We began our homeschooling experience in 1991. Robert had just entered Kindergarten in our local public school. On Halloween afternoon we were on our way to the first Catholic Family Conference put on by St. Joseph's Communications and stopped to eat lunch at a local restaurant. When we were paying our bill, the armored truck service was making its daily pick-up. The young man collecting the money happily explained about armored vehicles to our eager 5 year old. As the truck pulled away, Robert rushed ahead of us along the curb, following the truck as it made its turn in the parking lot. From here, everything happened in slow motion.

The truck made the turn, Robert did not. He fell under the truck between the front and rear axles and we watched in horror as those large double rear wheels drove over our son. My husband, Paul, ran after the truck to stop it - they had no idea what just happened. I ran to Robert and scooped him up. Inside the restaurant, someone had heard our screams and was already dialing 911.

The fire truck, police, and ambulance arrived in minutes. Robert was conscious and dazed. They checked his vitals, separated us, packed him on to a back board, and rushed him off to the hospital with me riding in the back holding his hands. Paul stayed behind to finish the police reports and would meet me at the hospital.

I do believe in miracles. I had watched a 9 ton vehicles run over my 5 year old son and was told at the hospital that he had no internal injuries, no broken bones and I stood there looking at the tread marks on his back and legs that - if the angle had changed only slightly - would have been across the back of his head.

Robert was put to bed for 2 weeks. He had several large blood clots in his legs that the doctors were a bit concerned about. I called his Kindergarten teacher the next morning, but only got through to her husband. One would think that if I were a teacher and one of my students had been in a serious accident, I would have gone to any lengths to find out how he was, to get school work to him, to at least send a get well card from his class. Nothing came. No call, no card, nothing. This was unacceptable behavior from a school that professes caring for its students.

When Robert's convalescence was over, we went to the school and pulled him out to begin homeschooling.

We did a lot of research before we began our adventure. We decided that our best avenue was to stick with a packaged curriculum that provided lesson plans and teacher guidance. This plan worked for the first 2 years, but eventually failed because Robert, like most children, learn in multi-levels. I decided to attempt putting my own curriculum together following the approach provided by the Independent Study Program of which we were members.

This was our best approach. In 1994, we started Holy Family Academy for local Catholic home schoolers in the Antelope Valley area of California. After 5 years of operation, and with the graduation of Robert from 8th Grade, Holy Family Academy will be closing its doors.  We have decided to return to Seton Home Study for our High School experience.
Click on the MORE below to find out how we started our own school and how you can start one too.