Return to Pointer View home page December 9,  2005

Homeschooling alive and well at West Point

Story and photo by Spc. Benjamin Gruver
Staff Writer

In a place that stresses the importance of a quality education, many have found a new path to academic excellence -- homeschooling.

Making the choice to keep education inside the home rather than in a school building was made for a variety of reasons by at least 40 West Point families, but ultimately all have the same rationale -- giving their children a quality learning experience.

In the case of Lita Powell and her husband Lt. Col. Robert Powell, a systems engineering instructor at the U.S. Military Academy, the decision to start homeschooling was made because of a dissatisfactory school system in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area.

“We were really not pleased with the schools in the area,” Lita Powell said. “We could either choose to homeschool or I could go back to work and use every dime I made for private schooling which we really couldn’t afford.”

Their oldest child, Christopher, was the first to school at home, beginning in second grade, and now all four of their kids stay home to be taught by their mother.

It was only supposed to be a three-year venture that has turned out to be a seven-year ongoing thing, Powell explained, describing it as “a blessing in disguise,” helping out the family more than once after encountering another school system they were not too keen on before coming to West Point.

By the time the family moved here, the Powell’s discovered homeschooling to be a perfect fit for them, and restarting school to be as easy as unloading the packing vans into their new home.

“This was supposed to be the time that we would put them in school, but at this point things were going so well we decided to continue to homeschool,” Powell said.

For the Powells too many advantages were revealed to simply drop homeschooling and place their kids in the well thought-of West Point Schools. Some of those advantages included the flexibility to move without much interruption to the academic year and the ability for each kid to get more one-on-one attention with their studies from mom. 

Powell, a former high school teacher, said, “You always had those students that were way up at the top of the class, those that were struggling and those in between. You kind of feel sorry for the ones that are doing really well because they are not really maximizing their potential. You have to teach in the middle so that you can meet everybody’s needs.”

With homeschooling Powell said she is able to push her children to the max in both their weak and strong areas.

“If I have a child that does not understand a concept … we don’t go to the next lesson until we mastered the first lesson,” Powell said. “By the time we take a test they do very well because we don’t leave a concept unfinished.”

The ability to exercise a child’s full learning potential is the very reason another West Point mom, Karen Herd, is considering taking up homeschooling for her oldest child Corbin, 11, who she explained is very gifted, beginning to learn to read at 19 months of age.

“I feel like he is in a situation where he is not exploring his full potential because teachers are either absorbed by disciplinary issues or children who are struggling,” Herd said.

Promoting a student up a grade level is how most public schools challenge an exceptional student, but Herd explained she does not feel that a younger student is ready emotionally to socially deal with the older students.

“That is not a situation that I want to put my child in,” Herd said, and explained that if her son were in a homeschool situation those social problems wouldn’t be an issue.

Currently Herd and the teachers at the school are working on a different approach to benefit Corbin, but, according to Herd, if that doesn’t work out she plans to go the homeschool route to push him in the right direction.

On the opposite end of the spectrum another mother in the community took her child out of the school system because of her son’s struggle to focus during class.

“It just didn’t seem like the teachers had time,” said Monika Knotts, who started homeschooling her son in August because she thought if she spent the extra time to work with him on his focusing issues she could get him to where he needs to be. So far she said it has turned out better than expected.

But, making the most of a child’s academic potential isn’t the only advantage homeschoolers at West Point have found. Education at home allows parents the ability to instill the kind of values and character they want for their children rather than a teacher or school system.

For many that not only means keeping out negative environmental influences, but being able to choose a curriculum that coincides with their beliefs. For the Powells that means being able to incorporate their religious beliefs, giving them the ability to pray at the start of school each day and incorporate biblical stories to help develop moral character.

According to Powell it is not that she doesn’t believe that morals and ethics are covered in the school system, but said, “Our goal is to glorify God in all that we say and all that we do and if we have an opportunity to glorify God while we are studying and learning academic things that is all the better.”

For parents that homeschool those advantages of maxing academic potential and the ability to develop their own child’s character along with a flexible school calendar far out weigh the disadvantage many perceive homeschooling to have -- lack of social interaction.

Many parents say that is where they work over time, getting their kids involved in sports, church activities and other clubs such as Boy Scouts.

Military families choosing to homeschool often find support and social interaction for their kids through homeschooling groups who do things together such as go on field trips and can take advantage of many of the services of the Department of Defense Education Activity school system.

According to WPS officials it is DODEA policy not to encourage or discourage DOD sponsors from homeschooling their minor dependants, but that a dependent educated at home is permitted to use the auxiliary services of the school including academic resources, access to the library, after-hours use of the facilities and participation in music, sports and other extracurricular activities.

Cadet 4th Class Joseph Berlin, a cadet who homeschooled for three years before coming to the academy, mentioned that he did find some difficulties with interacting with peers while going through high school, but that studying at home allowed him to focus on his weaker areas and be better prepared for the academy.

“However,” said Berlin, “I do not feel it has hindered me in making friends at the academy.  It is not like people can tell I was homeschooled, and most don’t even know that I was.”

For more information about homeschooling in general contact Lita Powell at (845) 446-2598 or Beth Stobbe at (845) 446-3882.

For more specific information on homeschooling at West Point contact the West Point Schools’ Phyllis Caputo at (845) 938-2062.