Usery Mountain Home School Programs

About the Program

Category: Parks and Recreation (Best in Category)

Year: 2012

With the future in mind, counties are always looking for ways to increase access to educational materials for our nation’s youth. At the same time, some families become victims of the recession and have no other option but to move around the country from place to place, looking for jobs. The transient nature of many hard-hit families results in an increasing number of children being home schooled. Maricopa County has realized this dilemma, and continues to provide increasing access to educational materials for these families. Through the Usery Mountain Home School Program, Maricopa County has partnered with the Arizona Science Center to provide hands-on educational classes directed at home-schooled students. Through the program, children and their parents can attend a wide array of classes on many science-related topics. The classes, which adhere to Arizona state education standards, take place at the Usery Mountain nature park. There, students receive interactive lectures from park rangers and experience a classroom environment. All of the classes incorporate a high degree of experiential learning, as the students are allowed to examine, dissect, and experience first-hand different organisms and aspects of the local ecology. After the lecture, students are taken into the dessert to again experience what they just learned in the classroom. Classes are typically small, with pre-registration required and a cap of about ten to fifteen students per class. In accordance with the Arizona Science Center and the Maricopa County Board of Directors, there is a $6 automobile and a $15 to $20 class fee per student. The program has proven to be an extremely valuable asset to families that home school their children. The Usery Mountain Home School program provides a classroom and real world environment to students that otherwise learn in their parent’s living room. To date, a total of 19 programs have been hosted and attended by 422 individuals. Even more telling is the fact that nearly two thirds of these attendees were repeat visitors, indicating that the visitors both rely heavily on the classes and they thoroughly enjoy them. Being that programs are offered during the staffs normal work schedules, pay adjustments and overtime pay situations are avoided, meaning that operating the program incurs no additional cost to the county. The Usery Mountain Home School program is an easily replicable educational plan that would benefit any county across the nation.