Periodically we will be highlighting true stories of our members. The thought behind this

feature is to remind you that real people with real lives homeschool. We hope this

provides a sense of empowerment and excitement in relationship to your homeschool journey.

Esmeralda Ortega

Staff Sergeant, US Marine Corps

I tried various things to help my daughter and I wasn’t one of those parents that blamed
the teacher but in hindsight, California public school failed her miserably.

I have not even mentioned the bullying, the labeling, and the other issues over the years
that contributed to my daughter’s reactions.

The last straw was finding out that during one of these shutdowns because she
couldn’t answer a question, the teacher sent her out to that same class but she
refused to move. She later told me that she was too embarrassed to move. So the
teacher called the office and the principal herself came down and personally removed
her from class.

When she made it to second grade, things started to go downhill and the shutdowns,
along with the screaming started again. Her teacher called us or emailed us on a
regular basis due to her displays of frustration. Unfortunately, due to being a military
family, we had to pull her out mid-way through her second grade. She was enrolled in
a new school and the talks started again. During this period, both teachers informed me
that they did not have time to work with her. She was constantly pulled out of class to
get tutored. It was worse in the new school because as she put it, “she was pulled
and placed into the dumb kids class” when she couldn’t answer questions relating
to the subject.

She made it to first grade and we were delighted that she was placed with the same
teacher for an all first-grade class. Things remained tentative.

We felt we had no choice and we had her repeat kindergarten which caused her to
feel like a failure and made her wonder why her friends got to move ahead while she
was forced to stay behind. The emotional distress all this caused her was beyond us.
As a result, she displayed a lot of anger, she screamed at teachers, she shut down and
she was falling further behind. Unfortunately, she was once again placed in a guinea
pig class where half the class was in kindergarten and the other half in first grade.
Her saving grace was that she got a teacher that genuinely cared about her and worked
with her more one on one.

In her first year of kindergarten, she was placed in a co-op where she had two
kindergarten teachers alternating teaching days and there was no communication
between them. It caused her much frustration and we were furious as we were not
informed prior that this class was going to run this way. In the end, they failed her
and recommended she repeat kinder!

My daughter was in public school up to second grade. My husband and I were dual
military. This fact in itself had already caused my daughter anxiety as she experienced
one of us absent every year due to deployments.

No more screaming or shutdowns. I have found that I absolutely love teaching my daughter
and my toddler as well. I will never look at public school again. Not to mention the peace of
mind that my daughters will not be involved in a bullying or school shooting situation.

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