Home Link program a great success: 38 kids enrolled

The Cascade School District Home Link program is proving quite popular. It is up to 38 students now. Cascade Superintendent Bill Motsenbocker said at first, they felt if there were 10 kids, they could add a teacher. 

“I think we had 18 kids the first. We went ahead and did the hire. MaryLou Bailey has done a fabulous job,” Motsenbocker said, at the Oct. 9 Cascade School Board meeting. “Now, we’re up to 38 so that is quite a few more kids. It is K-8, because that is MaryLou’s certification. She only teaches classes she can legally do.”

What they are finding out now is that some Home Link families want to take part in the regular K-8 program, school based classes. One day a week, kids would go to Home Link, Motsenbocker said, because there are some fun classes the kids want to take. 

Motsenbocker said they would like to adopt a new policy for next school year. 

“If you have a fifth grader and you’re really struggling teaching math to your fifth grader and you are a home school parent, what we’re going to ask them to do is if you’re going to be doing Home Link most of the time but you want to do fifth grade math, you need to do fifth grade math every day, not on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and do something else on Tuesday and Thursday,” Motsenbocker said. 

In grades 3-to-8, nobody is opting out. They are either doing full time school or full time Home Link, he said. 

“We do have a few students at PD that are doing a variation of that, where a student is not there on Wednesdays. They are doing this music thing,” he said. “The families are working directly with the teachers at PD.”

Anytime the teacher lets the parents know the absence one day a week is having a detrimental affect on the child’s progress, Motsenbocker said, then the parents have agreed they will come back or take them out. 

Next fall, this will be in place at the beginning of the year. 

“The kids that are doing it are all real strong. The teachers feel this will work. So let’s the families do what they already planned with the music lessons,” Motsenbocker said. “If it becomes a problem, we’ll address. So far, it has not been a problem. Seems to be working okay. It’s actually pretty hard on the teachers because they feel responsible for those kids. From third grade on, they are involved with the state testing so those scores matter to us.”

Ian Dunn can be reached at 548-5286 or editor@leavenworthecho.com.