Home Link program helps home-schooled students

The Cascade School District Home Link program is in it’s second year. It is a program to help home-schooled students in the Cascade School District, mostly in third to eighth grades.

Home Link teacher, Mary Lou Bailey, reported to the Cascade School Board at the Feb. 27 meeting. She said the first year was a great success.

“We picked up a few extra classes. Threw out some. At the end of every year, I send it out to the parents. What is it that you want us to do? We added a math skills class,” Bailey said. “That is a half-hour class really hard on math facts. We have two different grade levels in that. That was a good one to add on.”

There are some classes taught by independent contractor parents and community members. Each student is required by the state to have a certain amount of study hours, whether at home or in the classroom.Bailey meets with each student each week to make sure they are getting enough hours.

“Every month, I have to do a report on all the kids, showing how many hours at home and how many hours in class with me. They have to have a weekly review with me. Sometimes, they will say, they were goofing off and didn’t get this many hours,” Bailey said. “I remind them, they have to do those hours. They would have to boost those hours for the following week.”

Most of the students are getting their hours every week, she said. There are two different science classes, one for the younger students, one for the older. They are studying a completely different curriculum. Bailey said she tried to make it very hands-on and investigative.

The history class this year is medieval history. Last year was ancient history. Next year will be post-renascence.

“There is a new class a parent requested called Odyssey of the Mind. I had never heard of it. I did a lot of research over the summer to see how Odyssey of the Mind works. It is all grades, K to 8,” Bailey said. “We have 16 kids in the class. The goal is to get kids to work together in groups and problem solve. This has been a huge success. They were working on a roller coaster design project. There were different requirement. We had a day where we showed them off to parents and judged them.”

Now, Bailey said they are onto a new project based on the interest of the students, miniatures and electricity. The students are building miniature scenes which must have at least three electrical components.

Superintendent Bill Motsenbocker asked if the students would compete in the Odyssey of the Mind competition.

“We haven’t planned that they would. If they continue to request this class, that is something I would like to do. There is a state and international competition. They have the long term problem solving and also short term or spontaneous, where they are given a problem and have 15 minutes to solve it. Once our miniatures are finished, we’re going to work on some spontaneous,” Bailey said.

One big change from last year, she said, is there are now four community members coming in to teach classes. Last year, there was a mom who taught history and karate. It was all completely volunteer.

“That really made me think, we need to find a way to compensate. We have a French teacher, an art teacher, an herb teacher and a fitness teacher to come in from the community. Now, they get paid and it really has been a huge help to the program,” Bailey said. “The students love it because they get a little variety. It is not just me talking all the time.”

Bailey looked at her goals from last year and compared their results. There was a goal to increase the enrollment to 30. At that time, they had 22 students from 13 families. Now, there are 25 students from 17 families.

“I’ve been talking to Julie (Winters) in the office about helping me find some of those families who are home schooling but are not connected with Home Link. What I would like to do for next year is actually reach out to those families and let them know there is help, because homeschooling is not easy,” Bailey said.

Another goal was to have all the written learning plans turned by June. She said they were able to do that. The plans were updated in August to make sure it had everything they wanted. Another goal was to have the independent contract teachers paid. They were able to do that.

Another goal is look at increasing the grade level for Home Link into high school. Bailey said they have not done much with that. One of the goals for this year is to increase enrollment to 30.

Bailey said the superintendent encouraged her to collaborate with other teachers, so she had been talking to teachers and principals.

“The one big question we get from staff members is who pays for Home Link? Home Link spends about 80 percent of the revenue they generate. We bought her a computer lab of the HP Streams. We are using some of the other funds to help with equipment and furniture,” Motsenbocker said. “We don’t want it to be a money making operation. That is not the purpose of the district. When she asks for things, we can almost always do it.”

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