“Bryanna had always been a really great student and that year her grades just started plummeting,” said her mother, Tammy Willis. “I knew that was a sign.”
Bryanna, like far too many students, was being bullied at the private brick-and-mortar school she attended. Her mother researched options and decided to withdraw Bryanna and enroll her in South Carolina Virtual Charter School (SCVCS), a K12-powered school. Eight years after graduating from SCVCS, Bryanna and Tammy reflected on their decision to enroll in an online school and how it changed Bryanna’s life.
“It wasn’t an easy or a quick decision,” Tammy shared. “I had fears because people said ‘homeschool will harm your child. They need to be with other children.’ But with K12, they got the students together. And once she started the program, she just excelled.”
Bryanna discovered a passion for French. “My French teacher was amazing,” she said. “The class was set up so that you could read, listen, and practice your speaking. She would give us a YouTube video or a great movie to check out. I would finish all my other stuff for the day and then my treat was that I got to study French have fun with it. Those were some of the best memories I have from school.”
By the time she graduated SCVCS Bryanna was fluent in French. She went onto Columbia College where she was able to study abroad in France. After graduating at the top of her class with a bachelor’s degree in English, Bryanna earned a master’s degree in linguistics at the University of South Carolina.
She attributes her academic success to the skills and study habits she learned at SCVCS. She explained, “One thing that I really noticed during my first year of college was that a lot of people didn’t have self-driven or self-motivated study habits, they were used to their parents or teachers hounding them to get stuff done. I think K12 really made me learn how to be a self-motivated individual, and that’s one of the most useful skills that I learned ahead of the game going into college. It really laid the foundation for me moving up academically.”
Bryanna is excited to move onto the next stage of her academic journey. “I’m headed off to Columbia University School of Law and I owe it all to K12,” she said.
In addition to helping her succeed academically, Bryanna credits K12 with improving her emotional wellbeing. “It is a really beneficial program,” she said. “I think parents don’t always take the fears that their children have seriously because everyone thinks ‘Well I was bullied when I was growing up. It’s just a part of life and you have to learn how to deal with it.’ But I don’t think it’s something that you have to learn how to deal with, especially if it’s impacting your quality of life. I think that if I stayed in a traditional school, I might have failed everything even though I was a good student. I just might have stopped caring and given up, and that’s not learning how to deal with an issue. That’s just suffering needlessly.”
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