Why church-based homeschool learning centers are gaining popularity in Massachusetts

(The 74) – In Worcester, Massachusetts, GROW Christian Learning Center lives up to its name. A homeschool program with both full-time and part-time enrollment options, it has grown from six students when it launched in the fall of 2022 to 84 PK-12 students today, with over 40 more children on the waitlist. 

“Families are looking for something different,” GROW Program Director, Elizabeth López, told me when I visited the learning center last month. Located in the New Life Worship Center, a large, fast-growing, predominantly Hispanic Christian church in New England’s second largest city, GROW is part of the congregation’s mission to support families in and around their community. Similar church-based learning centers for homeschoolers are sprouting across Massachusetts, as more families seek alternatives to conventional schools. 

“These centers are inspiring not just the parents to engage more in the education of their children, but grandma and grandpa and auntie and uncle. The church is truly rallying together the family to raise up the children,” said Michael King, CEO of the Massachusetts Family Institute, a conservative advocacy organization that is helping to catalyze the creation of low-cost, church-based learning centers like GROW. Over the past three years, King’s organization has supported the launch of 15 of these learning centers across the Bay State, serving approximately 600 students. 

This may help to explain why Massachusetts is one of at least 19 states reporting an increase in 2023-24 homeschooling numbers compared to the prior academic year, according to data analyzed by Dr. Angela Watson at Johns Hopkins University. While Massachusetts, like many states, experienced a large surge in homeschoolers during the pandemic and related school closures, this recent uptick in homeschooling is being caused by unknown factors. 

“What is clear is that this time, the growth is not driven by a global pandemic or sudden disruptions to traditional schooling,” Watson concluded. “Something else is driving this growth.” 

According to López, families are attracted to homeschooling with GROW because it provides a safe, nurturing, family-centered, values-affirming learning environment. “Students here feel like they’re in a safe and trusting environment, and their parents feel the same way,” López told me. Indeed, the most recent federal data on homeschooling released in September reveals that a top reason why parents choose homeschooling is that they are “concerned about the school environment, such as safety, drugs, or negative peer pressure.” 

Homeschooling allows GROW families — most of whom are Hispanic — to have much more control over their children’s education. They collaborate closely with the learning center’s nine staff members and seven additional adult volunteers, who work to individualize learning to meet children’s specific academic needs. 

I talked with some of the parents of students who attend GROW to find out why they chose homeschooling over conventional schooling in recent years. “I think that there has definitely been a big shift in the curriculum, what is being taught in schools, and how that doesn’t align with my values and my beliefs,” said Tanya Tovar, a behavior analyst whose son Sebastian is a full-time first-grader at GROW. As Sebastian neared kindergarten age,Tovar looked into conventional public and private schools — including traditional Christian ones — but none appealed to her. She decided instead to enroll Sebastian at GROW last year, due in large part to its emphasis on faith-based education along with high-quality academics targeted to each child’s academic ability. 

GROW’s customized approach to education has enabled Sebastian to do advanced coursework, challenging him in ways Tovar thinks wouldn’t be possible in a conventional classroom. But for Tovar, GROW is about more than just Sebastian’s academics. “He’s happy, he loves his classroom, he loves his friends,” she said, adding that she plans to keep her son, and eventually his one-year-old sister, at GROW through high school. “I want them to be able to think independently, have autonomy for themselves and for their life. I think GROW does that. I think homeschooling does that.”

Erika Serrano agrees. She has an eleventh-grade daughter and a second-grade son at GROW, along with her three-year-old daughter, who attends part-time. A full-time community health worker, Serrano’s two older children attended Worcester Public Schools before enrolling at GROW last year. It was when her daughter began her freshman year at the public high school that Serrano realized she had to make a change. “That was a tough year for us,” she told me, explaining how her daughter’s behavior changed from middle school and how she was encountering negative peer pressure. 

Since attending GROW, Serrano has noticed a transformational change in her daughter. “Honestly, it makes me so emotional because she has flourished into such a beautiful, kind young woman since she’s been going to GROW. Words can’t even express how thankful I am. This has been such a great opportunity for us,” said Serrano, adding that her daughter plans to attend college after high school and become a teacher. Last year, GROW had its first high school graduate who received multiple college acceptances, beginning his freshman year this fall.

Some students attend GROW a couple of days a week, but the majority are enrolled full-time, five days a week at an annual tuition of $2,400. To defray tuition costs even further, GROW has recently partnered with Children’s Scholarship Fund (CSF), a national nonprofit founded in 1998 that provides low-income families with partial scholarships to attend private schools. CSF is now offering scholarships to students who attend creative schooling options, such as microschools and learning centers. (Parents are encouraged to check if their school participates in CSF’s scholarship programs)

The parents I spoke with expect GROW and homeschool learning centers like it to continue to gain popularity, both in Massachusetts and across the country. They say that more parents are looking for alternatives to traditional schooling and, as more of these alternatives sprout, it makes it easier to choose something else.

“I grew up in the public school system,” Serrano told me. “I raised my daughter mostly in the public school system. That’s all I knew, but I knew I needed to shift. I was so scared because you think this is the only way, right? But then I said, wait a minute, there are so many other ways that our kids could be educated.”

Serrano urges parents to consider new and different educational models. “Be open-minded,” she said. “Take that leap of faith and do what you know is right for your children.”

This article originally appeared at The 74 and is republished with permission.