Léo's Insights
A place where issues related to the Christian walk and its application to home education is discussed.
Topics are meant to challenge you to think differently, to make a difference in this world, starting with the children you have been blessed with.
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The Farewell Tour Without Goodbyes: Reflections (Part 16)
I was in no shape to take on weeks of travelling as I recovered from my Covid-related pneumonia so we had to do most of our spring 2022 visits by phone or Zoom. I suppose after having faithfully visited families every fall and spring for decades, I thought we should make an effort to visit once I had mostly recovered from my illness.
My children were pressuring me to slow down and do less facilitation, but I was not in agreement. In fact, visiting families is the best part of this job – absolutely preferable to filling in government mandated paperwork and debating with bureaucrats!
Continue reading “The Farewell Tour Without Goodbyes: Reflections (Part 16)”
Victory! Reflections (Part 15)
Even though I was still very sick when I got home, I was immediately obligated to attend an interview with government agents regarding our accreditation application. I was very blessed to have several colleagues attend with me, which resulted in a positive outcome.
However, my nemesis, Maria, had wasted no time initiating yet another attack. The Maria Event #6 caused the sponsor school to fear for its life! Maria had determined that EU had failed to fulfill its obligations so the school would be penalized. Maria actually threatened to defund the entire EU home education program, which would have had very deep and seriously negative repercussions for everyone. The accusations were serious enough to be escalated to the level of the Assistant Deputy Minister.
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Everything Goes Dark: Reflections (Part 14)
I believed the new year, 2022 would have to be an improvement over the last year of tragedies, failures and disappointments. I had only just met the application deadline for accreditation when I sustained a major head injury followed by headaches beyond description. Although we had hosted a staff gathering in late January, I recall very little of what transpired. A few days later, my very concerned wife took me to emergency, fearing for my life.
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Sabotaging Possibilities: Reflections (Part 13)
Eventually, we attracted our third school sponsor, once again as D-Day was approaching – where the “D” is the first letter of the word death. It was a last minute arrangement, with little time to get everything lined up. Our sophisticated technological system had to be re-tooled to work with the new school, which was no small task, but even bigger issues came up. Let’s call this Maria Event #3.
Now that we had a committed sponsor, Maria wanted to make the entire enterprise as miserable as possible. She threatened to defund the school over a number of trumped up charges, ending with her disqualifying the use of the Education Unlimited name.
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Swimming Against the Current: Reflections (Part 12)
Once I determined to suspend our application for accreditation, I set out to find a third sponsor school. I had experience with the machinations of private “Christian” schools, so I offered a substantial amount of money to sponsor us for one year. I knew that would attract the attention of a number of schools, which it did, but it also got the attention of a bureaucrat with whom I had a sordid past.
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A Loss of Faith: Reflections (Part 11)
I was on the phone with the Manager of Accreditation and Monitoring when we got the electrifying news of our son’s departure from this world. I was in such shock, I behaved as though nothing had happened and soon contacted this man again to resume our discussion. Having been apprised of my tragic situation, he volunteered to personally help me in applying for accreditation.
The accreditation process is long and convoluted. To make matters worse, we had already been conducting affairs as a de facto school for over two decades, meaning we had developed novel ways of doing things, and making these ways fit a government system was difficult. And, we were applying for accreditation months after the deadline, with only a few months before the start of the next year.
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Life Altering Tragedy: Reflections (Part 10)
Some things just cannot be predicted, yet when they do happen, we often clearly see the signs indicating they would. As good parents, we knew our youngest son was experiencing some extremely difficult things in his life because we were experiencing them with him. We felt his pain, experienced his despair and saw his despondency. When he ended his life, a part of ours died too.
I cannot presume to be able to remember the multitude of lessons learned through this tragic event, but I will try my best to summarize what was learned, starting here and continuing through to the end of this series.
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Overcoming: Reflections (Part 9)
The easiest thing to do is quit, yet we all know quitters never win. While I did not carry the burden, I still felt responsible to the many parents and students who had come to believe we would find a solution to the dissolution of our relationship with our former associate school.
We had spent four months preparing our charter school document, failed and now we only had four months until the start of the next school year. Somehow, I still believed we would get our own school authority, although I was now keenly aware a charter school would not be the answer. We had all the excuses for giving up, but we didn’t.
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Give It Your All: Reflections (Part 8)
After we were dismissed by our associate school chairman, we found ourselves in a familiar predicament. Hundreds of families were looking to us for sponsorship in their home education programs, yet we had no school through which to offer this service.
This time I was clear about what we should do. We had already met the Minister of Education and had described what we were doing. This provided her with an alternative to the status quo public schools and a possible connection to the recently passed Choice in Education Act. As a matter of fact, the Minister saw what we were doing as a potential pilot project.
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Never Feed the Bully: Reflections (Part 7)
Continuing with the attempted acquisition of Education Unlimited in early 2021 is necessary to demonstrate other lessons learned. Although there were some misgivings on the part of some staff who thought giving the chairman what he was demanding would appease him and make the problem go away, I could not and stood my ground. Repeated efforts by this “pastor” to dissuade parents from continuing with Education Unlimited and to persuade them to join his school’s largely non-existent home education program ended up alienating the parents who found this activity bewildering.
Continue reading “Never Feed the Bully: Reflections (Part 7)”