
S1: For many of them , it wasn't a completely new system. It was something they were already used to. It wasn't that big of a transition for me since we were already going to school like maybe like twice , three times a week. It wasn't that bad.
S2: You know , that kind of reminds me as well , because I had grown up in public school the whole time , and that my entire , um , learning experience growing up. And then we had that Covid year , like the end of fifth grade and then sixth grade. So distance learning wasn't really different. Like it was kind of the norm at that point. Yeah , it was like going like the hybrid going on campus and then being at home a couple days really wasn't too much of a difference. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. So actually a lot of the schools , once Covid was over , they all just went back and maybe they had half days or they were like slowly transitioning , going 2 or 3 times a week. But that's how it was for us all the time. Mhm. So it was it wasn't like that much of a change.
S2: Not much of an effect I guess. I mean I could see the difference compared to regular consistent going to school five five days a week.
S1: Seeing your friends every.
S2: Day and then to just nothing and on zoom all the time. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. That can that can take a toll on someone. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. But I mean , the transition wasn't so hard because we had already been inside for so long. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. So it wasn't too bad. But obviously Covid still affected everyone. Yeah.
S2: Yeah.
S1: But homeschool isn't perfect.
S3: So what was your curriculum or learning style like? Last question.
S1: So for us , like I said , we just got a list of work that we had to do and turn it in before the end of the week on Fridays. And our teacher would check it And usually schools have to take attendance to know that the students are there to report to the. I'm not sure if it's like the county or the state or I think it's a state.
S2: That's what.
S1: It is. Yeah. And then that's how the school gets money , right? So for us , it's if you turn in your work on Friday that counts as you being there at school.
S2: Your attendance.
S1: Your attendance.
S2: As long as your all your work was completed. Yes.
S1: Yes. The hardest subject was like math. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. I'm not good at math.
S1: Yeah , I'm not either. Honestly , our teachers weren't that good at teaching it either.
S2: But , I mean , we hardly ever saw them.
S1: Yeah , it would only be , like twice , three times a week , maybe three times. The third time was like , for a fun Friday. So you weren't doing math that day. But , um , yeah , the math was the hardest part. They gave us , like , an answer key where our parents were supposed to , like , check it. But honestly , I just learned from the answer key.
S2: Yeah , no , because my mom , my mom would work , and. And my dad works , too. So I would be at home and do the work , but I would just like looking at the teachers , guide.
S1: The parents.
S2: And copy the answers. But I mean , I still learned how to do it from that.
S1: So it wasn't so secure as how it would be if you learned , like at public school. That's the only thing that's that was bad about it. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. What makes homeschool different is the flexibility. But I mean , it was nice though. I liked it because it gave me a bit more flexibility to be able to do my work when at the time that I felt comfortable instead of because once I got older , like in middle school , I started , um , getting really dedicated into wrestling and wanting to improve and do do good. So I would , um , save all of my work for Friday. I would save all my work for Friday , and I would sometimes I just wouldn't go to school and so I could work out or train or do stuff to help me prepare and help me improve. And so it's I know some people do that now , like distance learning , but I would say like it really helped me once I was getting ready for competitions or when I had a specific , specific thing I had to do.
S1: I didn't want to do my work , and I'd save all the work for Friday , and I'd work on it for like three hours. I could have done like , like 15 minutes of work each day. Every day. Yeah , but I just saved it.
S2: Sometimes , like , I wouldn't. I wouldn't train , but we would. My family would go on vacation , we would go on trips , and so we could literally be out the whole week , just like spend time together , have fun , and then come back and have all my work done , like super quick. Yeah. Send it in.
S1: Because if you really think about it , um , the only reason why you can't do that in public school is you're getting the work from day to day. Mhm. Like , I get new work today and I don't know what I'm getting tomorrow. Yeah. But if they gave me the work for the entire week.
S2: Whole sheet? Yeah.
S1: Yeah. You could get it done whatever day you wanted to. As long as it was before the due date. Yeah , but public schools don't do it like that. No.
S2: No. They give you an assignment the day of. And then it's due the next day. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. Or it's due , um , in two days. Right. But you get a new assignment every day consistently. Yeah , but in our case , we would get the weekly lesson plans each month. Yes.
S2: Yes.
S1: So if you really wanted to. There were some kids in our grade that , um , they would do all of their homework for the entire month and then start on the next month.
S2: Like , it was comforting knowing you had that option , you know , to be able to do different stuff depending on what your situation was like or what how you were feeling. Mhm.
S1: Mhm. There was this one kid that would get all of his work done early and basically had three months of extra summer because he got that work done already.
S2: Oh my god. Yeah I should have just done that.
S1: Super jealous. But our experience isn't the only one.
S2: We also talked to our friend Manuel , whose part into homeschool looked different.
S5: Hi , I'm Manuel Negrete. I've been , like , homeschooled for like two and a half years. And this. And I'm talking to my friend Arabella and Athena , which is really nice and low key. And my mom is kind of a homeschool teacher , and she teaches the both of them when since , like , I think like third grade or.
S1: Yeah , Manuel's mom is great as I know her. She was my third and fourth grade teacher. I think it was right before I went into , um , Covid. So I had her for a little bit. And then , uh , growing up there in IV , HSA , I got to know her more and she would bring us food , and she was so awesome. I miss her a lot.
S2: Like a lot of students , his story started before homeschool.
