Featured Image: Levon Putt holding a National School Choice banner saying “I love my school because… my teachers are awesome!” He has drawn a picture of Mrs. Campi and himself holding a laptop.
As National School Choice Week comes to a close, we want to reflect on this wonderful week and its extremely important purpose! We have been celebrating all week here at PALCS and we even had the privilege of speaking with a wonderful family within the PALCS community about School Choice and what it means to them.
Jessica and Keith Putt are the proud parents of PALCS kindergartner, Levon, and his two younger sisters, Everleigh and Emerson. Originally from Lebanon, PA, the Putt family now resides in Juniata County.
This being Levon’s first year at PALCS, we wanted to gain insight on how and why the Putt family decided to exercise their right to school choice, enroll Levon in a charter school, and what having that choice has meant to their family. Jessica was kind enough to share her family’s story.
“School choice to us means the privilege of being able to be a part of a fantastic school that we wouldn’t normally have the chance. It means having a chance at a much better education than he would have normally been offered.
We wanted more opportunity for him. We wanted option and choices. But above all, we wanted the best education he could get.
We started to look into options when we saw that a family friend had taken their daughter from regular public school and enrolled her in a cyber charter school. We saw how much she loved it and how well she was doing. Their daughter was considerably older, 9th grade, but that’s the point that it became a viable option and we started researching schools.
When people think cyber charter school they think no socialization and limitations. So our concern, because he’s so young, was making sure he had interaction with peers and teachers. The more the better. PALCS was one of the only schools to offer it and a lot of it.
When we discovered PALCS and began to learn all of things they offered for his education AND his social well-being, that combined with how well others spoke of PALCS, testing scores, and the environment they offered in general, it was pretty much an instant choice. Our alternative was sending him to a local brick and mortar school that faced an uncertain future. A school that didn’t have a library for students and didn’t always have enough materials. Finding PALCS and seeing what they offered made it an easy choice.
PALCS offers so much more than just a great education. They want the kids to socialize and become friends. They want them to have experiences. That was important to us. That Levon not miss out on all that. We were also so impressed by how highly recommended PALCS was. Students and parents rave about it. We also liked how well the state testing scores were. PALCS was just the most well rounded school out there.
Levon is in love with school. He has a love for learning and it was important for us to foster that. PALCS has helped us do that. He loves his teachers and his classes and has made friends. He looks forward to all the outings or visiting the school too. Levon has done so well that he made Honor Roll the first marking period and was a December Bright Student. PALCS has exceeded our expectations.
We hope that PALCS continues to help us foster Levon’s love of learning and adventure. We hope that it helps him see that there are choices in life and more than one way to be successful. We think that Levon will do amazing things at this school and we rest easy every day knowing we made the right choice for him and are glad we had the choice. Education is fighting an uphill battle right now and not every school has the tools they need to help make each student successful. So having a choice to do something not “normal” is amazing.”
We want to thank Jessica and her family for sharing their story with us! Also, thanks to everyone who participated in National School Choice Week 2018 events. Your support means everything and is the reason that our community continues to grow! We are so proud of each and every one of our students and all of their hard work.
