#74: Juggling Homeschool While Still Teaching in the School System

Ever wondered how to balance a demanding career while homeschooling your kids? Get ready to be inspired by Leigh Ann Scott, a public school teacher from Kentucky who's done just that. With nearly two decades of teaching experience, Leigh Ann shares her heartfelt journey into homeschooling her four children, driven by her Christian faith and the trials of virtual schooling during covid. She offers listeners invaluable insights into how to juggle a full-time job with the responsibilities of homeschooling, dispelling the myth that you can't do both. This episode is a must-listen for anyone contemplating the switch.

Leigh Ann opens up about the daily realities of homeschooling, from managing screen time to setting up routines that work for her family. Navigating the world of homeschooling can be overwhelming, but Leigh Ann breaks it down, discussing everything from curriculum choices to state regulations in Kentucky. She even shares her journey into writing and publishing books, offering tips for those interested in both homeschooling and becoming authors. Whether you’re considering homeschooling or seeking strategies to balance work and family, this episode is packed with advice, personal anecdotes, and heartfelt stories that will leave you both informed and inspired.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Welcome to this week's episode of the Homeschool How-To. I'm Cheryl and I invite you to join me on my quest to find out why are people homeschooling, how do you do it, how does it differ from region to region, and should I homeschool my kids? Stick with me as I interview homeschooling families across the country to unfold the answers to each of these questions week by week. Welcome, and with us today I have Leanne Scott from Kentucky. Leanne, thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 2: 0:38

Hi, Cheryl. Thanks so much for having me. I'm happy to talk to you today.

Speaker 1: 0:42

I haven't had anyone from Kentucky yet. So I'm interested to hear about like what your reporting requirements and stuff like that is. But let's first get into how many kids do you have and how did you get into homeschooling? I have four children.

Speaker 2: 0:56

I have a girl 14, a boy 12, a boy seven and a girl five, so my youngest one has not started school yet, but my other three have been homeschooling for three years. I'm actually a public school teacher, so I have been doing that for close to 20 years now. Wow, and I don't know how I got started. I guess I know several people who homeschool. I had a really good friend who lives in Tennessee who had homeschooled her kids from the start and I was probably pregnant with my third child and went to my husband and I went to visit her and I remember her showing me the room that she homeschooled in and you know, was just telling me a little bit about what they did. They were involved in a co-op and things and I was just really fascinated by the whole thing. But you know, in my head it wasn't really on my radar. I had never. I had never really known anybody who did that and I had been in public school for such a long time at that point that you know I just was going to take my kids to school with me. I taught in a K through eight school, which is actually pretty unusual for Kentucky. I think we're one of only maybe three or four districts in the whole state that did that, and so I taught middle school, but I would take my kids to school with me, and so that was just kind of what we did. But I don't know.

Speaker 2: 2:22

The more and more I thought about it, the more it just seems like something that I needed to look more into, and so I started reading books and researching and I knew a couple of other people. I realized that homeschooled. I actually have a family member. Her children are quite a bit younger than mine, but she had decided she was going to homeschool, and so I started talking to her. And once I got you know a little bit more information from people, I started reading books and looking into curriculums.

Speaker 2: 2:54

And COVID hit and I said, hey, this is a good time to do it. My kids were schooling virtually. It was an absolute nightmare. I was teaching virtually and I couldn't help my kids because I was having to work all day and it was just. It was crazy and I was like there's gotta be a better, better way to do this. And that wasn't homeschool at all, that was just public school, you know, on a computer. But so I decided that at the end of that school year I was going to pull my kids from school and start homeschooling. I did so.

Speaker 2: 3:22

I decided that at the end of that school year I was going to pull my kids from school and start homeschooling. I did and we loved it. And I wouldn't say that COVID was the reason we did it. The reason that I really started looking into it was more because we're Christians, we're a Christian family and we you know, it was just my beliefs were not in alignment with the public school system and my kids were going through the public school system and I did not like a lot of the things they were learning and bringing home, not just academically, and so that's why we really started doing it. But we did it during COVID. It was just kind of a good, a good time, the timing was right, and so we loved it. And three years later we're we're still doing it?

Speaker 1: 4:01

Oh, that's awesome. So are you still teaching or did you quit your job?

Speaker 2: 4:11

Well, no, I'm still teaching. At the time that I started homeschooling, I had actually left the classroom and I had started an RTI position, so I was still working in the same school all day long. I did that for a couple of years, but I was pulling and working with small groups of students. And then, about three years ago, about the same time that I started homeschooling, I actually got a district position. So I'm still teaching, but I'm not a classroom teacher like I had been for so many years. I'm still working in the school system, which is something that you know when it comes to raising four kids and keeping up a household, and you know, sometimes you just have to budget the best you can. But my goal is to be at home with my kids as soon as possible. I don't know when that's going to happen, but I'm hoping that it'll be soon.

Speaker 1: 4:58

So that leads me to the next question, and I have had people ask me this throughout the year how can I homeschool and work, especially if it's working outside the home? And I did have. I have one episode that'll be releasing in a couple of weeks where I sought out someone doing that very same thing. How do you make it work? Because I'd love to hear obviously not everybody that works outside the home and homeschools is going to have the same way. So how do you make it work?

Speaker 2: 5:29

Right. Well, when people ask me that I get that question a lot what people say to me is I would love to homeschool, but I can't because I work. And I say, oh well, actually you can because I also work. You know, my thing is, if it's something that is really important to you, you'll make a way for it, and it's important to us. So we figure it out. The first year was hard and there was a lot of trial and error. There were a lot of tears, both mine and my children's. It was. It was rough.

Speaker 2: 6:04

We've kind of gotten into a groove now and the easiest way for me to say it is we do a lot of. There are things that they have to do during the day. My husband is home with them. My husband works at night, so he's at home, even if he's sleeping during the day. So my children are at home, they have chores, they have, you know, some assignments and things that they have to do. And when I get home from work I, you know, usually jump into cooking, supper and homeschooling, and it all happens at the same time and we just we just kind of pick up where they left off during the day and if you know if they were doing something they need help with, I'll help them with it.

