In 2010, my wife and I chose to make Nashville our home. In 2012, we had our son, and in 2014 we had our daughter.
When our kids became old enough to start kindergarten, thankfully, we were zoned for a well-established public elementary school, so that’s where we placed them. Little did we know that around his 1st grade year, our son would be diagnosed on the autism spectrum.
With an IEP, our son was given extra attention by his teachers, but as the years progressed, it started to feel like the system was just passing him from grade to grade. We noticed this trend where our son’s standardized tests came back below average year after year, yet he was given A, B, and C grades by his teachers. When it came time to look at middle school options, we determined our zoned public school wasn’t the right fit for our son. We looked into a local magnet school, but our son wasn’t qualified due to his low standardized test scores.
We had no other option but to consider private education, but the tuition was more than we were able to afford. My wife and I are both self-employed, average middle-class, tax-paying Tennesseans, and we don’t have the ability to homeschool. Because of our son’s learning disabilities, we were approved for funding through the Katie Beckett and the IEA programs to afford his tuition.
Our son’s new private school recommended he repeat 5th grade to catch up with his peers, which, again, left us frustrated with his results from the public education system, but it was our only way to ensure a promising move forward in our son’s educational journey.
Our daughter is now in 4th grade at the same public school where our son went, and we are worried about what is next for her. Since our daughter doesn’t have a learning disability, we won’t be able to secure the same IEA funding for her private education so she can go to the same school as her brother. Instead, we have to consider taking each of our kids to separate schools, which we fear will render very different outcomes.
With the new Education Freedom Scholarship (EFS) program, students like our daughter have a chance to receive the education that we, her parents, believe is best for her. While I know that, at times, it takes a community to raise a child, the ultimate decision must be in the parents’ hands.
