REGINA – The failure to stop rural school closures through a court challenge will lead to more parents teaching their children themselves, some parents say.
“It’s very viable,” said Edith Klein about home-schooling. She’s a member of the group that challenged the Saskatchewan government’s education act and a mother of three children who are now being taught at home since their school in Wood Mountain was closed this year.
“A lot of people do it, but unfortunately a lot of people are forced into it simply for the reason that the alternative is unreasonable,” she said after the case was heard.
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Farther north, in Livelong, the village school was also closed this year and parents such as Inga Sample pulled their children from the school system and started teaching them at home.
“We love it,” said Sample. Their children’s education is “probably better” than if they were in the public system because “if they ask a question we answer it right now, which doesn’t happen in a class of 15 or 20 or 30. There you all sit down and you all cut out a circle.”
Since the Livelong school closed last year, children have been bused to Turtleford, about 20 kilometres away, which is “too long for kids to be on the bus and too far away from us” in case they get sick, she said.
Her children are in Grades 1 and 2 and Sample has no fears for the next few years that she and her husband are not up to teaching them all they need to know. But she said once children near high school age, it might become more difficult.
Distance education
Saskatchewan education minister Pat Atkinson, a target of the SACS suit, said her department’s promotion of distance education might keep some schools open that would otherwise close.
She said through video links, such as one in the Eston-Elrose school division, some rural schools can share teachers and ensure their students are getting as good an education as if they were in the city.
She said the provincial government also has supports for home-schooling and she believes some parents can give their children adequate education at home.
Sample said home-schooling places a strain on parents, but it’s worth the extra labor because the children “are happier.”
Sample’s husband is a musician and art teacher, so he has time during the day to teach the children, she said. During the day, she is the village postmistress.
Edith Klein said her husband, Michael, enjoys teaching the children, who are in Grades 9, 7 and 3, but she worries about the extra strain placed on the farm family.
Sample said most people in Livelong have supported the home-schoolers, but “you still get people who look at you sideways and wonder what in the world you think you’re doing.”
She said home-schoolers are also sometimes accused of “eroding the system” because their children are not in the local school. But she and Atkinson said local schools still get some money for the local, home-schooled children.
Sample said about 20 local families teach their children at home – almost 40 children in all. Parents have been able to put together a local support group for themselves and the children, she said, and this makes life much better.