Speaker 2: 6:45

And sometimes everything doesn't get done every day. You know it. I try to hit reading and math every day, at least a little bit. But if everything doesn't get done every day, I just say it'll be, it'll be here tomorrow, and so I just don't. I just don't let it stress me out. I used to, I don't anymore. And you know, if we miss a day, uh, sometimes I'll say let's just do a couple of things on Saturday morning, we'll knock it out and we get it done. You know, occasionally if I have like a day off from school, we may do homeschool that day. We did that today. And you know, if you could see behind my laptop right now, my kitchen table's covered in books and pencils and you know things like that, you know. But we got all of our homeschool stuff done in about two hours today, and so you know it doesn't take that long.

Speaker 2: 7:35

I think that's the biggest thing is, people think I'm coming home from work and spending six to seven hours, and that's just not the case. But you know, if we are having a hard time with something or we just run out of time, we're running up on bedtime. Then I'll just say we'll just do this tomorrow and it's okay, I can do that. So I just make it work the best I can because it's important to me and my kids have gotten they're funny because if they do have a day off, sometimes I'll try to make them sit down and do work in the morning and we'll say, can we wait till tonight to do that? They're so used to doing their work at night that they sometimes even on a day, they're like let's do that tonight. I want to go outside and play. So that's what we do. So we just make it work the best we can.

Speaker 1: 8:10

So you have kids. How old was your oldest again? Did you say 14? 14. 14. And the youngest is five. How do you, even with your husband being home, if he has to sleep so that you know he can get up for work in the evening? What are they other than, like you said, they have some chores and a couple of assignments? What are you doing? What are they doing all day long? Because and here's the angle I'm coming at You're going to have people that are going to be like, well, if they're home all day by themselves, why don't you just put them in school, you know, because they'll have activities or you know people that don't know any better.

Speaker 1: 8:43

So what are you? What are they supposed to be doing all day long? Are you worried?

Speaker 2: 8:50

about too much screen time or do you have parameters around that? Uh, we are not an anti-screen family but you know they do have. My husband has always been really into video games and that sort of thing. I don't think I've played a video game since maybe the Atari in the 80s, I don't know. I mean I've just never loved them. But you know my kids do like them. So we just, you know they have screens, we have an Xbox, so they do get to play those things. We just have a lot of parental controls. We just make sure that we have, you know, some controls over those things. So you know, yeah, they probably do play games and things like that during the day, but there there are a lot of controls over those. And when they run out of time, they run out of time and they know that. So, um, their devices just won't work anymore and so they just have to find something else to do. Usually that's probably when they get their schoolwork done, that they're supposed to do before the, before I get home.

Speaker 2: 9:44

But my kids, you know, they don't go to bed really early. I mean I don't let them stay up super late, but I would say my oldest kids probably stay up till 930 or 10 o'clock so they sleep later in the morning. I don't make them get up, you know I don't. I leave for work before they ever wake up. My youngest one she is in a preschool right now. So I do take her and drop her off at preschool, which is not my favorite thing, but that's where she is four days a week, and then on Fridays my oldest daughter keeps her. So she has a babysitter and they play, you know, outside.

Speaker 2: 10:17

I have an. I live in a really, you know, safe neighborhood. I have a nice fenced in backyard. They play outside. We have dogs. They take the dogs outside, you know. She just has a room full of toys. So they they entertain themselves, they have chores, they have schoolwork and, yeah, they do get some screen time, but it's pretty heavily regulated. So they're not they're not just spending all day doing that. And I feel good knowing that that's the case, because if it was up to them, yeah, they'd probably just be watching TV or playing video games all day. But because we have some controls over the devices that they have, then you know when they know that when their time is up, their time is up. So they've learned to entertain themselves. You know, sometimes they'll play a board game. Sometimes my, my sons, have art kits. Sometimes they'll come and do some artwork, you know, so they've. They have learned to have certain things done by a certain time and they've learned to entertain themselves.

Speaker 1: 11:15

Do you feel, like, because you work, that they're not able to do, like the co-ops or play groups or stuff like that? Like, is that why your goal is to not work? Obviously, you want to be with them more too, but you know what I mean. There are certain things like I know parents that work and homeschool and it, you know. So a grandparent can take the kid to the co-op if that's what they want for the child. Yeah, how does that work for you guys it's different.

Speaker 2: 11:42

It's a little bit different for us. Between my husband and I, we only have one living parent. My mother lives about an hour away from us, so occasionally my mom will come up and spend a day with them, but you know, we don't. We don't have that either, and there is a co-op in our town. We live in a really small town. There have been some people in this, in this town, that I have, you know, gotten to know over the past three years, who have homeschooled from the very beginning. But until I started and I'm not a pioneer, I'm not you know, but I do feel like we're in the middle of this homeschool revolution.

Speaker 2: 12:20

And when I started homeschooling, I know another person in the school district who was homeschooling at the time. Their child has since gone back to school, but they were homeschooling because of COVID and they were like, you know, we need to reach out to people and see if we can, you know, create this homeschool community. So they started a Facebook group and I became an admin for that and through that I have gotten to know a lot of people and since I started, we started that group, um. There has been a homeschool co-op who that kind of blossomed out of that Um, and so there's another, another couple of families that are in charge of the home of the homeschool co-op. We have participated in a few things, but because I work during the day, we really don't, we really don't get to do that. I would like to, but you know, and I guess a lot of families do that for the socialization. I always say my kids are pretty well socialized because you know they're socialized just at home. There's four of them. But we, you know they're socialized just at home, there's four of them. But we, you know, we go to church. They have friends outside of school, we're out and about some, so that you know there's plenty of that going on. That's not really a concern for me. I honestly think as much as I would like for my kids to be involved in some of that, my kids are really not even that interested in it. They don't really want to do a co-op. They like homeschool at home and you know mom's in charge and mom does the thing, and then they get to go play and that's that's what they like. So, um, no, we don't get to do a lot of the things like that that maybe we we would if I was at home, or if I was home, rather.

