CENTRAL, Texas — School is typically described as a place where you see friends, have fun, feel comfortable, and be in a place to learn.
In the past thirty years, it's shifted into a chilling setting where violence has struck more frequently than anybody would like to admit. In addition to curriculums being changed and books banned, now, a chilling reality has changed the perspective of many about school in America.
Ultimately, it's pushed parents like Bryan mom Shannon Huckabee to take matters into her own hands.
"It was fun, and now it's just, it's very much institutionalized," Huckabee said.
She was a former educator, but now is a decade-long homeschooling parent. For her, however, the chilling and infamous 1999 Columbine massacre that left 12 students and one teacher dead at a Colorado High School.
"I could not send my kids to school," the homeschooling parent said. "I would be terrified all day."
That was Huckabee's turning point that pushed her into homeschooling her children, to ensure they will never be at risk like the victims of a staggering number of school shootings in America over the years.
"Then you had more shootings and more shootings, and now I mean it's a shooting what every month at least--All over the country," Huckabee noted. "Columbine kind of put that seed in my head where schools really aren't safe. It's not a safe haven like it was when I grew up."
Since Columbine, there have been 386 school shootings nationwide, with over 350,000 students being exposed to the horrors of gun violence, according to the Washington Post.
However, she saw the mass of violence coming decades ago during her schooling career.
"I remember seeing the increased violence when I was in school, mind you this was 1994, 1995," said Huckabee. "And every year it was just getting worse and worse and I was starting to see it as a student myself. And it's gotten worse 100 times worse."
Despite homeschooling being an unconventional way of education compared to the primary school methods that we've become accustomed to, there was also another factor that drove her to the decision: bullying.
"We had a lot of instances with bullying."
She stated there just wasn't enough protocols in place that made her safe as a parent letting her children go to school. It's a conversation that's been discussed considerably following the tragic events in Uvalde.
"I felt like I could do a better job keeping them safe at home," Huckabee said.
In 2022 search queries for homeschooling peaked, and has become a trend amongst parents right here in town as the population continues to grow.
"When we first started homeschooling there were only a couple of hundred families and now we've got several thousand families in the Brazos Valley that homeschool," she said.
It may be a scary leap for some, but homeschooling is ultimately about your child and setting them up for success.
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