Public, private, homeschool, or online? A guide for Christian parents

On this episode of Faith & Clarity, Dr. Mark Turman talks with Dr. Ryan Denison and Steph Thurling of Christian Parenting about one of the most important decisions parents face: choosing the right schooling path for their children. They explore public, private, online, and homeschooling options, especially in light of the post-COVID education landscape. 

Drawing from personal experiences and Steph’s recent parenting podcast series, they offer biblical wisdom and practical guidance to help families make decisions rooted in faith rather than fear. Whether you’re weighing options for the first time or rethinking your current choice, this conversation will help you approach the process with clarity, confidence, and a Christ-centered perspective.

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Topics

• (00:25): Discussing school options for Christian parents
• (02:10): Personal stories and experiences with school choices
• (11:10): Biblical principles in education choices
• (16:16): Exploring the Christian Parenting podcast series
• (21:21): Choosing the right school district
• (27:41): Challenges and changes in public schools
• (32:23): Concerns and misconceptions about public schools
• (34:41): Transitioning from public to private schools
• (36:23): Homeschooling during COVID-19
• (38:48): Challenges and realities of homeschooling
• (46:06): Online schooling as an emerging option
• (47:43): Building community in different school settings
• (52:17): Avoiding judgment in school choices
• (56:10): Resources and final thoughts

Resources

• Ask Us Anything: [email protected]
• How has Denison Forum impacted your faith?
• Christian Parenting Education Series Playlist
• School Simplified Digital Guide
• A Great Cloud of Witnesses: Prayer Journal 
• Christian Parenting Podcast
• Should I send my kid to private school? – Christian Parenting
• Why I chose to put my kids in public school – Christian Parenting
• Why should I homeschool? – Christian Parenting 
• Schooling options: Preferences rather than requirements- Christian Parenting
• How the body of Christ can help local school districts

About Dr. Ryan Denison

Ryan Denison, PhD, is the Senior Editor for Theology at Denison Forum. Ryan writes The Daily Article every Friday and contributes writing and research to many of the ministry’s productions. He holds a PhD in church history from BH Carroll Theological Institute after having earned his MDiv at Truett Seminary. He’s authored The Path to Purpose, What Are My Spiritual Gifts?, How to Bless God by Blessing Others, 7 Deadly Sins, and has contributed writing or research to every Denison Forum book.

About Steph Thurling

Steph Thurling is the Executive Director of Christian Parenting and host of The Christian Parenting Podcast. She has a master’s in youth, family, and culture from Fuller Theological Seminary and a background in youth and children’s ministry. 

She is the co-author of Raising Prayerful Kids, a book that shares easy, life-giving, and fun ways to teach kids to pray. She loves helping families grow closer to each other and to God through meaningful experiences and conversations. 

Steph is a frequent speaker at churches and mom groups and is known for her relatable stories, practical ideas, and gentle encouragement. Steph lives in Minnesota with her husband and three amazing and hilarious kids. When she is not hanging out with her family, you can probably find her on a walk with a friend, organizing things that won’t stay organized, or somewhere cozy reading a book.

About Dr. Mark Turman

Mark Turman, DMin, serves as the Executive Director of Denison Forum, where he leads with a passion for equipping believers to navigate today’s complex culture with biblical truth. He is best known as the host of the Faith & Clarity Podcast and the lead pastor of the Possum Kingdom Chapel, the in-person congregation of Denison Ministries.

Dr. Turman is the coauthor of Sacred Sexuality: Reclaiming God’s Design and Who Am I? What the Bible Says About Identity and Why it Matters. He earned his undergraduate degree from Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas, and received his Master of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. He later completed his Doctor of Ministry at George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University in Waco.

Before joining Denison Forum, Mark served as a pastor for 35 years, including 25 years as the founding pastor of Crosspoint Church in McKinney, Texas.

Mark and his high school sweetheart, Judi, married in 1986. They are proud parents of two adult children and grandparents to three grandchildren.

