EDUCATION
FACTBOOK 2021 141
a school offering courses a
la carte, college style. (Those
classes went virtual at the
start of the school year due
to the coronavirus.)
In addition to the usual
courses, such as math and
English, they have taken
business, robotics, and Black
history courses through the
school and are several years
into Mandarin.
It’s not cheap. The supplemental
courses cost
about $600 per month, said
Cupid’s husband Craig, an
intellectual property attorney.
(By comparison, 21st
Century Academy, a private
school they had briefly
sent their children to years
ago, cost about $1,800 per
month, he said.)
Craig Cupid has taken on
some teaching responsibilities
while working from
home due to the pandemic.
“Craig and I, we have
autonomy,” Cupid said. “We
have demanding roles. But
we have autonomy in our
roles where we can kind of
set our work to a schedule
that allows us to get our
work done, versus being
told, ‘You have to clock in at
this time, clock out at that
time.’”
Before the pandemic,
however, Cupid split some
of the load with family,
tutors and others.
“We had people come and
help clean the house,” she
said. “We put a team around
us to make it work. So even
though home schooling can
be essentially free … it became
expensive because we
knew we needed a village to
make it work.”
WHAT TO KNOW
There are several things
families should know before
they commit to home
schooling, Cupid said.
First among them: it’s
hard.
The first year “everything
was hands on,” Cupid said.
Relearning long-forgotten
math lessons so she could
then teach them to her
children was one obstacle.
The emotional toll was
another.
“You’re learning how to
treat your child with patience,
with kindness, with
compassion, with understanding,”
she said. “And
that takes time.”
Craig Cupid was worried
about what his sons
might lose by being
home-schooled.
“In the beginning (I
wondered), ‘Are they going
to miss something, are they
going to get behind, are
they not going to be ready
for the world because they
didn’t go through traditional
school?’” he said. But
those fears have not come
to pass.
Noah and Nehemiah are
self-directed and learning
more advanced topics
than the average 10- and
11-year-olds, the Cupids
said. More importantly, it’s
been a bonding experience.
“I think it gave us an opportunity
to not only learn
about how they learn, but
learn who are these people
that we gave birth to, who
are in our homes,” Cupid
said. “Like what are their
personalities? What are
their interests?”