Well, hey everybody. Welcome to the Heidi St. John podcast. This is Heidi St. John and you have found me here at the intersection of faith and culture.

Today I'm thrilled to have Melissa Crab Tree back on the show with me and what we didn't talk about yesterday.

We are going to talk about today and that is that she has a background in special education. So the question is, can I homeschool my special needs child?

And the answer is a resounding yes. This is going to be a great conversation. Stick around. I think you're going to be encouraged.

Well, welcome to the show. I'm glad you guys are here for those of you who are wondering about where I will be this weekend. I will be speaking for the Christian Home Educators Association of California.

So the chief convention in Downey, California and I am the opening keynote on Friday morning. So I hope you guys will come out. I'll be closing that conference out on Saturday evening and in the meantime, doing a little bit of work with Prager University and also with Jack Hibbs on his podcast.

So you guys want to keep a heads up for that. I'm thrilled today to have Melissa Crab Tree back on the show. Usually this takes quite a bit of coordinating.

But now that she lives here, it's a lot easier to do. Melissa has homeschooled her children and she also has a background in special education. And so I asked her, can you come on and talk about if it's possible to homeschool a special needs child.

We get this question all the time at the show and she's the right person to ask Melissa, welcome back.

Hey, I always get to be here and so much more fun in person. It's so much better. I'm so excited. All right, let's jump into this because there are a lot of new people considering homeschooling right now.

And one of the questions that comes up over and over and over again, we hear from all kinds of people saying my child's on an IEP.

My child's been diagnosed with autism. My child has, you know, whatever I talked to a mom last week was a nonverbal child. And she's just very concerned about homeschooling.

So the big question is, can you homeschool a special needs child? I already know obviously your answer, but can you give us a little bit of your background?

So I was, I taught special ed for four years in the public school system. I knew from actually in fifth grade. I knew that's when I wanted to be, I wanted to be a special ed teacher until I raised kids and then I taught special ed until literally I worked in the morning and I had Jacob that my surprise and I was done working.

So and then interestingly enough, the Lord gave me two kids with different learning needs. One gifted with a learning disability. So which was really interesting.

You know, language arts came without my teaching at all. Actually, I found out by surprise that he was reading at three. And then, but the rest of the homeschool moms are like, shoot, that didn't have it in me.

I know, I know actually it was kind of a dream, but math was a tremendous struggle all the way through with a true learning disability. And then I have another child with dysgraphia and dyslexia, which is a whole other set of learning. They were very different learners. So they were your true.

So they would have both been in classes for learning disabilities, have they gone through the public school system.

And your background, you actually got, this was what you went to college to do. So you got your degree and a special ed teacher.

Yeah.

So your 12.

And I'm wondering, I'm assuming that you like me or seeing a rise in this in home educators because more and more people are looking for options outside of your classic, you know, put your kid into the special ed program in a public school.

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