HILLIARD, Ohio — Mom of two boys Kirsten Pitini has been on a roller coaster this summer trying to figure out what back to school will look like in Hilliard.
"For a while I was watching the numbers, looking at the data every afternoon at 2 p.m. and I think it was starting to cause me outward anxiety that my kids were able to pick up on," Pitini explains, "I had to take a step back from consuming all the information and just thinking of my family and my kids."
What Kirsten knows is that she didn't want her kids learning virtually, being on the screen all day.
So she made the decision to pull Emmet and Elliot out of the Hilliard school district all together and become a home-school mom.
"Ultimately the decision was up to me and my husband. But I did want to know how they felt about it. Both of my kids asked to stay home with me, and I thought are we all agreeing on something, this never happens," she says.
That agreement came after a lot of research about how home-schooling works and the resources available to help.
"I felt really comfortable with the curriculum available to home-schooling parents and the one thing I really liked is that our neighborhood kids are also going to be home so it's going to give my kids that social interaction that they need," she explains.
Kirsten says she is nervous to wear both hats, mom and teacher.
But she is excited to take on the challenge, at least for this very unusual school year.
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me to be able to spend time with my kids, learning about things we want to learn about in a fun way, while making sure we're still doing math and reading," Pitini says.
In order to be home school parents they need to:
1. Submit an annual notification to district with intentions to home-school (notification must include outline of curriculum)
2. Have a high school diploma or GED
3. Teach required subjects for at least 900 hours a year
4. Assess students annually