Speaker 2: 13:59

But the truth is I've wanted to be home with my kids since my first child was born. You know, the very first time I had to take her to a babysitter and drop her off and I missed. The first time she crawled and I missed, you know, and I've missed that with all four of my kids. And those are times that I can't get back. I know that. But whatever time I have left until they leave the house, I'm going to try to take it. So I can't make up for any time that I've lost, and but I've always wanted to be home with my kids. I've always wanted that and my husband and I have had a very open conversation about that for 14 years. My daughter you know, my daughter's 14 years old, and for 14 years it's been I would really like to stay home with the kids and then, once I started homeschooling them, it was okay.

Speaker 2: 14:48

Now I have to figure this out and my husband has a great job and I have two master's degrees. I have, you know, I have four college degrees and he makes twice as much money as I do because I'm a teacher. I work on a teacher's salary. Teachers don't make a lot of money, you know, that's pretty universal, so we could not live off of my salary, the four, the six of us, but we probably could his. And so I think that we're finally it's just been a slow process of me getting to stay home with my kids, but I think it's going to happen. I just, and I just do the best that I can until then, and then, when it does happen, you know, maybe we'll get to do a co-op, maybe we'll get to be involved in some of those things, but for now, you know, we just we're okay with not having that, yeah, and I'm with you because I talk I probably talk more about this on, like my Instagram page but about society dangling the carrot of, like the pension and stuff like that.

Speaker 1: 15:49

Um, in addition to because I, I, I was a government worker for the last 16 years, so it's always been this pension, pension, pension, and you know, you go to college and you pay your, but even the going to college, that is more um, I hate, like using common words, like indoctrination, but more training us to think that that's the way that you have to go. And I, I went to college not knowing what I wanted to do. So then you get out of college and you have this debt that you've got to pay back. Well, I mean, you're supposed to pay back. So you, you have, so you have to look for a job and then you kind of just take whatever is offered because or whatever falls in line for you, not necessarily because that was your life's goal, because you don't even know what your goal is, because you don't know anything about yourself loans for cars and credit cards, and so then you're more and more. It's a snowball effect that you're in this more debt now, and then you know you have kids and by that time I know I didn't want to stay home with kids because of shows like Friends and Sex and the City. It was like they weren't stay at home moms, they were out living the high life and having fun, and you know so I wanted to emulate that. Well then, when I got to be in my late thirties and, you know, had my son and I'm like you know, maybe I have it all backwards, but it's so easy to fall into that debt and not be able to get yourself out, so that you can't, you know, then turn the tide and stay home with your kids and I sent my son to daycare.

Speaker 1: 17:31

And now that I've been home with my daughter since she's been born, I see so many things that I miss, like you were saying, the crawling and, and not even that. It's just little things, like if she wakes up from a nap and she's not actually ready to be up, but something woke her up, she just needs to be, like, nursed and put back down. But in a daycare setting it's like, oh, one is up, they're all up and then. So how is that going to impact her attitude and demeanor for the rest of the day if she didn't get a good, solid nap. Or, like you said, the waking them up in the morning and rushing them out the door.

Speaker 1: 18:06

We don't do that at all. My kids go to bed pretty late because my husband gets home from work and they see him and if I can get some of the podcasts on then or whatnot, you know, that's when they get to see hang out with dad and then it's just nice because in the morning then it's a little quiet. I can go back to working on the podcast or getting some laundry done or getting dinner started. So it, yeah, it's. It's just nothing you ever are told in school. That could be an option of. This is how life could go to. You get two options. You know it's, you were out, we're set on that path. Um, how did your daughter cause she was kind of old enough to know what school was like at 11, say when she stopped attending to? Now, how has her transition been? Does she enjoy being homeschooled or does she miss the school aspect at all?

Speaker 2: 18:57

You know, she was always so friendly and outgoing. But and so she had a lot of friends and I guess that was her biggest concern was what about my friends? And I was like, look, you know, friends are down the road. You know, you, not being at school with them all day does not mean you can't be friends with them. So we had, we had, a couple of pretty good discussions about that, but the truth is that by the time I actually pulled them out of school and I had already brought it up with them a few times like you know, I'm thinking about doing this and we're going to try it and see how it goes by the time I actually did it, she was begging me to take her out of school. Wow, you know, and I will never forget her very last day of public school, she was in tears and she was like mom, can I please just not go to school next year?

Speaker 1: 19:44

And I was like, yep, you got it, we're going to stay home, and was that because of just 11 year old girls and the cattiness and the jealousy that was a huge.

Speaker 2: 19:54

That was a huge part of it. I think a lot of it was. You know, a lot of that started when she was as early as like third grade. She was coming home and saying things that were inappropriate that we I know she did not hear at home and I'm like, where did you hear that? And it would be girls in her school, in her class, and she wouldn't know that there was anything wrong with it and she was pretty relentlessly bullied that year. It kind of trickled into her fourth grade year and it got better after a little while. But then, um, there's some, there was a different couple of girls in her class that were really mean to her and it was kind of an off and on situation all through her fifth grade year. Um, and then the work got harder.

Speaker 1: 20:38

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Speaker 1: 22:17

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Speaker 2: 22:56

On top of the stress of my friends, or my friends one day and the next day they don't want to be friends with me and I don't know where I stand with them and that. You know, girls are just girls are hard to get along with. I don't know why. And you know, on top of all that, the work was getting hard and she felt like it was passing her by. She wasn't understanding it. She'd always been a really good student. And then, on top of all of that, we were still in the midst of COVID. They were having to stand and sit six feet apart, they were having to wear a mask every day. I mean, it was just nuts and it I don't know it kind of blew up and I was. I was kind of at my wits end anyway and I was like I can handle. I don't want to go to work and wear a mask and not be able to sit right next to somebody or have a normal conversation, you know, but I'm an adult, I can handle it. My kids were struggling, and she was probably struggling more than anybody because on top of all of it, there was a lot of girl drama. You know, school was getting hard and she was having a hard time concentrating. And you know, I was like, if we hone school, we can, we can work at your pace, and so that's what we did. So by the time I pulled her out she was fine.

