The Martin Family

“We’ve homeschooled our kids for 15 years. Of our five children, our youngest was the first to attend private school. When we heard about Education Freedom Accounts (EFAs), that was the first time we considered private school as an option, financially.

We adopted our youngest out of foster care in 2022. That, along with her being kindergarten-age, enabled her to qualify. This is the first year she’s been in private school, and it’s been a good experience.

When our youngest daughter was in foster care, she attended daycare for some time and really loved being around people. That’s not to say she doesn’t enjoy being at home and playing with her sisters, but she really likes having more kids around. When the opportunity to send her to school presented itself, we thought it would be great to give it a try.

The school she’s at now is a Christian environment that mirrors many of our religious beliefs. We felt comfortable sending her there, and we knew lots of people whose children attended. At the end of the year, we’ll evaluate whether she wants to stay there.

We’re still homeschooling our other three children, and our oldest child has already graduated high school. As the EFA system continues to grow over the next three years, we hope to use it for our two youngest children. Kids are all very different and each have their own unique needs, so it’s good to have options for them.

From a homeschooling perspective, schooling your kids is difficult. You don’t have access to the same tax dollars that public school kids have. You have to be smart about which curriculum you purchase and be creative with the ways you teach. Having those tax dollars available to us will open opportunities to teach our kids, even in a homeschool environment. We love the flexibility the EFAs give us.

…the more we talk about EFAs and the more the program expands, hopefully more folks will know about it.”

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Neal & Christina Martin

Homeschool family, foster and adoptive family, & Arkansas education freedom success story

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