Like most middle and high school students, the Bontekoe children have a lot on their plates. Between schoolwork, sports and other extracurricular activities, their academic calendar is full. Yet, they still take part in church functions and socialize with friends.
Throughout the winter, evenings and weekends have been about basketball for Elizabeth, Lauren and Bailey. In July, soccer will take over. Lauren and Bailey will be playing at the middle and high school levels, while their sister, currently a high school senior, will be playing for Tennessee Temple University, where she’s scored a soccer scholarship.
The question most strangers ask Elizabeth when hearing about her scholarship is, “Where do you go to school?” She replies, “At home.”
Unlike parents who send their children to a public or private institution, Stephen and Janelle Bontekoe home school their kids, making them part of a growing number of people in Hamilton County who have made the same decision. Janelle says she and her husband want to be “the teaching force” in the lives of their children.
“We feel blessed that God has entrusted us with children to raise. But if we were to send them to school, they would end up spending more hours out of our care than in it. So we chose to home school,” she says.
While Mr. and Mrs. Bon-tekoe feel strongly about home schooling their children, the logistics of teaching four kids ranging in age from eight to 17 are anything but easy. However, Janelle, who handles most of the instruction, has learned to make it work.
“It comes down to scheduling. I’ll have my older ones work independently while I work with my younger ones. When I’m done working with my younger ones, they’ll have some scheduled play time while I work with my older ones,” she says.
Janelle also gets creative with the material. For example, preparing a recipe might turn into an impromptu lesson on how to add fractions. Like adults that work at home, home-schooled students are never far from the next teaching moment.
“For a home school family, education becomes a lifestyle,” Janelle says.
CSTHEA to the rescue
Although the Bontekoes teach their children at home, they are not alone, as a number of organizations in Chattanooga offer support to home educators.
The local hub for home schoolers is the Chattanooga Southeast Tennessee Home Education Association, or CSTHEA. From putting together sports teams that compete against public and private schools, to coordinating a mock trial program, to offering a high school graduation ceremony, CSTHEA provides several services to home educators in Chattanooga.
Parents can also form or join co-ops, groups of home educators that band together to teach their children. The Bontekoes are part of a 10-family co-op in which the moms and dads share the teaching responsibilities based on their areas of expertise. This saves some parents from having to teach subjects in which they are not proficient.
“Let’s say I’m an English major, and I’d rather not teach chemistry. We have a mom in our co-op who’s qualified to teach high school chemistry and another one who teaches elementary science. My older kids also take a Biblical world view class through the co-op because discussion is critical to that topic,” she says.
Home educators can also take advantage of institutions that offer tutorial services, such as Hilger Higher Learning, which offers English, math, science and other courses parents might want someone else to teach.
“Maybe English isn’t your strong suit, but you want your child to have excellent grammar. You could put your child in an English class,” Janelle says.
As easy as 1-2-3
Once a family decides to home school its children, getting started is easy, says Janelle. A good place to begin is CSTHEA’s Annual Education Expo & Home Schooling Curriculum Fair, which is scheduled to take place on July 22 and 23 at Camp Jordan in East Ridge, Tenn. Featuring close to 100 vendors, the event is usually packed with people and organizations that can help a home educator select a curriculum.
Once a parent or guardian has settled on a student’s coursework, the next step involves registering with a Category IV school. The Bontekoes are registered with Family Christian Academy East, which maintains a record of the number of days the kids have received instruction, the grades the students have earned, and the curriculum the parents are teaching. The school also runs the standardized testing students must take and provides high school transcripts.
The benefits outweigh the costs
Elizabeth sits next to her mother on a couch in the family’s living room. Lauren, a sophomore, has claimed a nearby chair and buried her face in a cell phone. Bailey, a middle schooler, is stretched across another couch, while her 8-year-old brother, Gerrit, bolts in and out of the room at random intervals.
The two oldest sisters laugh about “getting (their) butts kicked” by Baylor in soccer, try to remember the name of the play local home school students will be performing this year, and say their relationship is stronger because of the extra time they spend together.
“My friends who go to school don’t know their family as well as I know mine. I’m around my siblings all the time, and I have a good relationship with them,” she says.
Janelle likes the freedom home schooling provides her as a parent, and says the approach likely works better for Lauren than a traditional classroom environment would.
“Lauren doesn’t care for Algebra. A little more maturity might change that, so we’ve taken a step back and are doing consumer math. I like having the ability to do something different when the connections aren’t there,” she says.
Janelle also says home schooling is a good match for Lauren’s personality.
“She’s an artist, and she has an artist’s temperament. A school might call her ADD because she’s easily distracted and lives within her own mind. Experience has taught me it’s tough for those kinds of kids to function within a traditional classroom,” she says.
“Being distracted helps me focus,” Lauren says, looking up from her phone.
“If she’s too distracted, I can tell her to go for a run and then come back to her school work. She doesn’t have to sit in a classroom for 50 minutes. I believe she learns faster because she’s able to do things at her own pace,” Janelle says.
Stephen and Janelle Bon-tekoe moved to Chattanooga 13 years ago. They own a local sign-making business, EtchCraft, and have seven children, three of which are grown.
Elizabeth will be their first child to graduate from home school. Although Janelle has the same qualms every parent has as his or her child draws close to leaving the nest, she is confident in her daughter’s ability to make the transition to Tennessee Temple, where she plans to study Christian counseling.
“Our goal is to make sure our children are ready academically, socially, emotionally and spiritually to take the next steps on their own,”
she says.
Janelle is adamant that home schooling has not been about protecting her children, but about preparing them. And she says the other options available to parents in Hamilton County, including public and private education, are good choices as well.
“We’re fortunate to have public, private and home education available to our families. The important thing is that parents have the right to choose the best option for their children.”
For more information on home schooling, visit the CSTHEA Web site at www.csthea.org.