[speaker002:] yeah well I I can tell you here's an interesting interesting story uh my wife uh when we first had our kids decided to home school our kids
[speaker001:] uh-huh it would is isn't that against well in in is that is is that within the law in Virginia
[speaker002:] and yeah it's it's interestingly uh there're a couple of different categories categories of home school uh children uh a lot of people take religious exemptions
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] and those are the people you probably read about all the time in the news you know somebody's somebody's trying to you know get rid of evolution or something and
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] and you know so they don't want their kid to go to school to find out that you know the kid really comes out of the cabbage patch
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] but uh but in our case uh we actually did it uh we took uh educational you know whatever
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] uh because we both had advanced degrees and so we just said uh hey look you know we have enough education to to school our kids and the idea was when we first started was to just do elementary school uh level instead of the public schools and do that at at home uh eight six uh eight seven and four
[speaker001:] um-hum how old are your kids okay
[speaker002:] uh so pretty young kids and so anyway my wife did all of this all of this schooling and uh you know she had curricula that she bought that they actually sell which we never knew of um
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] you know it was really complete I mean uh it matched up pretty well with with uh actually matched I thought was better than a lot of the public school curricula but anyway you know you could if you were really religious of course you could get all uh sort of a religious stuff with all the the creation and stuff slant on it
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] but uh there's actually a lot of uh to us anyway there's a lot of other good stuff out there too so we got a couple actually bought a couple of these programs and for grades you know one through six
[speaker001:] so like prefab school
[speaker002:] yeah exactly exactly
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] and uh so you know went through it and uh anyway my my wife got to the third grade point with my with my daughter
[speaker001:] the four year old
[speaker002:] and the oldest one the eight year old
[speaker001:] oh uh-huh
[speaker002:] got to the third grade point and it was just too much I mean it was just the kids were just you know they needed they just needed other kids to be learning with you know and uh also it was a tremendous amount of work
[speaker001:] yeah  sure I I imagine it it it it it really was because see you had to do run at least three curricula three separate curricula in parallel and uh-huh
[speaker002:] right exactly now it was easier it was actually easier as the younger ones got older because she could just you know kind of take what she had before just the same the same thing that public school teachers do now I mean the
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] but it it was
[speaker001:] how how long did you do this for
[speaker002:] uh she did it for three years
[speaker001:] three years okay
[speaker002:] and and actually the kids did really you know uh if you if you believe the tests that uh the state hands out here you know they're supposed to test your uh your
[speaker001:] um-hum oh so so every year your kids had to do like some kind of a test to be sure that okay
[speaker002:] yeah right they took a standardized test and uh
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] they they always did really well uh and they never seemed to have any problem with it
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] but I can see in a lot of cases like it it we didn't in a case where you've got people at home where they don't for for you know almost the you know political reasons or whatever they don't want their kids to go to school
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] I mean that testing can be really bogus you know because we knew people in uh the home schoolers associations there that just they were just blatant cheaters and I mean if their kid didn't do well yeah I mean they just filled it out themselves it was absurd you know
[speaker001:] oh you mean you didn't have to take them to like a central location and
[speaker002:] oh no no they sent them to you
[speaker001:] oh they sent them to oh boy yeah um-hum
[speaker002:] yeah so you know for us we actually sat our kid down and timed them and everything you know just make it seem like like the real pressure you'd be under
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] but uh you know we heard stories we heard all kinds of stories of people you know it's like well if my kid doesn't do well on it I'll just write in the answers you know uh
[speaker001:] why why why did you decide I mean did did you decide like to to do that home schooling because you didn't think the your local schools were were good enough or
[speaker002:] yes we did that yes that was the reason but we did that out of total ignorance because we never went to the schools to find out what they really were doing
[speaker001:] uh-huh oh
[speaker002:] it was just sort of it was just sort of uh you know hey we remember what public school was like and it was really crappy my wife actually was she's from the Bronx in New York so you know she knew that public schools could be pretty bad
[speaker001:] yeah did um well what did you think about like you you know you obviously paying taxes for for the for for schools did I mean did
[speaker002:] and uh yeah oh actually we didn't really begrudge that you know because I mean it's like you know me I mean it's good it's good that uh to you know my opinion is that they should there should be a public school
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] they they shouldn't make everybody go to it I mean you should be able to go to other schools or if you know if people have the credentials to home school well leave them alone but but uh you know as far as the taxes go I mean I don't yeah yeah big deal nah
[speaker001:] uh you didn't worry about it what uh eventually you put your kids back in back in to public school how did that
[speaker002:] right