A FORUM FOR COMMUNITY ISSUES : Platform

MARK and GAEL PULLEN, Pasadena

We did not start out to be home schoolers; our son was in private school to the completion of third grade. We were quite happy with the school, but the fourth-grade teacher we had some problems with (last year). The administration tried to work with us and the teacher, but after three weeks we pulled our son.

We initially intended this for only one year, (but) we had such a great experience there has been no looking back.

We like the control issue--we control his curriculum and what he is learning. We cover the core basics (reading, math, social studies) in four hours, then we have the rest of the day for extracurricular learning. Though both my wife and I are college-educated, we find specialists to tutor our son. That makes learning exciting. The specialists take them to the real-life experience of science or art or whatever.

Both my wife and I work at home; if we didn’t we probably would not have been able to home school.