This week on Homeschool Highschool Podcast: Homeschoolers Who Learn Differently: Empowered Strategies with Ashley Barta.

Homeschoolers Who Learn Differently: Empowered Strategies with Ashley Barta

We love meeting new people with cool resources. That’s why we are excited to introduce you to Ashley Barta, who helps empower parents of homeschoolers who learn differently. Ashley is a consultant at Empowered Strategies and Consulting. She is also a military homeschool mom (and comes highly recommended by our friend and 7Sister Cousin, Natalie Mack).

Featured in this article:

• Ashley Barta’s story
• How Empowered Strategies and Consulting started
• Benefits of homeschooling
• If your child has challenges, you can homeschool
• Connect with Ashley Barta

With over twenty years of experience in education, Ashley is committed to bringing the joy of learning back into the lives of families, educators, and children. Her work is really cool because that’s why we’re homeschooling! We want our families to enjoy education!

Ashley Barta’s story

Ashley’s story actually started in public school. She got her dream job as a kindergarten teacher in a small town in North Dakota. Those were the early days of No Child Left Behind, and there a huge push for all those kindergartners to be doing first-grade work.

Ashley remembers talking to the superintendent and saying, “I just want a play kitchen. I just want a kitchen in my classroom.”

Fewer people understood the importance of play in education. However, Ashley held onto the joy of playful education and brought that joy back into that classroom. Her young students experienced lots of imaginative play and learning through play.

When her oldest son was born, he was diagnosed with epilepsy. They tried to manage care while she worked full time. (And as military spouses know, the spouses run a lot more than their own job and their children.)

She found that all the running around was too much. Her mom-heart was calling her to stay home with her son. Ashley got my first master’s degree in early childhood special education during that time.

She opened her own preschool, and somehow managed to get all of her son’s PT, OT, and speech. Not only that, she ended up having a special education preschool full of children like her son.

Being a military family

Then her husband got orders. Ashley calls it, “The magic sauce of being military”. She had to close the preschool down, and they moved. In fact, the military moved them five or six times in fifteen years.

When the family moved to Nebraska, Ashley thought, “Let’s try homeschooling kindergarten. Let’s just try it.”

So she got all of the “how to homeschool” books. She soon found that homeschooling was fun. They had lots of zoo days and “school on the deck”.

Ashley and her husband decided, “We’ll just homeschool one year at a time, one year at a time.” And now she has a just-finished eighth grader and a just-finished sophomore. Her son is thriving. He might not do algebra and chemistry like his peers, but he is happy, healthy, and thriving. He is doing great for a severely medically complex child.

How Empowered Strategies and Consulting started

Soon, mothers with children who had health issues or learning disabilities started coming to her for advice, saying, “Well, you’re homeschooling! How do I do this?”

Ashley understood their struggles. It is easy to think that homeschooling means you have to buy a boxed curriculum and do what other homeschoolers are doing.

She always encourages them, “You know you’re your child’s best teacher. You are completely equipped to figure it out. And get help from other homeschooling people and resources when you need the support.”

Ashley gives homeschool moms the example of working with her son. He is non-verbal, but he uses his talker. For the longest time, everybody said, “Well, he can’t read if he’s not using his talker.”

However, she found a book: Structured Literacy.  The authors of the tool believe that literacy is possible even if you use a speaking device.

Ashley was able to add buttons to her son’s talker that were relevant to him. Now he demands shows that he wants to watch and then wants to talk about it. He can ask Alexa for different things. Through homeschooling and resources like this, Ashley has given him a world that we didn’t think was possible.

Benefits of homeschooling

Besides being an excellent education choice for her children, the family loves being able to take time off when Dad is home. They can school through the summer if they need to. This is especially valuable for military families. They want to make the most of their time together.

Ashley Barta’s advice for homeschooling moms with homeschoolers who learn differently: Just breathe. Breathe. Every day is a new day in homeschooling, and if your first day stinks, the second day will be better.

If your child has challenges, you can homeschool

Ashley frequently reminds nervous parents that homeschooling is totally doable. If you are a parent who is thinking about homeschooling and has a child who has some medical complexities or special needs, or if you are a military family with different rhythms, it is easy to feel intimidated.

That’s okay. There are resources to help. One of those resources is Ashley Barta and Empowered Strategies.

When Ashley begins to work with a family, she starts with a consultation. Every consultation is free. It’s a conversation to figure out what each family needs to go forth on their homeschool journey.

Sometimes she advises exhausted families to take a little time for de-schooling if they have been in a frustrating school situation: Enjoy the family, re-learn your relationships. Then Ashley helps them decide on the academic goals, strategies, and resources to help their specific needs

One thing that homeschooling moms with children who have learning struggles or the unique needs of military families need is encouragement, and a little “hold your hand and walk that path with you” attention. Also, if students come from a traditional school setting with an IEP, she can help the parents translate it into what it would look like at home.

Connect with Ashley Barta

You can get in touch with Ashley Barta at her Facebook page: Empowered Strategies and Consulting

Explore more about homeschooling with teens who learn differently

• Resources for Teens with Unique Needs with Dr. Rochelle Matthews-Somerville
• An Authoritative Guide for Out-of-the-Box Credits for Teens with Unique Needs
• Favorite Curricula for Teens with Unique Needs
• Resources for Teens Who Learn Differently with Keisha Berry
• Spectrum Resources with Keisha Berry
• Transition Planning with Peggy Ployhar

Thanks to Seth Tillman for editing.