GREENSBORO — Catholic families in the Triad who educate their children at home are increasingly banding together in cooperatives – small groups that provide positive social interaction for students who see the world as their classroom and their family as their teachers.
Kingdom Kids is a preschool co-op (for ages 3-5) that meets every Monday and Wednesday morning during the school year at St. Paul the Apostle Church in Greensboro. Each year, there is also an option for a Friday class for rising kindergarten students. Parents rotate teaching and assisting with lessons, field trips and service projects. This year, they have four families involved and two prospective students.
Kingdom Kids has been going strong for 17 years, thanks to the dedication of parents like Meg Foppe and Rebecca Pearson-Yates, this year’s coordinators. What attracted Foppe to Kingdom Kids was the hybrid option between traditional preschool and an involved homeschool model.
“I felt my child needed more of a structured learning environment, more than I could offer at home at the time, but didn’t think a full preschool program was the right decision either,” Foppe says. “I think Kingdom Kids presents a very unique opportunity for the child as well as the mother, a gradual stepping out of a comfort zone for the child and a community of support for the mother.”
For Foppe’s five children, Kingdom Kids has served as a launching pad for future education through Our Lady of Grace School in Greensboro. But for other families, it’s the first step in a longer process of home education.
Pictured: Angela Dierking leads a class of second-graders to fourth-graders in a lesson about basic physics using Lego manipulatives at Gifts Homeschool Co-op at St. Paul the Apostle Church in Greensboro. (Kelly Henson | Catholic News Herald)
Two Catholic Triad area co-ops provide an environment for academic enrichment for years beyond preschool. Holy Family Homeschool Enrichment of the Triad meets at Holy Family Church in Clemmons, and Gifts Catholic Homeschool Co-op meets at St. Paul the Apostle Church. These co-ops see a living Catholic faith as the informing ethos and essential point of connection as they gather diverse homeschool families.
Holy Family Co-op began about a decade ago through the dedication of two homeschool families who wanted more time together for support and enrichment. Greensboro families, like Kimberly Romie’s, drove to participate in and learn from the Clemmons co-op before branching off to form Gifts Co-op a few years later.
Both co-ops meet once a week, beginning with daily Mass at the parish and followed by two to three classes for every grade level, preK-12th grade. They also both have a nursery for babies and toddlers ready to get a little independent play away from Mom. These vibrant co-op communities rely on parents to share their talents as teachers and assistants for the classes chosen by the families each year.
Jen Waugh and her four children, aged 4-14, are members of the Holy Family Co-op, and she serves as the coordinator this year. The relationship between the co-op and the local parish is important to their success as a community, Waugh notes.
“At a recent Mass, our pastor, Father Michael (Buttner), included all the children in his homily by speaking directly to them and then warmly thanked all our homeschooling families for participating in the Mass,” she said. “Our priests and other staff members give us the highest compliment when they proudly recommend our group to any homeschoolers they meet! For that reason, our group continues to grow. We currently have 18 families and approximately 45 students ages 4 to 17, as well as a nursery for children 3 and under.”
Waugh’s family has used the classes to enrich their core curriculum taught at home. Holy Family Co-op offers classes divided by age group and includes offerings such as “bell choir, theology, science, logic, geography, and story and craft classes for younger students.”
Waugh enjoys teaching science. “Right now I am teaching a class on electricity to grades 4 and up. In past semesters, we have built rockets, dissected a pig and drew life-size models of the human organ systems.”
The Gifts Co-op is also growing. Two new families this semester brought them to a total of 25 families and 92 children.
When Kimberly Romie first began the co-op in 2012 with Carrie Richter and Susan Myrick, she explains, “(My husband) Randal and I were members at St. Mary’s Church in Greensboro. Father Mike (Nguyen) was the pastor and welcomed us with open arms. We met weekly on Fridays in their Parish Life Center for many years. Eventually we outgrew their PLC and we approached St. Paul’s and moved to their location.”
Father Joseph Mack, pastor, and his staff have generously accommodated this growing ministry at St. Paul’s. Now, Romie’s daughter Lilliana has graduated her homeschool program and is a junior at Belmont Abby College.
“For our family, Catholic homeschooling was a true gift from God,” Romie says. “Lilie had the benefit of true friendships with like-minded kids. It built a great foundation for her life and gave her a chance to be who God intended. Our Catholic co-op and the one in Winston-Salem gave her a core group of friends and parents that she felt and feels are a life-long support. It was life changing for our family. As a convert to the Catholic faith and not having my family as a support, we have been blessed by so many of these amazing Catholic families. They are our family.”