About Denison Forum

Denison Forum exists to thoughtfully engage the issues of the day from a biblical perspective through The Daily Article email newsletter and podcast, The Denison Forum Podcast, as well as many books and additional resources.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

NOTE: This transcript was AI-generated and has not been fully edited. 

Dr. Mark Turman: [00:00:00] Welcome to episode two of Faith and Clarity, where we try to take you beyond the headlines to a place of hope, beyond trends. Ultimately, the truth that we hope will enable you and encourage you to live by faith, not by fear, as we all think in biblical ways and serve. The Kingdom of God in a way that helps everybody to flourish.

And so we’re excited about today’s conversation. We’re gonna jump right in. We are jumping into the conversation with some of our friends here at Denison Forum and Denison Ministries about how should believers, how should Christians help other Christians to think about and choose school options among the school options for their kids.

That’s a very big issue in our culture today and one that has taken on a level of complexity, really since the season of COVID that continues to change the landscape in a big way. And we’ll talk about some of those changes coming along. [00:01:00] But my friends here at Denison Forum, Dr. Ryan Denison, who’s often with us on our podcast and our friend Steph Thurling, who leads our ministry called Christian Parenting.

They’re gonna be talking today with me about this conversation, and we’re gonna base a lot of what we talk about, about a or from, I should say, a podcast series that Steph did on Christian parenting this summer about school choices. And it’s gonna be a little bit of an interview, but also a round table as we pick Steph’s brain about what she experienced, what she learned and as we get into this let me just say good morning to both of you and say welcome to the podcast.

Steph Thurling: Thank you so much. 

Dr. Ryan Denison: Pleasure to be here. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yep. Looking forward to this conversation. And we’re gonna give you a little bit of context so you know who you’re talking to and who you’re talking with and what their lived experience is. So guys I’ve tipped you off. I want you to tell a little bit about your story either [00:02:00] personally or how it’s working for your kids, and if you are willing to acknowledge any bias in your perspective coming into this conversation.

And so before I pick on y’all, I’ll pick on myself. I really wasn’t thinking about this too deeply, but my lived experience as a kid was that my parents helped start a Christian school. In the town where I was raised back all the way back in the fifties and sixties, my parents literally poured themselves not only into their church, but into the school that the church was helping to build.

And that school still thrives today in my hometown. But my parents put all of us, eight of us, if you can imagine that into this private school. But then things started to happen and they had disappointment with both the church and with the school. And so my oldest sibling, my oldest sister, is the only one who graduated from that school system.

And my little sister never [00:03:00] attended any classes at that public, at that private school. So we started in the private school world, private Christian school world. When I moved to the third grade is when I moved to public school. Graduated from public high school in my town and then went to a private Christian school because I’d only been a Christian for a little more than a year when college came around.

And I also felt a call to ministry. So I ended up in this very unfamiliar world of private Christian college. Later on as I started pastoring, particularly here in the North Dallas area early on in our church’s life, we had people approach us who wanted to partner with us to start a private Christian school in our church.

We had several conversations around that ultimately decided not to do that. And then at another point in my journey, I had some pressure that I’ll maybe describe later about. Why my kids weren’t in Christian school. My two kids ended up going [00:04:00] K through 12 in public school, and then they both attended public secular universities as well.

If I have a bias, I think my bias is leaning pretty hard in public school direction. We have great schools where I live. They’ve gotten more complicated as our town has grown, but I, I probably lean that way fairly heavily even though I have a great deal of respect for private schools and private Christian schools.

And I attended a private university. That’s my story. So Steph Ryan, what’s your story? 

Steph Thurling: Ryan, you wanna go ahead? 

Dr. Ryan Denison: Sure. I grew up mostly going to public schools. Spent a year in a private school in Atlanta before we moved. And the plan at that point was for me to stay there through junior high and high school.

