BRYAN, Texas — Recently, homeschooling children has become a trend among parents concerned with what's taking place at school.
From controversial education topics that have become majorly debated amongst political leaders to school safety, it's no secret the education industry faced some of the toughest challenges when returning to normalcy.
In fact, a recent survey done by Q for Quinn showed that there's now an uptick of 15% of parents are considering homeschooling their children.
Bryan woman Shannon Neal Buckabee chose to hop on the homeschooling train 15 years ago but ended up questioned herself like many other parents who chose the education method.
"Do I know how to teach? I don't have a teaching license, do I know how to do this?" Buckabee would ask herself.
However for this Bryan woman, her reason to change education methods 15 years ago was different.
"Our boys were in public school system, we were having some issues with bullying. We weren't getting anywhere with the school, nothing was really done," Buckabee said.
As is well documented today, school safety protocols are a concern for many in more ways than one. Here in the Bryan-College Station area, Buckabee said that the homeschooling population has grown, with many families transitioning to the education method in the past five years.
"How often do you have these mass shootings and it's released later oh well the school knew that there were some issues. The door was unlocked when it shouldn't have been," Buckabee said.
In fact, Q for Quinn revealed an increase in the amount of inquires and searches on "homeschooling" between August 2022 and January 2023.
Today, Buckabee believes she made the right choice, and believes parents should take more charge when it comes to determining what is right for their child.
"That was a big decision in them wanting to home school, they wanted to be able to control what their kids are being taught," Buckabee said.
The decision is something Stacey Garcia, an educator and friend to Buckabee, said is what made her transition from the public school sector to homeschooling her children.
"As a public school teacher we don't have the opportunity, the time, or sometimes the resources," Garcia said.
In order to fully cater to every child's learning wants and needs while teaching life skills like cooking, money management, taxes, history, and political beliefs, sometimes a change of pace is needed.
Whether it's public school, private school or homeschooling, the choice is yours as a parent.