Speaker 2: 24:10

You know, my youngest was preschool. He didn't really, he didn't really know that much different anyway. And then my middle son was in third grade and he was miserable during COVID, absolutely miserable. So he was fine with you know, he was fine with it too, and so he, he never has loved school that much anyway. So to him, homeschool was like easier. You know, he was like, oh, we're not gonna do it all day, so I don't have to sit in a desk all day. You know, and he's my, you know, he has dyslexia, adhd, all that, and so we, um, you know, it was just better for him. So, honestly, it was just better all around.

Speaker 2: 24:50

And the funny thing is, you know, a few weeks ago I was, I was, my husband and I were really weren't talking about some budgeting and was I going to have to go back to work next year and things like that? And and I just, I just asked the kids. I was like, look, I'm tired. It's hard to homeschool you all. Every day, after I've worked all day, I was like do you want to go back to school? And they knew they knew that this was not something that I really wanted from them. I just wanted to kind of talk to them about it and see what their perspective was, and they all said no. They all said no, we want to be homeschooled. And that gave me a little burst of energy, you know, and I was like, okay, okay, we're going to keep going. Regardless of what happens, we're going to keep going. So, so, yeah, my kids are happy with it.

Speaker 1: 25:29

And do you work in a school? So I mean you, I don't know how, um, you know much of your day is around, you know the kids, but the bullying. I find that to be such an interesting thing too, because I don't think anything is different from when, like I'm 40, from when I was a kid. It's just it's now like they've emphasized bully but like everyone talks about being bullied, nobody talks about like what their kid did to. Like I know for myself, like I was kind of a jerk sometimes to people, but then other times I was the one getting picked on or left out, or you know two girls, they'd call you on the phone and that's when, like, call waiting was a thing, we didn't have cell phones, but like you could like mute someone so that you didn't know there was a third girl on the line and this one would try to get you to talk bad about that one, and like I never did that to someone, but I had it done to me.

Speaker 1: 26:27

But I mean there were things I remember making fun of a girl's lipstick so I mean I'm the bully in that case. You know what I mean. So we all have like the dynamic of being both sometimes you know, and how do you see that in the school today that it's different from when we were growing up? Obviously, the technology is different. Has it gotten worse? Has it gotten to a different degree?

Speaker 2: 26:52

In a way, I want to say yes, you know, bullying is bullying. I just think I think the word bullying itself gets thrown around a lot when it's not actually bullying. I think a lot of times if a kid's mean to you, they call it bullying and that's not what it is. You know, if a kid's mean to you once or twice, that's not bullying. We faced is you know, my kids are not allowed to be on social media or anything like that. They have screens, they can play games, but they're not allowed.

Speaker 2: 27:26

You know, there's only there's a lot of parameters there and I just you know there are some lines I'm not willing to cross, and that was part of the problem. Is it leached out of the problem? Is it leached out of the school walls and into social media? And my daughter? It would come back to her at school and she would say I don't even know what you're talking about. I don't have that app, I'm not allowed to be on social media, I don't. You know why are you talking? And so I think that's I don't know that.

Speaker 2: 27:52

It's worse in the sense that people are still doing it, but because it's so easy to bully someone in a cyber sort of way instead of to their face. I think that more kids are apt to do it and we're just kind of giving them a phone or a tablet and letting them go and not monitoring what they're doing, and so yeah, and then it comes back to the school, and one I can even defend the school systems a little bit on this One, their hands are tied. There's only so much they can do, and I think that I have seen that change in the 20 years that I've been in education and it was. You know, it was a last effort to get a child to behave, but it was. It was something that was practiced and, you know, you don't really see that anymore and so what do you mean?

Speaker 1: 28:48

you're hitting them with a ruler, or what?

Speaker 2: 28:50

uh well, no, we had a paddle. We had a paddle and yeah, and you know, kids, kids wanted to behave, they didn't want to get the paddle, and now they're just like, what are they going to do to me? That's the attitude that kids have. What are they going to do to me? And the truth is there's not much that can be done, because the teachers have. There's only so much they can do. And you know, beyond that, it goes to a principal and if you have a principal, even a principal who's a good disciplinarian, there's only so much they can do. It's coming from the top down and then, you know, on top of that, it's like I said, it leeches outside of the school and the school can't control what these kids are doing outside of the school walls, especially if they can't even control what they're doing inside of the school. So you know, I don't want to say that it's gotten worse, but I think technology has just made it easier.

Speaker 1: 29:42

Well, and you know you bring up a good point with that, because how many ways could you manipulate if two girls and myself are on a phone line, like we didn't even have a way to record that conversation, right? Who's the only one mad at you? Or the who's the only one that you're embarrassed that you said that? It's just that other girl that was mute on that phone, right, you can now take anything and manipulate it to look like Jenny said this, or you know that you can I mean just thinking off my head, and this is probably like an old school way to do it, but I'm sure it's been done Change a contact in your phone to say like, oh, this is Jenny, when really it's Barbara. But hey, barbara, text me that.

Speaker 1: 30:28

You know you had, you know whatever relations with this guy and you know, now it looks like Jenny said that. So now you're putting that on social media or Snapchatting or whatever they even do now. Or changing the heads of somebody and make it manipulate to like, oh, that picture is her, but it's really not. They've just manipulated it to be so. I didn't really think about that, but it is. That part is technology has gotten so so far beyond what we ever had. We had like an AIM buddy list when I was in middle school. You couldn't do a whole lot.

Speaker 2: 31:04

I can't, I can't relate and I remember thinking things were so bad then, but I just I cannot imagine being a preteen or a teenager right now. It's just unbelievable what they can do.

