BENTONVILLE -- Northwest Arkansas Community College rolled out the welcome mat to home-schooled students and their families Thursday.
More than 50 students and parents attended a special event designed for them to learn about classes and programs the college offers. Representatives of the college's divisions manned booths with pamphlets and displays inside the Shewmaker Center for Workforce Technologies.
Home-schooled numbers
There are about 2.2 million home-schooled students in the United States. It appears the home-school population is growing at an estimated 2 percent to 8 percent per year, according to Brian D. Ray, president of the nonprofit National Home Education Research Institute.
Source: www.nheri.org
It was the third time the college had hosted such an event for home-school families since 2012, according to Jamie Johnston, the college's associate director of admissions and advising. The college plans to hold the same event every other year, Johnston said.
There are 40 home-schooled students enrolled concurrently this semester at the college, according to Steven Hinds, director of public relations and marketing. Concurrent students are high school students who take college classes for credit.
Concurrent enrollment has been a bright spot recently in the midst of sagging overall enrollment at the college. Concurrent enrollment rose from 572 last spring to 713 this spring semester, a gain of 24.6 percent. Overall enrollment is down 3.2 percent from last spring.
Adam Carter, 17, of Fort Smith came to the home-schoolers event with his parents. He's been home-schooled his entire life. He said he's particularly interested in studying cybertechnology and fiberoptics.
Carter admitted feeling a bit anxious about going to college, but said what he learned from Thursday's event calmed his nerves.
Jeff Carter, Adam's father, liked the event.
"I think it's great they reach out to the home schoolers," Jeff Carter said. "It's a good opportunity to help kids who are a little nervous. It breaks the ice a little bit."
Jeff Carter said his and his wife's desire to home-school their son did not come from dissatisfaction with the public schools.
"We felt like we could do it. No reason to ask the government to do it when we could," he said.
Carmen Rees, a home-schooling parent of four from West Fork, brought two of her children with her to the event, including her daughter Katharine, who is a sophomore.
Rees said she expected to see college officials give some kind of presentation, but that was not part of the format. Still, she got a lot of information, she said.
Rees said she would consider sending Katharine to the college for concurrent classes, though it's a long way from West Fork.
Rees believes in home-schooling because it allows her to tailor her kids' education to their specific needs.
"I think home-schooled kids are very well prepared for college because they're used to being accountable and responsible for their own education," Rees said.
Her family is involved in a group of about 18 other home-schooling families that live in the West Fork area. Home-schooling is not as hard as some people think it is, she said.
"To me, educating is parenting and parenting is educating," Rees said. "Anyone can home-school. You just have to have the will and the desire."
Daryl Lancaster, chairman of the college's life sciences department, was at Thursday's event to provide information about his department. Lancaster also is the father of four home-schooled children.
"It's a pretty darn big community of home-schoolers here," said Lancaster, a Pea Ridge resident. "I'd probably put it at 5 to 6 percent of the toal population of kids in Northwest Arkansas. And it's growing."
Because most home-schooled children receive one-on-one tutelage, they learn faster than they would in a traditional classroom setting, Lancaster said. That leaves them more time to do other things such as learn an instrument or play sports.
As for the students he sees in his college classes, Lancaster said, "Most of the home-schoolers are the most disciplined ones as far as their education goes."
Dixie Androes, coordinator of the physical science department, said some of her best students at the college have been home-schooled kids. All three of her children were home-schooled and took classes concurrently at the college during their high school years.
"There were things at the high school level I could not offer at home, so they took things like biology and chemistry concurrently," Androes said.
NW News on 02/20/2015