Mount Pleasant Magazine July/August 2017

INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS

f you listen closely, you can almost hear the kids lining

up their brand-new notebooks and pencils, buzzing

with excitement for the upcoming school year. That’s

right, summer is coming to an end and families are

gearing up for another school year – but that doesn’t

necessarily mean they’ll be leaving the house to do so.

Instead, home schooling is taking the Charleston

and Mount Pleasant communities by storm, allowing

kids to work in a more familiar

environment while still digesting

valuable information and experiences on a daily basis. But

if you ask these kids, they’re just as excited about their

music classes beginning. While many people believe home-

schooled children to be less socially involved, nothing

could be further from the truth. Led by Mike Doll – a

band director with 22 years of experience behind him and

a father of four home-schooled children himself – the Arts

Academy at East Cooper Baptist Church is giving home

schoolers the opportunity to join in on all of the fun and

BY KRYSTA CHAPMAN

HOMESCHOOLED STUDENTS LOVE MAKING MUSIC

Melody and

Harmony

Logan and Ellen Young at All State Band in March 2015.

education that music has to offer.

For his own family, Doll and his wife, Susan, decided to

start home schooling their children when their first child,

Abigail, now 15, started school.

“For us, it was simply a matter of deciding that we

wanted to be the ones responsible for what and how our

children learned. As trained educators, we could see the

benefits of one-on-one learning with our children, while

at the same time daily reinforcing our faith and being the

Photos courtesy of the Young Family and the Doll Family.