Speaker 1: 31:27

That is scary. And the other aspect of that is the parents are not even aware of what can go on on each app. Okay, because and I can attest to this for just trying to run a podcast and start, I started an Instagram page a year ago for it and it is so hard as an old person to learn, like, how to put together a reel with music and this shot and that shot and text, and it's like I can't. It's like I can't even imagine. Then you've got other apps like Tik TOK and Snapchat and LinkedIn and Pinterest and Facebook, and so it's like there's so many avenues that kids can be, you know, doing things on that. There isn't just no way a parent can even control all of it because it's so hard to learn at all.

Speaker 2: 32:11

Sure, yeah, it's unbelievable Like and it and it seems like I remember, you know, when Facebook started and you had to be a college kid and I was in college yes, me too and so I was like I'm going to do this, I'm so cool. And then it just blew up from there and I'll have people like I have an Instagram account, I have a Twitter or an X or whatever it's called, but you know, I don't, I just don't use all. I don't. I'm not on TikTok, I'm not on TikTok, I'm not on Snapchat. So when the kids are talking about that stuff, I'm just like I don't, you're over my head at this point, I don't, I just don't know. And then, you know, I feel like that old person who's just you know, but I don't know, it's just. It's overwhelming how much they can do. It's crazy.

Speaker 1: 32:54

Yeah, absolutely so. In all your spare time you wrote a book. Why don't you tell us about that? I'm currently writing a children's book, but um, which? I thought, would be easier because it's a children's book, but I don't know, why don't you tell me about yours?

Speaker 2: 33:11

Well, um, I just like to write. You know I was an English teacher when I taught. I've always loved to write and I've done a couple of blogs over time, never had a very big audience, but just liked, just enjoyed writing, and so I did it as much for myself as anybody else. But when I started homeschooling, my blog sort of took a turn in the subject and the niche sort of that I was taking with it. And you know I had a bunch of questions and a lot of it was why do you homeschool, how do you do it and work, and you know just things like that. And so I thought you know what? I'm gonna drive some traffic to my blog because I'm just when people ask me that question and say go to my blog and I wrote a. I wrote a post about that and you can read it. So I started writing a blog post. You know. That kind of answered some of those questions, but it it turned into something that was really incredibly long for a blog post and so I thought you know what? I'll just do a series of blog posts.

Speaker 2: 34:09

But I was kind of growing out I don't want to say bored and I don't want to say burnout with my blog. But I just felt like I had reached a point where I was like I need to do something different, because I had been doing it for quite a while, I had put a lot of money into it and a lot of time into it and I really didn't have a very big audience and it seemed like my audience was dropping. And so I thought, you know what? I'm not even going to post these. I'm not going to post these as blog posts, I'm just going to put them into a book, and I don't know where it's going to go from here, but I'm going to just write this book. So I just kind of transitioned it, turned them into chapters and when I got finished writing the book, I put it away for a little while and then I came back to it and I started doing some editing and I thought you know what?

Speaker 2: 34:53

I'll see if I can find a publisher. So I started looking and I was rejected a couple, three times. I don't even know, I can't remember which publishers rejected me, you know, but I did. I started looking and searching for publishers and I think at one point I even attempted to see if I could get an agent who could find a publisher, you know, and I was rejected. But I just kind of kept trying and one day I got a phone call that said hey, we really like your concept, we'd like to publish your book and I already had a transcript, and so I sent that to them and you know the process probably took. I think I was told it would take between six and eight months. It probably took more like nine or 10 months, but within a year of signing a contract with them I had a published book. So and it's a quick read, it's you know, I was glad that I wasn't under a contract that told me I had to have a certain thank you I had to have a certain number of words or anything like that.

Speaker 2: 35:46

Yep, but yeah, that's just kind of how it how it happened, and I thought you know what I'll tell our story and that's kind of how the book came about.

Speaker 1: 35:56

That's really cool. Yeah, I, I didn't even go like to the publishing route because it's like, yes, they, they talk about how you have to have like a literary agent, and then it's. It just seems like I was like I don't, I don't have time for all that rejection right now. I'm just going to self publish it, but then I don't know. Yeah, this is kind of a lot of work too.

Speaker 2: 36:19

It is. I'm actually working on another book right now, and that's what I told my husband not long. I was like, if I publish this next book that I'm working on and I'm working on a fiction book I'm like I'm probably just going to self publish it. But then I thought, I don't know, I don't know, there's no easy way to do it, um, but you know, now that I've, now that I've done it once, I kind of have the desire to do it again. So I'm excited, I do want to.

Speaker 2: 36:44

I started writing a fiction book when I was in college. I wrote about three or four chapters. I put it away for 20 years and I finally picked it back up a couple of years ago and started, you know, a little bit at a time, writing, and I'm finally kind of um getting close to being finished with it. So I'm hoping I'll publish it as well, but that's still a ways away. But I may, I may go a different route this time, but yeah, um, cause this was a lot of work and a lot of money. It's, you know, it's expensive to publish a book, but, um, it's still. It's still something that I'm proud of and, um, I'm excited about it.

Speaker 1: 37:17

So it's called Making the Switch, our Family's Journey from Public School to Homeschool from Leanne Scott. And yeah, that's really cool and it's funny. From what I've learned so far, the writing is like the smallest part of the whole book publishing process, because marketing is huge. I don't know now, if you have to, how much marketing you have to do if you were published by a publisher but as a self-publisher, you're the only one driving your bus, so you're only going to get sales if you put in the marketing effort.

Speaker 1: 37:54

How is it with being published by a publisher you know?

Speaker 2: 37:58

they do a little bit of work for you. The publisher that I'm that I'm working with has done some press releases and things like that. As far as pushing the book to retailers, so you can get my book on Amazon, but you can also get it on like Barnes and Noble, online and things like that and it's possible to get to get it in a brick and mortar store, especially if people go in and say, um, and things like that, and it's possible to get to get it in a brick and mortar store, especially if people go in and say, hey, will you put this book on your shelf? But, um, so they're doing some of those things where they're pushing it out and they're doing press releases to some of the different, um, you know locations where they can sell it. But, honestly, you still kind of have to be your own cheerleader, and so I've done a lot of trying to promote it myself, but that's really really, really hard Because I don't have a huge like.

