Homeschooling in the North Pole—with HSLDA’s Help

Yes, there really is a North Pole, where the Aurora Borealis shines bright over a little town of 2,486 residents, where street lights look like candy canes, and where the post office receives thousands of letters to Saint Nick each year. It’s also the place where, for the past 10 years, HSLDA has walked alongside a homeschooling family to ensure they can continue to educate their children at home.

Amy Macintyre knew her rights when officials told her she had to join a public school charter to homeschool. She knew her rights when Officers of Children’s Services (OCS) showed up at their door insisting on entrance. She knew who to turn to when she had questions about her special needs children, and who to ask for assistance when funds were tight.

How did she know? As an HSLDA member, she knew she had the freedom to call our legal department for questions on homeschooling law, and to call HSLDA Compassion for financial aid when times were tight.

“I wish more families in Alaska knew about HSLDA and would become members,” she said. “They need to have access to the laws and know what to do if OCS shows up. They need to know there is someone they can talk to when they have questions. They need an ally.”

Having an advocate in the HSLDA legal team, Amy also discovered she had a friend in HSLDA Compassion during some of her bleakest times. 

“At one point, we faced so much uncertainty,” she said. “I didn’t want to give up homeschooling, I just didn’t know how we would continue. But I always gave it to God, and he always came through—and quite often through HSLDA.”

After they had lived in Alaska for six years as a family, Amy’s husband abandoned her and their five children and relocated to California. Amy felt isolated and alone without the help of family nearby. But even with no family to turn to and a lack of financial resources, the North Pole   remained home and that is where they would stay.

With two special needs children, expenses high and income low, Amy applied for a Compassion Curriculum Grant. After receiving the grant, she used the money to buy materials to address her children’s dyslexia, which she could not otherwise afford. They gained a diagnosis for her son’s non-verbal learning disorder and received free therapy for his needs as well as some of the other children’s challenges.

The assistance from the Compassion Curriculum Grants helped Amy and her children through the next several years of homeschooling, enabling them to learn and grow at their own pace. Curriculum bought years ago with HSLDA funds is twice-blessed, because it’s now being used by her 21-year-old daughter in her work as a paraprofessional in speech at the local public school. She uses the curriculum to help children learn the sounds of letters and how to read.

Amy has two children left at home. Because of homeschooling, they continue to pursue their own passions. Her 14-year-old daughter started her own business at age 11, which she named Zinks. It gives her an opportunity to make and sell items formed from resin and alcohol ink, such as key chains, coasters, dominoes, fidget spinners, bracelets, and earrings. Over the past three years, she has put money aside for another one of her passions—Taekwondo.

She has her black stripe, and if she passes the next level, black belt, she earns a chance to go to USA national qualifiers in Reno, Nevada. She has diligently saved her Zinks income for that trip, where she hopes to join Team USA. Earning this spot would give her the opportunity to enter the International Taekwondo Federation World competition in Barcelona, Spain, in 2025.

Amy’s 10-year-old also enjoys Taekwondo and has his red stripe, the level below black stripe. As the only child born in Alaska, he’s right at home with cross-country skiing, and riding sleds and snow machines. When the ice and snow melt, he loves freestyle racing on BMX tracks.

Asked what he likes about homeschooling, he gave examples from his history lessons of planning meals from a Korean menu and learning about naturalization. Science afforded him opportunities to make a heart out of Jello and the Periodic table out of sugar cookies. He looks forward to growing sea-monkeys this year. Mechanically minded, he often builds things and takes them apart, and recently learned how to install snow tires on a car.

Amy has weathered the challenges of her Alaskan life with hope and determination, but she faced a new obstacle when her divorce was recently settled. Their home was to be sold as part of the agreement, and she was not sure where she and the children would live. She prayed and waited.

Some people weren’t very supportive of Amy continuing to homeschool unless she took the government funds Alaska offers. “Others thought I should put the kids in school. They seemed to think it unwise to simply put my hope in the Lord for provision.”

During this time of waiting and praying, a friend invited her to a picnic at the local radio station. This station is responsible for Christian broadcasting throughout the arctic, and has also reached New Zealand, Scandinavia, and China.

Excited for the chance to learn about a radio station, she and the children went. They soon discovered they were the only ones attending, so the host offered to take them on a tour of the station. He explained that the employee families living there were homeschooling, and that everyone lived for free and raised their own support. They saw the housing offices, and a room where kids stay while their parents work. Children could also stay with their parents during the workday so that their studies could be overseen.  

“I thought, ‘that’s the dream right there,’” Amy said. “My friend suggested I look into applying. I didn’t know what skills I had to offer them, but I sent them an email anyway.”

At the interview, she humbly admitted she wasn’t sure how she could help, but since she’d been praying about what to do, she decided to see if this is where God wanted her. They saw her heart, heard about her skill set, and offered her a job. She began training in radio automation and now works on computers that broadcast the radio signal.

Just like that, the dream to homeschool and serve the Lord, while depending on Him to provide for her living came true. They settled into their new home and routine at the station, and life changed once again for Amy and her kids. While the children are learning new things, so is Amy. Along with radio automation, she helps with databases, play logs, and devotions to be read over the airwaves.

“There are a lot of different jobs to be done, and no one person is to think they only do one job,” she said. “We’re all servants, doing what needs to be done.”