As this semester comes to a close...

It's hard to believe that a short 9 months ago my friend Tina Ayers and I sat down at Red Eye (now Lucky Goat) and tried to think through whether we could really take control of our children's academic future and create a community that fit our needs.

We both had worked years trying to make a product fit us.  But we had seen that there was no peace in that process.  One more time we were both at an impasse with the product, and the needs of our families.

Knowing that Tina and I had complimentary skill sets, I truly felt like we could accomplish carving out what we had always envisioned. 

We just needed a few additional elements - 

• Others who were gifted in teaching "buying in" to our vision.
• Like-minded families who needed something to facilitate their children's intermediate and secondary education, and were willing to navigate without a map with us.
• A place to meet
• A plan to follow.

Quickly God brought these elements together.  And here we are at the end of the first semester!

For many of us, this has been our best year of home schooling middle or high school we've had.  We see the benefits of accountability in our children's character, we relish sharing a responsibility for teaching them, and we are thankful that we are seeing the start of a community growing together in a way that will allow us to continue to edify, encourage and educate one another!

Even as we turn to "what's next for next year" it's hard to believe how far we've come from that first "official" meeting.

And we continue to grow - things we thought would organically come together haven't, while other benefits we never imagined have.  That's the process of growth, that's why we told those first brave souls who decided to partner with us - "This is all a grand experiment, we can't promise it won't fail."

As we use this blog to keep you up to date in the plans for next year, we hope to feature some of our teachers who can share the philosophy of that subject for our community, board members who can share their vision for us and even students who can share what this year has meant to them.  

Please feel free to reach out with questions, and ideas of what you'd like to see explained or addressed here.