Speaker 2: 38:45

I don't have a big Instagram account or a big Facebook following. I don't have, you know. So I've just been trying to reach out to other people, especially people who I know have read the book, and ask for reviews and things like that. But even that is it's hard. I'm not very good at asking for that stuff anyway, but it's just kind of hard because people will say, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll do that, and then they may never get to it, you know. So it, you do really have to be your own cheerleader, and that probably I mean that is much harder than the actual writing part of the book, for sure.

Speaker 1: 39:16

Yeah, especially with the whole online life, it's like, oh my goodness, yeah, lots to learn, but it's fun and it, you know especially being. You know I had a very mundane job for so long that you know now I'm like okay, I like learning and being creative. So you know, it is nice, it's just hard. It is hard with little kids. But I'm afraid, if I don't do it right now, kind of, like you said, the homeschool revolution, which I probably should have named the podcast, that like the homeschool, if it's not all right.

Speaker 1: 39:50

Oh wait no, no, that's Kirk Cameron's movie, isn't it?

Speaker 2: 39:59

Is that what I don't know. I you know what I think, which I didn't see, but I do want to see.

Speaker 1: 40:01

Um, I don't think I've seen it either. Uh, okay, so nevermind Name's taken, but but there is. So I was like I want to do it now. Well, I'm, I'm genuinely like doing this podcast so I can learn about homeschooling, and then just putting it out there, because if it's helping me, I'm sure other people want to know about it too. Uh, but yeah, so that's funny. So you said that you, you work and then you come home and do the homeschool with them. At that time, Uh well, all right.

Speaker 1: 40:24

So the older three are really the only ones that you have to do anything with, because your five-year-old is in a preschool, so, like, whatever she's needs to learn is getting done there, which really isn't anything. She could just play at this playing For the three of them. What sort of curriculums are you using?

Speaker 2: 40:40

You know I just I do a lot of. I have a background in teaching. I'd spent most of my time in the classroom teaching language arts. I've done some social studies those were my two certification areas but so a lot of what I do with language arts is I have used some curriculums before. But like a lot of what I do is just trying to kind of see what they need. My youngest son needs a lot of help with writing and reading, so that's what we do. We read and I have him like write a sentence summary about what we're doing. So I don't really use a curriculum for language arts. Him like write a sentence summary about what we're doing.

Speaker 2: 41:20

So I don't really use a curriculum for language arts. My two boys really. I started using the Good and the Beautiful with them that first year for math and I really like the way that it tracks and the way that it constantly reviews. But I didn't really do as much research on it as I wish I had and I like it. I like the books and I like the way that it works. But after our second year I was like yeah, I'm not going to use that anymore. I didn't really like the origins of it after I had done some more reading and research. But the boys actually begged me to get that one back. They loved it and so I told them that we would keep doing it for this year until I found another curriculum that I liked better. So we've been using it, and then just for math for them and then my oldest child.

Speaker 2: 42:07

So I don't really use one set curriculum. I use a lot of different stuff, or not one at all For my youngest son, for social studies. We read a lot of biographies and books. For science and social studies. I do not use a curriculum for that, and I've been doing some geography with my oldest two kids for social studies this year. We've been doing some earth science for science this year and they've been learning about, you know, weather, clouds, the rain cycle, rocks. They had a rock collection. At one point we had to decide what kind of rocks they were. So we're using sort of semi-using a curriculum for that, but it's really not very, it's not very strict. But my daughter uses master books a lot and I have actually really really liked it and she's going to be in high school next year or starting, you know, her ninth grade year. So I think that I will probably be primarily using master books for her through high school, because we've we've done that already and we really like it.

Speaker 1: 43:12

Are you trying to pick a curriculum but feel a little overwhelmed at the variety of options? Me too. I mean, how do you pick a curriculum when you don't know what each one has to offer? That's been my biggest problem. Well, I am here to help. I just launched a premium content series, psst. That means it's $3 a month, which will just help cover the cost of running the podcast.

Speaker 1: 43:32

In my curriculum series, I interview homeschooling students and parents and curriculum creators about specific curriculum each week so that you can take the guesswork out of your curriculum choices. I'll be asking questions like what does the day-to-day look like with this curriculum? What does it cover from a bird's eye view? How long does one lesson take to complete? How many lessons does the curriculum contain and what does it cost? Did you have to order the book or could you download them and print them somewhere like your library?

Speaker 1: 43:59

Does this curriculum have a lot of games, writing or crafts, and did your child enjoy this curriculum? Can you do it with more than one child at a time? And if I did this curriculum with my child, would I need to add any sort of supplements to it? These are all questions I've had while I search for the perfect curriculum to suit my son's personality and my expectations. Let's face it there is no one curriculum out there that will work best for every child and adult, so I invite you to join me in my search to find out what every curriculum has to offer, so that you can feel confident in your curriculum choices and enjoy your homeschooling journey that much more. Right where you find all of the Homeschool How-To Podcast episodes, you'll see my curriculum series and you can subscribe today.

Speaker 2: 44:45

But I think one of those things that I thought when I started homeschooling and that was one of the things where I was like taken aback a little bit was oh, I'm going to buy these curriculums and then we're going to reuse them every year, and I, you know, I'll put a huge investment into this curriculum, but we'll reuse it.

Speaker 2: 45:01

Well, I can tell you right now that the stuff my daughter's doing, my oldest son will not be able to do. He just it's just not going to be up his alley. So I'm going to have to find something else for him. You know, he's just it's just not going to be for him because he's not like her. So that was kind of a misconception on my part, and I should know that, because I've been a teacher and I know that not everything you teach or every strategy you use or every curriculum is going to be for everybody, even though you know when you're in school it kind of has to be. But so I've decided, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to start looking for some things for him so that in a couple of years, when he's in high school, we'll probably be doing something different. I'm just not sure what it will be yet.

