Ellensburg Public Library offers resources to homeschool parents
For homeschool parents, the public library often serves as a resource room providing materials critical to their child’s education.
With that in mind last week the Ellensburg Public Library hosted a Homeschool Fair at the Hal Holmes Community Center.
The fair was organized by Sue Hart, children’s librarian with the Ellensburg Public Library, as a way to fill a need for the community.
“We are the heart of the community and it is our job to provide for the community,” Hart said. “Homeschool families really rely on the library and it’s (the fair) a way to hear what families might need and for people to meet each other so we can be a stronger community together.”Hart said that Ellensburg Public Library Director Josephine Camarillo asked her to organize the Homeschool Fair because of Hart’s history with homeschooling her own son. She said that she decided to homeschool her son because of his personality. She took advantage of school and library resources and then moved her son into public school when he was a freshman in high school.
Homeschool parent Anna Webster was at the fair with her four children, Zach, age 9, Levi 14, and her twins Melonye and Lillian, 7. Webster said she has always homeschooled her kids, and she has no plans to move them into a public school at any point in their lives unless they make the decision themselves.
Webster said that she doesn’t have faith in the school system because of her experience in it as a kid. She said that a teacher was physically inappropriate with her as a child and made fun of her dyslexia.
Webster said she thought this event was great because it gives her children a chance to socialize with others. With different activities for different ages, her kids don’t have to travel together around the event, and instead do what they want.
Another parent, Clare Hyde, was at the fair with her 5-year-old daughter Mary. Mary has been homeschooled since the start of the official school year in September. Hyde said that she decided to homeschool because she believes Mary can receive a better education at home, where she can learn at her own pace. She also said that she is not trusting of other schools or their “propaganda.”
“We don’t believe in evolution, and a lot of times when I was in school, I saw a lot of anti-Catholic stuff which was against what we believe,” Hyde said.
She also said that while she does believe taking care of the environment is important, schools take the idea to a much larger degree. “The schools focus so much on it that they created something almost like a religion.” She also does not approve of sex education in schools.
Hyde said one of the appeals of homeschooling Mary was that Mary could learn at her own pace. They only spend an hour a day sitting down and learning, but Hyde said that Mary already reads at the first-grade level.
Hyde said she is confident in being able to give her child a proper education, because she has “an education in education” because she went to college for it.
Hyde said that the dream is to move Mary to an all-girls school in Idaho sometime in the spring. Even though she loves homeschooling she believes that this would be the best option for Mary’s education.
The fair offered activities for students such as cup stacking, educational magazines, coloring books, a book exchange and more. Hart pointed out homeschool families had access to all the library’s resources, most helpful of which were the librarians themselves.
Hart said the library tries to have a homeschool fair every year, although they were not able to organize one for 2019 because they simply didn’t have time for it.
Source: Ellensburg Public Library offers resources to homeschool parents | News | dailyrecordnews.com