TYLER, Texas — All this extra time together, learning in new ways, has really been enlightening for so many families. Enrollment for next year is up at King's Academy Christian School in Tyler. While we can't say for sure it's due to the pandemic, it's interesting timing. They use the university model which has actually been around for more than 25 years. The school is deeply rooted in Texas.
Grace Preparatory Academy opened in 1993 in Arlington. 10 years later, King's Academy arrived in Tyler.
"When our daughter was in kindergarten, we noticed that it was a really long day for her and week for her," mother, Ashley Hollis, said. "And a lot of the times in the evenings, we noticed that we would get the grumpy side of her instead of her cheerful, happy self that we are used to."
Ashley Hollis knew she needed something different for her children. She didn't feel the need to home school, but something part-time and private. Well, that seemed like a better fit.
"The little ones go on Tuesday and Thursdays," Hollis said. "Now, all three of ours go three days a week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays. I love it. It is just the right amount of school. Class sizes are smaller."
The Hollis children are now in ninth, eighth and sixth grades. So, you're probably curious what they're doing on those off days from King's Academy Christian School?
"The nice thing is the teacher gives all of the assignments, so I don't have to come up with anything to teach my child. These are what your assignments are when your child is at home," Hollis explained.
While parents are considered co-teachers, the burden of creating lesson plans falls on the teachers.
"We believe it's a good hybrid, a good combination of both," parent Josh Gentry, said.
"When Macy was that age to start making school decisions. I felt called to home school in some capacity, but we also just had Kate," Amy Gentry said. "So, we had three little ones and it just felt overwhelming. We had some friends introduce us to this model and it really seemed to just take that burden off of us as the planning and curriculum. All that is basically done for you through this partnership, so we went ahead and made that decision to start Macy in Kindergarten and it's really been the biggest blessing for our family."
Now, Amy and Josh Gentry have four young girls ages 3 to 10.
"I do still have two little ones at home, so during our at home days, I am still keeping up with them and school. Tuesday/Thursday gives me sweet time with them," Amy Gentry said. "I think another thing we love about the format is there's really not a lot of work at night, not your standard homework. The at home days, you get it all done. Typically, with our little ones by lunch and we are freed up the rest of the day."
"And as somebody may be able to guess, it started with home school families who wanted more than a co-op," Administrator at King's Academy Christian School, Dr. Wayne McEntire, said. "A lot of home school groups have co-ops to teach Spanish or music or things like that.
"Yes, we are a small school. We have about 100 students last year, but as of today it's 145, some part time, so percentage wise, 35% plus and we still have parents calling. I don't know if it's directly because parents tasted of the model without a choice last year, I think it's word of mouth," McEntire said.
At Kings Academy, they employ professional teachers part-time.
"And we in turn, are able to charge less. It's less expensive at conventional Christian schools," McEntire said.
Their hybrid approach to school made the transition to virtual learning pretty seamless in parents eyes when the governor shut schools down in the spring.
"I think it may have felt like a hiccup a little bit, but it didn't just feel monumental. I think we were very equipped to go straight into that model. We continued to use RenWeb software for the days they would have been at school, and they just assigned those activities at home so that all felt very normal," Gentry said.
"This whole COVID thing has been so crazy. I'll tell you what, I was so thankful that I was already home with the kids and that we were already used to working on assignments. That very first week it was a little bit of an adjustment. I think teachers over-assigned work," Hollis said. "I feel like we had an easier adjustment for sure because we were already used to getting our assignments on the computer. We didn't have to learn anything new for that."
But, just like other private school and public school students, they felt the emotional toll of being separated from friends.
"I think our girls, like most other kids, the biggest thing they missed was that interaction with their friends and they hated not to go back," Gentry said. I feel like emotionally, kids need their social support to take kids out and force them to be home. We are blessed to have a big family so we don't get as bored," Hollis said.
Before school starts in the fall, they've addressed those hiccups in the event students can't be in class two or three days a week.
"You can't replicate the benefit of a teacher in a small classroom and the benefit of that and the online experience. You can get close, but I don't think you can completely do that and like everybody it happened so fast. We didn't have the ability to put the things in place. We had the tools and the ability to do it, but this year, we've been able to spend a little more time on that remote learning thought process -- how do you do that and train our teachers -- equip our teachers. I think that was the hardest thing. Overnight, we had to do that and we had a little more ramp up time to make that online experience richer," Gentry said.
So, whether it's public, private, virtual, in-class, homeschooling or something in between, parents face big decisions right now when it comes to how their child will be educated moving forward.
"We would never say ours is so much better, or ours are so much further a long that's not what we're going for," Gentry said. "But comparatively what we see personally from ourselves and friends that may be in other schools, our students are right in line with the other students. They're achieving the same things and the other element of that, is not only are they achieving that from an academic standpoint, but they're also learning how to be self-directed, self disciplined on those home days."
"I think the thing I like best is that I actually get to see our kids," Hollis said. "When she was in kindergarten, I was like when are we ever going to get to see our kids? We do church activities and at the time, all three were going to play soccer, just busy. This model has really afforded that."
This pandemic forced many of us out of our comfort zones, children included, bringing us to another lesson learned in that we may have more choices than ever before to get our children the education that best fits their needs.