Like Holy Family Co-op, Gifts Co-op focuses on a changing selection of enrichment classes. This year, many grade levels are mastering the techniques and styles used by great artists and craftsmen of the past, learning basic physics through Lego construction, and acquiring skills in various sports through PE programs. Walking through the halls of St. Paul, teens can be seen discussing Theology of the Body, toddlers jump and shake instruments in a Music & Movement class, and middle schoolers hammer nails into boards for string art plaques.
Pamela Gaylord is a veteran homeschool mom of 20 years. She has 10 children, and she has served as a coordinator for the Gifts Co-op for the past three years. Gaylord shares some of her favorite memories of co-op projects: “In the past, the children have performed a musical, created a 3D replica of a church, and made shawls to pass out at a nursing home.” Celebrations of Catholic feast days and service opportunities also bring the families together, as they dress up for All Saints’ Day, sing to nursing home residents, compete to make ‘plarn’ for sleeping mats for the homeless, or perform in a Christmas Around the World party, she says.
For those who may have children too young for much formal schooling or who just want a social outing to break up their week, a fourth homeschool co-op meets every Wednesday at a park in Greensboro or the surrounding area. Frassati Friends was begun by Emily Ayala in 2016.
Ayala shares, “Each time we meet for short prayer, picnic lunch, playtime for the kids, and support for the moms in a relaxed environment. I think moms have enough responsibilities at home, so I’m trying to provide a place where they can ask other Catholic moms questions or share prayer requests, and the only chores are driving to the park and packing or picking up lunch. Members sign up on the website (a Yahoo group), and from then on will receive an email once a week giving that week’s meet-up location.”
Recognizing that there is a broader group than just homeschoolers who crave Catholic friendship during the week, she adds, “We also welcome school-enrolled families when they’re on vacation and can join us, as well as Catholic mothers of preschoolers.”
Frassati Friends also continues to meet through the summer months.
While classroom experience, play and work with their peers is a bonus for homeschooled students, the communities created within these co-ops offer close friendships and irreplaceable mentorship between adults and children and between older and younger students. When fellow co-op members welcome a new baby or suffer from an illness, loss or other disaster, families are quick to jump in and assist.
To some, homeschool families look like they are accomplishing the impossible by running a household with the constant companionship of their children and leading the education of those children as well. But only a few minutes into conversation with a homeschooling mom and she will assure you with a sense of humor that while they feel a unique calling within the education of their children, they are not “bulletproof.”
Allyson Hoyng is a member of Gifts Co-op and has homeschooled her six children, one of whom is now a mother who is homeschooling her own family. Hoyng says when her first three kids began to homeschool, a tight curriculum budget restricted them to library books and second-hand math books from retired teachers. She struggled to be confident she was educating her children in the ways they needed. However, when several family tragedies hit in a row, including the loss of their grandmother who lived with them and the death of their own father after a battle with cancer, she saw that the true fruits of homeschool go beyond spelling and arithmetic. Her family unit was strong because of the two years spent together, and despite their sufferings, her kids “blossomed.”
Each family’s homeschool journey is different. Waugh echoes many other homeschool parents: “Why do I homeschool? There are as many reasons as there are days. I love that I get to tailor my education to my children – each different child gets their different needs met. I love that in addition to the formal education my kids receive, they are immersed in family life and get the time to spend growing up with their siblings. I homeschool because I want to see my children grow up and, despite the difficulties, I just love being with my kids. I love that I get to shelter my kids for a little bit from the influences of the outside world while they are young, so they can hold on to their innocence for just a little longer. That time will be over before I know it. Time flies. They grow up too fast. I will take all the time with them I can.”
Catholic co-ops help her to accomplish this task, she says. “The point is, raising kids today is hard and whether you school at home or send your kids to a public or private school, we are all striving to help our children into heaven. It is a tough job and we need all the help and backup we can get.”
— Kelly Henson, correspondent. Kelly Henson is a correspondent for the Catholic News Herald and one of the coordinators for Gifts Catholic Homeschool Co-op.
Get connected
- Kingdom Kids: Meg Foppe at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
- Holy Family: Jennifer Waugh at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
- Gifts Co-op: Jen Schulteis at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
- Frassati Friends: Emily Ayala at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.