A New School for Home-Schoolers

publication date: Jul 3, 2008

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author/source: Tim Altork / STAFF

By Tim Altork / STAFF

As soon as he saw the chess set in the foyer Thomas Potts was sold.

“When I saw that, I knew that they were looking for smart kids,” he told his mom.

The 12-year-old burgeoning bio-chemist (seriously) had exceeded the scope of his mother’s teaching capacity in his home-school environment, so his parents began to look for a place that could help Thomas “put the pieces of his education together,” as his father Travon put it.

That place was the unique setting of Chalk2Champions Home-school Academy in Alpharetta.

The facility is a niche environment that provides small, part-time classes for home-school students. It targets three basic groups of kids – home-schoolers like Thomas Potts who have out-learned their parents’ teaching capabilities, students who are dissatisfied with the traditional classroom setting and athletes who need a more flexible schedule to maximize their time between athletics and academics.

Chalk2Champions is the brainchild of Melinda Willis, a professional educator who began to see the need for the school after encountering a number of parents who were looking for a specialized education environment for their children.

“I figured if there’s two kids like this in this market, there must be 50 kids like this,” Willis said.

So she assembled a curriculum and developed a program with the intent to maximize the inherent flexibility in the home-schooler’s schedule while providing social interaction and high level instruction for the students.

The name – Chalk2Champions – is Willis’s way of verbally illustrating the concept of getting kids out of a classroom environment and into a place that they can pursue their passion more freely.

“What happens to these kids is they start realizing how much time is wasted,” Willis said. “Three and a half hours of the school day is used for instruction. And all the other stuff is good – the lunch, the hallway. All that stuff is good. But for this kid, he’s sitting there thinking, ‘I need to be on the course. I want to get my homework done so I can get out of here.’”

The concept was a breath of fresh air for Donald Standridge and his 13-year-old daughter Samantha.

Samantha, a college-level reader who also has interests in ice-skating, horseback riding and golf, was beginning to flounder in the public school system.

“She’s one of those kids that’s very shy,” her father said. “She’ll sit in the back of the class and not say a word.”

Because of that, the Standridges realized that maybe a traditional classroom setting was not the best way to tap into her potential.

“The whole point is to get those 29 kids on the same page, thinking the same way, eating at the same time, doing the same things,” Donald said. “That’s part of the regimen that’s necessary when you have a lot kids. And Samantha was getting left behind in some areas.”

“Just looking back at the school year and what we experienced with the school,” he continued, “I just thought, ‘You know, there has to be a better way.’”

Home school evolution
Home school academies are commonplace in most metro communities throughout the country. They serve as a gap-filler for home-school parents who want the socialization for their kids that traditional schools supply. Many of these academies field varsity sports teams and provide many of the extra-curricular activities that a traditional school setting offers. Miami Dolphins defensive end Jason Taylor was a home-schooled student who benefited from that type of academy.

Traditionally the home-school groups have been tied to conservative Christian ideals, and the curriculum reflected that. Willis herself holds a level of Christian ideals in her personal philosophy – her son attends Mt. Pisgah Christian School in Alpharetta, and she taught there before starting Chalk2Champions.

The divergence from the typical home school academy, however, is that her curriculum is secular in nature.

“The home school market has been driven by a very fundamentalist curriculum, which is great,” she said. “But that doesn’t serve every need. Some parents still want a secular view with their education, and that’s one thing that is unique to me.”

And the impression of the home-school student is that of a mousy, reclusive brainiac who is awkward in their social interaction. But Willis is trying to debunk that stereotype as well.

“Every one of them that I’ve met was just amazing,” said Willis, who has not home-schooled her kids in the past. “They were self-motivated and well rounded. And they were cool. I think we have this image that it’s a fringy thing, but it’s not.”

The case in point is Thomas Potts. Aside from his interest in biochemistry and politics, he’s a solid basketball player and an avid fan of jazz and hip-hop music. And he plays the drums.

And therein lies the gist of what Chalk2Champions is out to accomplish. Willis wants to tap into the passion of her students – whatever that may be – and provide a learning environment in which that passion thrives.

But she insists that she won’t do so at the expense of basic academic standards.

“They just need a different environment to learn,” she said. “And I’m not saying they need to sit out in a tree and let it come through osmosis. We still need rigorous academics and to demand excellence from them.”