This story popped up on our Google reader, mistakenly identified as a homeschooling story. This is not homeschooling, this is not about homeschooling. This is stupidity, on the part of a parent and a government school.
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| Rebecca works on an abstract picture. I’ll bet the school paid for the paper and the colored pencils…and that sofa. (photo by Kevin Mingora/The Morning Call) |
Rebecca Maykish skipped school. Not for one day, or one week, or even one month. She quit going to school in fourth grade. She is now 17. Rebecca and her mother never claimed that she was being homeschooled. That would require that they put their own money and effort into her education. They did not notify the school that she would no longer be enrolled. No, she simply stayed home. She was, and is a public school student who does not attend class. In fact, the mother ruled out the possibility of teaching Rebecca at home.
Rebecca says she reads for pleasure, enjoying parodies such as ”Zen of the Zombie,” a mock self-improvement book. But her writing skills are weak and she can only do basic multiplication and division on downloaded worksheets. She estimates she spends three hours a day learning. Barbara Maykish has opted not to homeschool her, saying she worried that she would not be able to help Rebecca with her math and writing problems.(emphasis mine)
Because Rebecca is enrolled as a government school student, the government must provide an adequate education. Since she refuses to go sit in the classroom, the local school board decided to pay for school to come to her. Unfortunately, she just didn’t like her tutor. Or boarding school. Or any other type of actual studying. Now, teen magazines, she enjoys. Modeling classes are fun. And field trips to New York and Toronto are the coolest.
All of these things were paid for by the Palmerton Area school district, to the tune of $46,361. A brief run-down of some of the approved expenses:
- $3,892 on at-home instruction, and hundreds more on educational software
- $2,100 for Rebecca to take classes at the Barbizon modeling academy
- Nearly $6,000 to attend summer camp in Ferndale, N.Y., and go on field trips to Toronto and New York.
- $54 for subscriptions to Seventeen, Teen Vogue and Teen People magazines
- $222 to board the mother’s dogs while visiting Rebecca at a California boarding school
- $2,329 for mother and Rebecca to fly to boarding school
- $500 for tuition and spending from March-May.
So what are Rebecca and her mother planning to do now?
Now that she is 17, Rebecca could legally drop out, but she says she wants to earn a diploma. She can attend Palmerton Area High School until she is 21, but she thinks a cyberschool or another boarding school would be better options.
Another boarding school? According to Rebecca, she was having a great time and making new friends at her previous boarding school, but then the. . .well, the SCHOOL part just scared her away. How would a second SCHOOL be different? Now, if she’s truly scared of sitting in a classroom, cyberschool might be an option. Cyberclasses have been around for several years now though. Why wasn’t it considered with the first $46,000 handout?
Because her daughter has gone the past year without any formal education, Barbara Maykish said she thinks she might need another compensatory education fund.
Ridiculous.
When Rebecca came home, she and her mother had no plan for her education. Palmerton school officials tried to work out a new individualized education plan for her, but Barbara Maykish and school officials could not reach an agreement.
The government has already wasted too much of our money dealing with these fools. Let them wallow in their own stupidity.
And please, let’s stop giving homeschooling a bad name with these clowns.
