Black education is rooted in struggle. From slavery to Jim Crow, to the Black Campus Movement to Ron DeSantis’ current culture war, Black people have always had to go the extra ten miles for education. According to a report by NBC BLK, more Black families are home-schooling their children this year.
Tralandra Stewart, a public school secretary, and mother of three children in Cypress, TX. has joined in on the fight for Black education.
NBC BLK spoke with the Stewarts’ and other Black families who have opted to homeschool their children. Stewart created Home Grown Homeschoolers Inc., a communal educational space where 25 other families teach their children.
Stewart was inspired to create Home Grown Homeschoolers after children couldn’t explain what they learned about Black history at their local Cypress, TX. school.
“They said, ‘I don’t know. I think he was a man who made a speech,’” Stewart said to NBC BLK. “They couldn’t give me any information.”
The US Census Bureau reported that homeschooling saw a boost during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We started off with four families,” Stewart said of the co-op, which largely operates through donations. “We started going to our little community center and doing science projects and different things with the kids. We were like, ‘This is fun! What if we had more families?’”
NBC BlK also spoke with Marquita Straus, who worried her daughter would fall into the school-to-prison pipeline trap after teachers complained about her daughter’s behavioral issues. Straus’ daughter, Roo, was diagnosed with autism at 8 years old, Straus told NBCBLK. “Her teacher, a white woman, was physically rough with her, put her in a classroom by herself and isolated her there without explaining why. Roo was traumatized. [That was the] “last straw,” Straus said.
Roo’s public school experience inspired Straus to create her Tribe on a Quest blog as a space to share her experience home-schooling a child with autism.
As an alternative to verbally sparring “with people who are not in tune with what their child needs, I encourage considering home-schooling as an option,” Straus said to NBC BLK. “It’s completely changed the way I parent and it’s changed my kids’ lives.”
Read NBC BLK‘s story in its entirety here.