Hey! It’s okay to tweak your school plan midyear.

Some of us are dealing with a ton of uncertainty about education this year. I know we are. Will this virtual deal work for us? Should I give in to my son’s pleas to become a home schooler???

We are all going to have to try one method for school at first, and see if it works.

Within a week or two, we will know if it is a total disaster or not. I wouldn’t judge it off of the first day alone. The first of anything is usually the worst. Think of it as the first pancake. You gotta learn from the first one, and adjust the mixture and temperature accordingly.

If you are all hating life after two weeks in, something has to change: either the school or the methods. And that is okay. Email teachers. See if you can do assignments separately and turn them in without sitting through a boring lecture. If that doesn’t work, switch to a home school method if you need to. There are a billion options out there.

Our kids have done so many different things over the years. When we moved five times in four years, my oldest son went to three different schools for middle school, one for each of the three grades that most people consider middle: 6th, 7th, and 8th. It was terrible that he had to go through that. If I could have done it differently, I would have, but all of those three schools taught him something valuable.

We have also worked out alternate plans with teachers over the years.

This did not require switching schools, just doing things a little differently than the rest of the class. There is nothing wrong with that, especially if you aren’t putting a lot of extra work on the teacher.

For one of my other sons, I had to ask for a different math class. He was placed in the most advanced math, and at a new school, adjusting to the horrors that we call common core. That was too much. Many teachers will work with you to help your kids succeed. You can always ask and try.

We have also switched home school curriculums mid-year.

As a military spouse, one thing I have a ton of experience with is CHANGE.

We were with some friends a few weeks ago, and they said something about it being hard to get out of their “comfort zone.” My husband, Alan, and I just looked at each other. Surely he was thinking the same thing I was. “Oh yeah, people have those. We have not had a real comfort zone outside of our own house in ages. We live outside our comfort zone.”

It feels like we are always flying by the seat of our pants. You get really good at reading a room when you walk into it. Who are the people here who I can talk to? Where do we fit here?

When it comes to our boys’ schooling, the changes feel heightened.

All of the boys have been to both public and private schools. (I wrote all about the pros and cons of each here.) Two of the four boys have also had at least one solid year of home schooling.

Have I pulled my kids out of school to switch to home schooling in the middle of the year before?

Oh, yes, I have.

Let me tell you the story of 2011.

It was a BIG year for us. January-March of 2011, Alan was away in Huntsville taking an Army course.

I withdrew the boys from their Virginia preschool, and I moved into Alan’s parents’ house because I was due to give birth to Daniel on March 31st. Giving birth alone in Washington, D.C. was not happening to me.

We left our D.C. townhouse in tact with all our stuff and moved to Alabama for just those three months of Alan’s school. I gave birth to Daniel a week early. It was our very first emergency c-section. After my two week recovery, we all packed up the minivan and headed back to D.C.

Alan signed right into his new job. On day one, his colonel said, “Nice to meet ya! So what’s your dwell time?”

Now what you may not know is that is the worst question you can be asked upon sign in. That question actually means they are about to ship you overseas for a combat-type tour. In this case, it was Afghanistan.

Alan’s “dwell time” was all of TWO years at the time, so this was a devastating blow. Most regular Army units in those days did not trifle with short tours. If you were deployed, you were gone for a year. In fact, Alan’s most recent deployment at the time (2008-09) was a fifteen month one.

So there I was, in my townhouse, with our weeks-old baby, three-year-old, and five-year-old, receiving this news. All I could think was, “Noooooooo!!! No! NO! No. NO!”

Thankfully, he did not ship off right away.

He adjusted to his new job. We were also preparing to send our oldest off to kindergarten, and there were no acceptable neighborhood schools nearby. That is when we moved to the suburbs of North Virginia.

Things got much better during that time. Daniel was a delightful little baby. The boys loved Virginia. Plus, my neighbors and friends that I met through Alan’s coworkers, church, and the boys’ school were true God-sends. They are all still a part of my life to this day, though now it is mostly via Facebook.

We had trials too, of course. That summer, Caleb began to have seizures, and we had no idea why.

But you cannot stop the hands of time.

In October, Alan hugged us all and left for Afghanistan.

It suddenly felt like me against the world.

Does that sound melodramatic? It is true though. Three little rambunctious boys by yourself is a HUGE job.

Every morning to coax myself out of bed I would chant these Bible verses to myself:

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

Matthew 11:28-29

We had help that was unexpected, humbling, and life-changing.

My life changed completely when a saint and mentor from our church came to me and offered to let her teenage daughter and two other teenage girls that she taught come and help me. They would each take turns arriving on Sunday night, after church, and staying until I dropped them off Wednesday night. These girls served as built in older siblings and babysitters. I could go to the grocery store alone again!

I felt so loved and provided for, both by these wonderful people and by God.

Have you ever had people help you on such a deep and sacrificial level? It was amazing. God has taken such good care of us through fellow Christians over the years. My mind just blanks over people who cannot trust God. I have so many reasons to trust him.

My parents wanted me to come home so they could help us too.

By the way, this is all still 2011. It was a long, eventful year. My parents were after me to just move home for the rest of the deployment. We were lucky. This deployment was only six months, rather than our usual year-long tours. We had three months left.

Basically, it was like, “Why are you putting yourself through all this when you could just move in with your family down South, and work half as hard? The oldest child is in kindergarten. That requires zero paperwork to home school a kindergartener. Besides, health care is better down there.”

In D.C., I was having to wait months just for Caleb to get his EEG done. But in my hometown, that could be done in a matter of weeks. Caleb could get doctor appointments quicker, and we could figure out how to help him.

So in December, my parents arrived. They helped us pack our suitcases. I finished 2011 packing my suitcases to leave an empty Virginia house to go live with my own parents. We just took our clothes with us to Alabama and left all the furnishings in Virginia, waiting for us to return. What a crazy year!

That year Joshua went from preschool to home school preschool to public kindergarten and back to home school.

Before we left Virginia, I asked Joshua’s teacher to just tell me the basic topics and tasks he needed to learn to keep up with his peers so I could slide him right back in there in April. I was so focused on those topics, I can still remember what they were to this day. Also, I am happy to report that he did a great job and was not the least bit behind when he returned that April to finish kindergarten with his original class.

I wanted to be able to fully focus on teaching Joshua, so I did put Caleb in a preschool program near my parents’ house for those months.

The move was a good decision. I faced choices with Caleb’s treatment, and it was nice to be at home with my parents through all of that. Plus, health care down there actually did run so much more smoothly than in D.C. Big cities are such a pain when there aren’t enough services or doctors to provide for the entire population.

Sometimes we have years that take pages to explain….like my 2011…or everyone’s 2020…

You do what you have to do to make it work for your particular family with your exact set of circumstances. That will look different for all of us, and that is A-okay.

We may have to change direction mid-stream. That is okay too. The future is always changing and never predictable. We all do the best that we can with the information we have. What more can we do?

Trust God. Breathe a little easier. The more stressed we act, the more stressed our kids will be.

If you are doing virtual school, hybrid school, or just starting home school, join us in our Facebook support group.

For now, our family is going the virtual school route.

I already have one son begging to switch to home school, and we have not even started yet. We will see what happens.

My only advice is to not be afraid to make changes. You can always switch methods. It is your right. Your district might not let you switch from virtual to in-person, but you can always switch to home school or to public school. And you can always check and see if there are ways a teacher can help your child learn more effectively. There is no need to be married to a school that is not working.

Here’s to making this work, one way or another!