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Home Schooling Away From Home

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By COURTNEY CAIRNS PASTOR, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 24, 2007

LUTZ - The classrooms for first-graders and younger children are stocked with miniature plastic chairs, a squat basketball hoop and crayon drawings.

But once a week, one turns into an advanced biology lecture hall and lab.

Teenagers at three tables hunched over microscopes to pick out details they spotted on slides of muscle cells. The high-school students come to the children's classroom for their lessons in anatomy and physiology.

When the 90-minute science class ends, teacher Donna Gunn packs up the microscopes, students' homework and her supplies and makes way for Laurie Jewell, an art teacher who arrives with portfolios, markers, erasers and paper for the next class. Some students stay, some leave and a few newcomers join the group.

The room is a nontraditional setting that fits the nontraditional classes at Grace Family Church in Lutz. The students enrolled there are classified as home-schooled, but their lessons can take place anywhere.

'It gives a choice for the home-school families,' said Gunn, who teaches the science class. 'But home school doesn't mean you have to stay at home.'

Grace church's primary wing was built for Sunday school and youth classes and activities but provides space for the community to use. Teachers have to pass criminal background checks to hold class there, but the church does not require students and teachers to be members of the church, said Travis McClelland, director of men's small groups at Grace.

This year the church hosts about four or five classes and 100 students. On Fridays, the church offers an enrichment group for home-school families.

Grace is part of a network families use to seek educational opportunities throughout the area. Teachers Jewell and Gunn go to other sites the rest of the week to offer their classes. Their students may enroll in one class or several.

'There's a lot of demand out there,' Gunn said.

Having outside options can help parents deal with difficult subjects, particularly at the high school level, she said. Gunn, of Land O' Lakes, has a bachelor's degree in medical technology and used to work in hospital labs. Her background allows her to teach students the topics and how they apply in the real world, she said.

Her sons, whom she home schools, sit in the back of her biology classroom and work on lessons while she teaches. When she finishes, her older son, Evan, sticks around for Jewell's art class.

In art, the students are learning about repetition in drawings and graphic elements. They pause from sketching and shading for 11th-grader Parisa Mousavi to make a presentation on an artist she researched, Gustav Klimt.

Jewell started teaching other children after home schooling her son, now in college, for four years. Parents learned she had an art degree and recruited her to teach a class. Jewell, of Lutz, has taught home schooled students for nine years and works in Dunedin, New Tampa and Temple Terrace.

Besides the subjects and skills they learn, students get to develop socialization skills. Most started with classes by themselves or with siblings, but in the classroom the students high five, share stories and tease one another with nicknames.

Mousavi takes all of her classes outside of the home. The 16-year-old has learned at home as well as enrolling in public school for a couple of grades. She said she enjoys the interaction at her group of home schooled classes.

'I think it's better because you're around other kids,' she said.

Tenth-grader Lauren Lopez has been home schooled since second grade and hopes she can continue until college. Her home classes give the 15-year-old flexibility in case she needs to work around piano or vocal lessons and performances, and if she is struggling in a subject, she can go as slowly as she needs to without worrying about falling behind the rest of the class.

She takes two classes with groups and said the larger classes tend to be more competitive.

She likes them, though they are an adjustment for someone used to working on her own.

'Sometimes it can be hard to concentrate,' she said.

Reporter Courtney Cairns Pastor can be reached at (813) 865-1503 or cpastor@tampatrib.com.

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