Some argue that public school is the only way to get an education and get into a good college. However, homeschooling is also an option.

People such as college freshman Emma Fernhout have found that homeschooling actually worked better for her. She has lived in three different states and was part of the England school system for six months.

Fernhout moved to Lenexa in 2011, where her mom continued to homeschool her.

“My mom was always worried that she wasn’t preparing me enough for college, and I always felt the same way. We went from the best school system in Wisconsin to the worst in New Mexico,” Fernhout said.

Fernhout believes that homeschooling has helped her more than public school.

“My mom started home schooling me because I would come home with stupid homework, or I wouldn’t get homework at all,” Fernhout said. “I think home schooling was good for me because I could tailor it a little to what I wanted.”

Fernhout also received a full-ride scholarship to Johnson County Community College from government aid with an ACT score of 28. She is currently completing her associate’s degree.

One of the students at De Soto High School who has been home schooled is junior Jared Jennings. Jennings was homeschooled from kindergarten until eighth grade by his mom. Another way he learned was through online programs.

He was also part of a co-op program, which was a collection of homeschooled kids taking classes together at his church.

“The moms specialize in certain things, like my mom specializes in art, so she would teach a couple kids art every other Friday,” Jennings said. “Another mom was good at photography, so we had a photography course. There was a huge range of things we could do.”

Jennings said that home schooling made it difficult for him to participate in some activities. “Activities are just really hard to find if you’re not involved with other homeschool families. With sports, there’s hardly any other places that let homeschool kids play,” Jennings said. “For basketball, I pretty much only could play because churches that were also schools would have these private teams. That’s what I did sixth, seventh and eighth grade; I played for private schools.”

For Jennings, his homeschool schedule was very similar to that of public school. “We did science through a couple textbooks. We did anatomy. We did physical science, pretty much most of what public school would have done. We kind of kept the same schedule as public school, so we would start at the same time and end at the same time,” Jennings said.

Though some may think homeschooling isn’t the best option, Fernhout thinks it worked well for her.

“It’s totally dependent on the person. Home schooling is not for everyone,” Fernhout said. “If you’re really social or you want to go to Harvard, homeschooling is not the best option. There’s goods and bads about both, but I think homeschooling was good for me.”