S5: Oh , my story is during my sixth grade. Grade year wasn't really good. Like my teacher , my teacher was kind of like horrible because he he kind of like , messed up and abused the kids a lot.
S1: What what do you mean by that?
S5: Like , I mean , um , so you would , like , yell at them without no probable cause , and then sometimes he would just do messed up stuff , which though , which kind of pushed me to the edge because most of my friends kind of left because of that. So they moved to different schools and stuff like that. So that's why I decided to go to my mom's school , because I also knew you guys from them , and you guys sounded really nice. So that's why I kind of moved over there.
S1: Once he made that change , things started to feel different.
S5: Yeah , I felt , uh , going to home school is , like , better than , you know , being in public school because it's , like , more knit. You're in like a smaller community. So you kind of get to know the people around you. And also it's I don't know , it just feels more comfortable. It's like at a slower pace than most. Like it's like , um , basically it's pretty much just smaller pace. Like it's not very overwhelming with like a lot of people , you're kind of just with a small group and you kind of get like more one on one with like the teacher. So you get taught , you know , pretty well. Then usually public school , public school is very like overwhelming because there's so much people and you kind of just don't get the one on one experience that most people don't get.
S1: I agree. Yeah , homeschool is honestly a really good option to get that one on one because for me , uh , sometimes I have trouble focusing and I like , I literally need someone to sit down next to me and tell me the exact steps , because I can't learn when they're just teaching to a big class. And then I raise my hand to ask a question and they explain it. And I still don't get it because then I feel stupid asking the same question again. So like I literally need that one on one.
S5: No , yeah I agree. Like sometimes like when you like forget or sell now and stuff like that , you don't even know what the teacher is talking about. So you just you look at them and you're like , wait , oh , it's like , I don't understand any of this. So when you raise your hand and they answer your question , it's just , it's just really like you don't really know , like what they're talking about and they don't give you like a one on one experience or like what it is. And it's like , well , if you ask it again , it kind of makes you look , you know , stupid at most.
S2: And over time , that experience grew beyond just academics.
S1: For me , I feel the transition from being in homeschool and then during Covid wasn't that big of a deal to going to high school , because I had always been I've always been a really social person and honestly not being as social and homeschool. It made me a little bit sad because I did want to participate in other stuff , but it was. It made me happy when , um , they finally started adding more things and now they do have like more clubs at the home school , like they have a gardening club that I hear from my little sister , and they still have tall flags , which I participated in , and they had robotics. Um , and I was in that too. And they have the is it cheer or drill or something like that. And yeah , they have like leadership club and that's , that's what they added now because I hear from my little sister on the stuff that she's in , they also have drama. So you can actually participate in like plays. My little sister's been in like 1 or 2 or something like that. So they've really upped their game. And if they had that when I was there , oh my gosh , I don't think I would feel like I was missing out on anything.
S6: It doesn't change how you learn. It changes how you show up.
S5: Well , for me , I've been on a very. I when I was born I was a very , you know , sociable person. So most of my life I was like very sociable. I talked like a lot , pretty much. So it was kind of , I don't know , it was kind of nice having a bigger group because now I feel more confident with talking with people because of like the clubs and the activities from the home school. So it made me more confident to talk to new people. And that's how , you know , I got to this podcast in the first place because I talked to the right people.
S2: For some students , homeschool becomes something more.
S5: Yeah , it kind of makes you have like an escape from like certain scenarios. Because sometimes when you get homeschooled , it's not because of a good reason. Some people have like bad reasons to being there , but it doesn't mean they're bad people. It's just that they weren't given the chance , and now they are getting the chance to enjoy themselves.
S6: A place where.
S1: People feel. Supported.
S6: Supported.
S1: I think another biggest thing for homeschooled advantage is if , uh , there is a few children there at , uh , Imperial Valley Homeschool Academy that were disabled , either physically or in any other way , and being homeschooled allowed them to cope with those disabilities without having to feel pressured or , um , being on like so much of a strict schedule. Their mom could even come to school with them if they wanted to. If if it came to that that there was this kid , um , he was disabled , that his mom would come to school with him every day when I was in third or fourth grade , and she would have to push him around in a stroller , but he still came to school , and we all , uh , treated him very nicely.
S6: Homeschool isn't just one thing.
S2: For some students. It's flexibility.
S6: For others. A second chance it.
S2: Might be smaller , quieter.
S6: But sometimes that's exactly what people need.
S2: Because learning doesn't look the same for.
S6: Everyone and neither does feeling safe.
S2: But when you find a place where you can do both.
S6: That's when school actually starts to work.
S2: This is home.
S6: School isn't the stereotype. Home school isn't the stereotype.
S2: Hosted by Athena moreno and Arabella Roscoe.
S6: Student guests.
S1: Gabby Guzman. Dominic.
S6: Dominic.
S1: Singh , and Manuel Negrete.
S2: Edited and produced by Doctor Thomas Taki.
S6: Episode music by Fernando Gomez Camacho and Spartan Sound Productions. Credit.
S1: Music by Emanuel. Twilight.
S6: Twilight.
S2: Technical and operational support provided by KPBS. Technical producer slash , sound designer Adrian Villalobos , KPBS audio operations assistant Rebecca Chacon and KPBS director of audio programming and Operations Lisa Jane Morissette. This programming is partially made possible in part by the KPBS Explore Content Fund.
