PROGRAM — Tuition Donation Credit Program

By Kari’s mom, Kelly.

At age four, our daughter Kari failed the hearing test at school and was instructed to get one professionally done at her primary care physician. After failing it there also, my heart dropped since my grandmother and great uncle suffered from severe hearing loss. After seeing the audiologists, it was determined that she had developed that same hereditary hearing loss disorder as our other family members and we were just starting our battle. She would continue to lose more hearing any time she had a fever. 

The doctors told us that our only hope for Kari not to go completely deaf before the age of 10 was to keep her as healthy as possible. Most children that lose hearing due to high fever regain it after they become well again. The disorder we were dealing with would cause permanent hearing loss with no chance of repairing it at every fever spike. 

We did everything possible to keep Kari healthy. We replaced all of our carpet in our home with hard floors, bought a top-of-the-line air purifier, gave every vitamin her little body could take, and missed any function where the weather could have caused her to become sick. Despite everything we tried, she still managed to keep getting sick. By age seven, she was completely deaf in the right ear and down to 55% hearing in her left ear. 

I knew as long as Kari was exposed to a public school setting, she would continue to get sick. I had to do something. But there was no way we could afford the school in our area that would benefit her. 

ELearning K12 is a homeschool based school, where Kari can be homeschooled, but still attended the school for two and a half days each week to make sure she stays on task and can get any help that I can’t assist with. It’s only one to five kids per teacher, so they aren’t exposed to the same level of germs as in a classroom with 25 to 30 children.

Thanks to generous donors, in 2017, Kari was awarded the Arete Scholarship that allowed her to attend the school of our choice. She started ELearning K12 with 25% hearing left in her left ear and, two years later, she has not lost any more hearing. She has stayed very healthy since attending this school. We are exceptionally thankful for this opportunity. 

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