This fall, after wowing millions of TV viewers, falling just short of the final round on NBC’s The Voice and gaining national exposure that she hopes will launch a lifelong music career, Shalyah Fearing tried something new. She started learning in a traditional classroom at a local public high school.
Now 16 and a junior, she takes three classes at River Ridge High School in New Port Richey, Fla. while managing the rest of her course load online.
Her family has experienced just about every flavor of school choice — public, private, virtual, home education. So it was fitting that they lent their voices to one of the first events of National School Choice Week, which runs Sunday through Jan. 28, and includes more than 20,000 events across the country.
The events steer clear of politics and encompass multiple educational options.
Among others, Saturday’s celebration in Shady Hills featured local Catholic schools, the Pasco County school district’s career academies and the statewide virtual school that allowed Shalyah to take classes while she chased her musical dreams in California.
For most of Shalyah’s life, she and her six school-age brothers and sisters were homeschooled. As her mother puts it, they enrolled at Fearing Academy.
When she traveled to Los Angeles to compete on reality television, she took classes through Florida Virtual School. She tackled assignments as her schedule allowed, and kept up with teachers and classmates online and by phone.
“All I had to do was carry my laptop everywhere I went,” she said. “My teachers were always available.”Her mother, Crystal Thomas-Fearing, knew that if she was going to travel with Shalayah, her other children would need alternatives to Fearing Academy. She learned about tax credit scholarships*, which allowed her to enroll four of her children in a private Christian school she wouldn’t otherwise have been able to afford. (Our friends at the EdFly covered this story in greater detail.)
For Thomas-Fearing, customizing education for her children was nothing new. She started homeschooling to instill her personal faith and values. She wanted to smash stereotypes — including the idea that children who learned at home wouldn’t build social skills. She joined a local homeschool cooperative so her children could join peers for activities. In what proved to be a consequential decision, she signed them up for vocal and piano lessons at Music Matters, an academy in New Port Richey.
“I feel like they actually get to do more things,” she said. “They have more flexibility in their schedules, because wherever we go, the books can go.”
Andrew Campanella, the president of National School Choice Week, has described homeschooling as the original school choice. Over the past three decades, its popularity has grown, the stigmas have faded, and it’s influenced other educational options, from online schooling to education savings accounts.
“There’s so much diversity,” Thomas-Fearing said. “Homeschooling is not like it was in the 1940s.”
Meanwhile, Shalaya said she’s now working with a producer on an EP of original songs. And she’s come to appreciate the benefits of attending a traditional public school.
“There was a different feel. It was cool be in a classroom and experience what it was like to work with other students,” she said. At the same time, she said her experiences learning at home and juggling online classes on the road helped her figure out how to function as an independent learner. She hopes that combination will help propel her to her next goal: Julliard.
“When I go off to college, I feel like I’m prepared for that,” she said.
*Step Up For Students, which publishes this blog, helps administer the scholarship program.
