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Burr Ridge company provides home school materials
Debra Sunderland who home schools her children, Luke, 13, (at right) and Isabel, 9, says the job is not more demanding than parenthood in general. | J. Geil—for Sun-Times Media
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Updated: November 12, 2012 1:30AM
BURR RIDGE — Parents who home school must, technically, provide instruction in language arts, math, biology and physical science, social science, fine arts and physical education.
A Burr Ridge company, Chicago School Supplies, is one source of materials needed to teach those subjects. Materials are sold through the company’s website, schoodoodle.com.
“We have extended it a little bit,” Founder and President Michael Ockrim said of the company’s inventory for home schooling.
He said materials are offered in all core subjects. And that helps the growing number of parents choosing this option.
But those who do choose home schooling don’t eschew the public schools.
Joanna Budelman of Hinsdale chose to home school daughter Bonnie on and off because own a business overseas that requires they spend a lot of time in India and Mexico.
Four years ago, when Bonnie was 9, she was home schooled for six months by one of Budelman’s friends.
Budelman decided to home school her daughter because she knew the family would be out of the country for five months during the school year. She found a literature-based curriculum that appealed to her and supplemented the curriculum, called Sonlight, with math instruction on compact discs.
But because she expected her daughter to enroll in Hinsdale Middle School for eighth grade, she had Bonnie attend the middle school for the morning advisory period and science class, so she could meet other students.
For Debra Sunderland, the decision to home school had nothing to do with the value of education in Hinsdale-Clarendon Hills Elementary District 181.
No matter how good a school district is, it will not be able to provide individualized instruction to meet each child’s abilities and interests, Sunderland said.
Her son, Luke, who will turn 14 on Sept. 16, has been home schooled his entire life by his mother.
Her friends’ children who were home schooled convinced Sunderland to home school Luke and his 9-year-old sister, Isabel.
“The kids I met were able to engage with me, with their siblings and with people of all different ages. They were really bright and creative,” Sunderland said.
Sunderland also wanted their religious faith to be part of their education.
“I wanted them to be where it was okay to talk about God, to have a Christmas pageant. I wanted to give them a good foundation,” she said.