But then God called my dad to Dallas. And so when we ended up in Dallas, went back to the public schools. And so went to a private college at Baylor for undergraduate and seminary. But for the most part, most of my education was in a public school setting. That [00:05:00] said it was a public school that was in a lot of ways, kind of like a private school ’cause it was kind of more of a closed community in a, in some ways.

And so I don’t think it was a traditional public school experience and in a lot of ways. And then for our kids our kids started off going to a charter school, a dual language charter school here in Tyler. Was. Half Spanish, half English, and that was a great experience for ’em. They’re, my daughter’s going into sixth grade now, so we’re going back to the public schools where we’re zoned and our son’s gonna go to that as well.

So I’m making a, a switch for this school year, which is, makes this conversation a a little more interesting not more interesting, but it makes it a little more personal for me because a lot of these are conversations we’ve been having and I’ve had recently as well as all through but don’t really, I don’t necessarily know that I have a bias towards public school as much as it’s just what I feel like we’ve always been called to do.

But we have friends that we have a lot of friends and family that homeschool our kids did private school for, for daycare and pre-K and seriously considered [00:06:00] continuing on with that before, just felt like God was calling us to a different direction. But that’s kind of our, our experience. So Steph.

Steph Thurling: Yeah. I grew up going to public school, so did my husband and we just assumed our kids would go to public school as well. We both, we met at a private Christian university, so we went public K through 12 and then private for college. Our kids, when we got married and moved to Minnesota, we picked where we were gonna live based on the school district.

’cause we wanted to be in this particular district. We sent our kids to public school and then during COD. The year after co, you know, like that big COVID schooling year, we pulled them to homeschool and we just, my husband was working from home for the first time ever, and so we just wanted more family time.

So we homeschooled for that year. That was not the long-term plan. I really think homeschooling is a calling. It is not mine. But I wish that it was, I feel like that could be one of my biases. I wish that I was a homeschool mom in so many ways because I admire it and I [00:07:00] think there are so many benefits to it.

But we sent our kids back to school and we sent them to a small Christian private school, so that’s where they are now. Our oldest is entering eighth grade, and so in the next few months we need to decide on his high school and we don’t know what we’re gonna do. Six months ago I would’ve said 90% were going private Christian school.

We’re getting closer to it is a coin toss, like 50 50. Is he going back to public school or is he going to private school? We told him to know, but we have to decide very soon. 

Dr. Mark Turman: So when you guys were young, married and hadn’t, didn’t have kids yet, did you ever think that you would be in this conversation with this kind of complexity about choosing schools?

Absolutely not. 

Dr. Ryan Denison: Not a chance. Like it was, it’s, we were kind of similar to stuff. We picked our home because we liked the school district and we ended up back in it just five or six years after we had planned on it initially. And, [00:08:00] but it’s just, yeah, it’s one of those things where it really does feel like God’s plans evolved in ways that ours, that we didn’t really see coming.

But staying flexible with that in order to not think, just be, that’s one of the things I loved about the podcast series you did stuff is just, it kept coming up. Just because you’re doing this one year doesn’t mean that that’s always going to be the plan. Mm-hmm. And I know that was true for us. Like our, our plans have changed multiple times are just our hope and prayers that they’re changing in accordance with God’s will.

Yeah. 

Dr. Mark Turman: And just, and Steph, tell me if this kind of bore out in your conversations through the podcast series at all. It just seems like the reality of COVID magnified this whole conversation in a huge way because I think maybe for the rest of our lives, those of us who are old enough to remember, we’re gonna measure our lives by what happened before COVID, and then what happened after COVID and how many conversations and issues changed because of that.

Has that been a part of [00:09:00] y’all’s experience that COVID just really opened this conversation up? Did that come through the podcast as you worked through it? Steph, in any way? 

Steph Thurling: Yeah, I think that it definitely changed a lot of things. Like I know so many people who never planned to homeschool, and then they did the same thing we did where they homeschooled that one year because the thought was, we don’t know what school’s gonna look like for our kids, and we don’t want ’em in and out and all of these Ula like, what?