Speaker 1: 45:45

Yeah, and that's why I had actually started a. Well, it's a curriculum series like a subscription-based curriculum series for $3 a month. Uh, really, just talking to people, like delving deep into what does each curriculum actually like? What does your day to day look like? Because there are so many and everybody knows the good and the beautiful, because it's just popular, right, and that's what we use too in this house. But I'm like, how do I know that this is so popular because it's the best and not just because they have the best marketing strategy, you know? So, yeah, and cause it's pretty, yeah, I don't know all the other ones out there. So I've had some really cool conversations with different people.

Speaker 1: 46:29

Um, math inspiration sounds like a really cool concept about like it's the child is actually teaching themselves and, uh, it's cool. Um, but they're math with confidence is another one. So, yeah, there's so many out there. It's so hard to know and you can read what a website says, but that doesn't really get into the nitty gritty of like, how long does each lesson take? Do your kids really like it? What does the day to day look like? Are there a ton of games? Is there a ton of writing?

Speaker 1: 47:02

So that's what I kind of get into and I would love to hear about master books a little bit more, if you want to come back on sometime and really like give us a low down on what that is especially for, like the older kids, cause you know we're we're always worried about the younger ones, and then it's like, well, what are we going to do with them later on? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 47:16

And that's that's when it gets hard. Yeah, cause I can't do some of that stuff. You know, some of that math is over my head, so it's hard. But I think for me you know, curriculum I learned right off the bat there's probably more homeschool curriculums out there than there are curriculums that are being used by, like public and private schools. It's amazing how much stuff is out there, and I just think about these people who used to homeschool way, way back in maybe the eighties or this, and I'm like they had nothing compared to what we have and it's almost too much because it's so overwhelming. My main thing is I want our curriculum to be Christian based, and if it's Christian based, I will look at it. I don't want a secular curriculum because we're not a secular family, but there's tons of secular curriculums out there too, so I mean it's hard. It's hard to go through all of that and I'm still hearing and learning about more and more all the time.

Speaker 1: 48:08

Yep.

Speaker 1: 48:10

Yes, it is like a black hole, and it's all good, it's not a bad thing, but it is hard to know what would be the best option for your child when you don't know all of them, really what's in depth and all the supplemental stuff, because that's where I get kind of caught up too, like, oh well, that sounds like a wonderful supplement, but wait, where do I fit it in? And I guess part of me has you know. One of my questions that I ask on the curriculum series is how many lessons is this? Because does it take you the full year? Or can you take December off and put in maybe a Christmas supplement, you know, or something like that?

Speaker 1: 48:50

So, yeah, that I really am trying to, like you know, develop something that's like these are all your options. These are things you could do. You know, and I'm sure it's been done before, but I don't know. It's just seems like that.

Speaker 2: 49:02

It's hard to get away sometimes, I think, when there's a curriculum and you're like okay, day one, day two, day three, it's hard to get away from that. But that's one of the things that I think I had a hard time with in the beginning was I wanted to fit everything in, but even with the good and the beautiful, there were all these supplement things that went with it, and I was trying to do those too, but my lessons were taking forever and the kids were like I won't do this anymore. You know I might as well be in school and you know I just finally learned. You know we're going to do the basics and if I don't do everything and, like I said, we don't do everything every day anyway but like with my, with my youngest son, we might, I go through and I'm like if he knows, if I know that he knows how to do it, I'm like we're not even going to do those problems, cause I know you can do them. Or if I'm like you know those are practice problems, I've already taught you how to do that. There might be eight problems for him to do in the workbook and I'm like we'll pick two. You can do two of them, so we don't necessarily do it all and I've kind of learned to just kind of go with the flow. And I mean the whole point.

Speaker 2: 50:04

Part of the reason we homeschool is to meet the individual needs of our, of our kids, and our kids are not all the same, and so you know it's hard. It's hard for my 12 year old to sit at the table for a very long time and do schoolwork. So I try to keep the lesson short and you know he doesn't have to do everything every time, and sometimes we'll skip a lesson if we, if, if it's something we feel like he already knows or whatever. So it's hard to get past that. Though Once you kind of get comfortable with that, you know you're like, okay, but it's really hard to get past that when you've paid $150 for this box of curriculum. You know it is, but it's just one of those things you kind of have to. You kind of have to gear it towards your kid.

Speaker 1: 50:45

Absolutely. And, to close out, you have a good perspective because you are in the school system, you've been there for a long time, all right. We, we think and this was one of the biggest eye openers for me in doing this podcast we think as parents, that there are certain things our kids have to know by certain ages and there actually is not. So, like that was the biggest, I was like, wait, they don't need to know, like multiplication by seven, or you know, seventh grade or whatever, like I, I had no idea. Now, granted, oh, and I was going to ask you this too there are requirements in certain States for reporting, and if you could just tell us what the reporting requirements are for Kentucky?

Speaker 2: 51:31

Yeah, it's Kentucky's pretty laid back. I'll give you that. Um, there's not a lot like. We don't have to participate in any kind of standardized testing or anything like that. The only thing that the law really requires in Kentucky is that we report to our local school district within the you know, the first couple of weeks that they start school. So we don't have to start school when they start. But we have to report and that's just for attendance purposes for them, so that we aren't considered truant. So we don't have to. You know, as long as we report to our local school district, we're good. We don't have to. We have no parameters on curriculum. They don't have to do any kind of standardized testing.

Speaker 2: 52:14

In Kentucky you don't legally have to start schooling until age six. So, like even my five-year-old, I'll probably start her in kindergarten next year, but I don't actually have to until she turns six, which would be the next school year. So you know, and with her I may do two school years we don't, when we report, we don't have to tell what grade our kids are in or what grade level they are on. We just have to report. These kids at this address are homeschooling. So it's pretty basic. They ask that we follow whatever our district does as far as like report cards and things like that. So like my district works on quarters, so they do quarterly report cards within two semesters.

Speaker 2: 52:58

I do keep grades for my kids just for the sake of if anybody ever comes and says, okay, I just need to know that you're actually schooling your kids. I can give them that evidence. I don't think it's ever going to happen, but as far as you know, asking if anybody ever comes asking me, the only thing I'm legally bound to show them is that I do have grades for my kids or a transcript for my high schooler and I keep attendance. Otherwise it's. That's pretty much it. There's really not a lot to it in Kentucky and so they are pretty. We are pretty laid back and I'm so very grateful for that because it made it. It made that transition really, really easy for me, yeah.

Speaker 1: 53:38

So then, to lead back to the question I was going to before, what do you see with your background in education? What do you see that you need to prepare your kids for, whether it be college, and these are the sort of classes or types of subjects that they need before they enter that or if college is even part of your goal, having four degrees yourself? Is that something that you now look at your kids and say maybe they don't need it or maybe they do?

Speaker 2: 54:10

No, I don't think it's for everybody. I don't think college is for everybody. I've always felt that way. I wasn't even sure it was for me when I first started. But you know, I look at my kids and some of my kids are way too young for me to really predict that yet. But my oldest kids, I can tell you, one of them probably will go to college, or at least right now our aspiration is to get her college ready. The other one, he doesn't want to. He's like I'm not doing it, I'm not going to college, and that's okay with me. So what I tell my kids is my boys especially is you need to be able to have a good job and support a family, and so that's what we're working toward.

Speaker 2: 54:51

What kind of work, you know? Are you interested in my daughter? Like I said, she may go to college and we're working toward making sure that her high school transcript will be get her college ready. She may actually decide not to, and that's OK, but like already she's, she's really. She has a love for animals. She's fostering a dog right now that is on track to become a service dog for a program that provides service dogs for disabled veterans. So she is doing. She's taking a dog training course and she's going to be a certified dog trainer and she's only 14. And so she's already working towards things and she thinks that her you know, her goals and aspirations may have something animal related. Maybe she wants to be a groomer or a trainer or a vet tech or something like that, and so she's already working towards stuff like that. So I just kind of, you know, I think my goal with them is to take their lead, figure out what they want to do and then try to develop their schooling around that, especially once they get to high school.

Speaker 1: 55:56

Yeah, and I think, and mine is the same. I think the challenge for me is now how do I expose them to all the different things that are out there, to kind of? Find where their niche is and what really makes them happy.

Speaker 1: 56:10

Because, that is my one biggest. My one biggest gripe with public school or even private school, it doesn't matter Um, but is that it does not expose you to all the options that are out there. It gives you like three and you know. Then you just kind of fall where you fall, but there's so many jobs out there, or jobs that could be created, and school kind of stifles that.

Speaker 2: 56:36

Yeah, it does, it's hard, it's hard and I feel that and that that actually even thinking about that is a little bit overwhelming. But that's just kind of my goal, like, what are you interested in? Now, let's see, and, and you know, maybe they do some work in that area and then they go. Yeah, nope, that's not for me, and that's okay, cause at least they had that exposure and now they know, as opposed to going through four years of college and getting a degree and then going I don't want to do this. So and that happens, that happens a lot and it's probably because, you know, they kids, a lot of kids, just don't have that exposure. So I'm right there with you, I'm just going to try to give them as much as I can and I'm going to try to tailor everything to meet their needs.

Speaker 1: 57:16

Okay, last question. I just thought of your book Making the Switch Our Family's Journey from Public School to Homeschool. How does your employer feel about this, this book getting published by you?

Speaker 2: 57:27

Yeah, that was my biggest concern. I thought what are they going to think? But the truth is, by the time that book came out it was pretty well known that I homeschool my kids. You know, everybody who I work with knows that I homeschool my kids because even at the time I was working in the same school they went to and when I pulled them out I wasn't still working in that school anymore. But everybody I worked with knew. So I haven't really heard much from them. As far as I mean, I've. I've had a couple people congratulate me on the book. I don't know that anybody has read it and that's okay because they're probably not the right audience for it and that's fine. But you know I was worried about a little bit of negative you know impact on that. But it hasn't. It has not been bad at all.

Speaker 1: 58:16

Everybody's, you know if they have negative comments they've kept them to themselves and that's okay with me, and where can people find you or the book if they want to check it out?

Speaker 2: 58:25

Yeah, um, so I have an Instagram account called live in the Scott life and um, I have a Facebook page called live in the Scott life, so you can find me on either one of those. And um, I. The book is available pretty much anywhere you can find books, it's. You know. Most people are buying it on Amazon or barnesandnoblecom.

Speaker 1: 58:47

Awesome Leanne, thank you so much for joining us today.

Speaker 2: 58:51

This has been an awesome conversation tell you, you know, I listen to a lot of podcasts because I'm like you, I'm a learner, I like to learn a lot. I listen to a lot of podcasts and I always hear people interviewing somebody and it's always somebody who's like a PhD or an expert in their field, and I always learn a lot. And this may even not sound the way that I hope I mean it, but you, you're out there interviewing moms and dads who are just doing it. You know, we're not necessarily experts. We're just out there homeschooling our kids and we're trying to learn from each other. So every time I listen to one of your episodes, it's a different. I learned something different from somebody from some other place in the country. So I think it's really cool that you're just, you know, you're just out there interviewing people who are just doing the homeschool thing, and I love that.

Speaker 1: 59:39

Oh, thank you. Yeah, make it a little bit more relatable, right? I was getting a little intimidated listening to homeschooling podcasts. When I first started listening to them I was like they all sound like they have their life so together. I can't do that, yeah, so I try to keep it real. Yeah, thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 59:56

Thank you for having me. I appreciate you so much.

Speaker 1: 59:58

Thank you Bye-bye. Thank you for tuning into this week's episode of the homeschool how to. If you've enjoyed what you heard and you'd like to contribute to the show, please consider leaving a small tip using the link in my show's description. Or, if you'd rather, please use the link in the description to share this podcast with a friend or on your favorite homeschool group Facebook page. Any effort to help us keep the podcast going is greatly appreciated. Thank you for tuning in and for your love of the next generation.