Instead of. A big unknown. We’re just gonna bring everyone home. It’ll be for one year. It’ll be fun. Many of my friends are still doing it because it worked for their family. And then people who just switched into a private school. I think people just all of a sudden were thinking, wait, there are other school options.

Like I don’t have to just do this one thing and I can do people were just finally doing research on the different options in a way that they weren’t before because it meant something different. It was a little more personal, really impacted their kids, how they were gonna go to school, how things were gonna be set up.

And so people just got more curious, I think, and that’s just stuck. [00:10:00] 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. And that’s, that’s one of the words I want to explore as we go through this conversation. Steph, particularly with you, is the word curiosity just kept coming up over and over as I listened to your podcast series. And, and frankly, as I listen to people, you know, my my grandkids are starting school next week.

My granddaughter will be in kindergarten, or I’m sorry, first grade, and we just learned about her teacher last night. And but this is a big conversation, a growing conversation with my extended family, with my daughter and her family and other conversations that I’ve been running into.

And so it just seems to be so much on the mind of parents, and obviously it’s in politics, it’s in state legislatures. Around things like vouchers and all those, all these kinds of issues that are swimming around. And I wanted to also kind of before we get into the practical issues, this is one of those deals of just, Hey, help me figure it out.

Give me an answer. And some people may listen to this podcast because that’s what they want. They, they want us to tell tell [00:11:00] them what God wants them to do by the end of this podcast. And oh, we would wish it would be that easy for us, seriously, and for them seriously. Yeah, just tell me, God, just tell me what I’m supposed to do.

And but what I wanted to also kind of set a tone here at the beginning around are there some biblical truths, particular verses, are there biblical principles that Christians should think about as they kind of step into this conversation? Because. The first thing that parents wanna do is keep their kids safe.

The next thing they wanna do is help their kids to thrive and flourish in the ways that God has gifted and called them. And we know that school is just a big part of every kid’s life and every family’s life. And so we wanna run to that and find the practical answer. But God just chooses not to make it that simple usually.

So when you guys think about getting into this conversation and even our conversation today, are there some biblical truths, principles that kind of frame this or [00:12:00] should frame this for us? 

Dr. Ryan Denison: I mean, one that jumps out to me right away is, where the Bible says God does not give us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power and self-control.

I think that self-control can also be translated as sound mind, and I think that’s kind of going into this conversation, not being motivated by the fear of what could go wrong, but by genuinely searching for God’s will, for what he wants for our kids and what he wants for us. Because school is also it’s primarily your kids’ community.

It becomes your community as well, oftentimes with the parents you meet and the activities you’re involved in. And so really kind of trying not to let fear be the driving factor for how you, where you choose to send your kids, I think is a really important principle to keep in mind. But beyond that, I would say a second is maybe in John three where, john the Baptist has questioned about Jesus’ growing ministry and he says, Jesus must become greater. I must become less. And what I love about that passage is that John wasn’t doing anything wrong at the time. [00:13:00] It’s just that God’s plans changed. And so he was willing to change with them. And I think that’s kind of speaks to what, what we were talking about earlier with sometimes God’s plans change and everything seemed good, everything seemed right, and it’s just no longer his will.

And I think especially when you find yourself in that situation as it pertains to your kids especially, that’s kind of when that fear can creep in, that’s when a little bit of hesitation to continue trusting the Lord can creep in. And it’s just so important to stay flexible and continue every year just asking God, where do you want our kids to be?

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, that’s, that’s good insight. You know, I, I was thinking about this Psalm 34 is a place I’ve been camping out this year, and I think the fifth verse says, you know, in everything that you do, trust the Lord and he will help you. Like just, Lord, I need help with this. And then that passage out of the story of Jesus as a, as a child where it says that he grew in wisdom and stature with, with God and with man, and that that’s what every good and godly parent would want, is that your child [00:14:00] would be growing up in those four ways in every way that God would want.

Steph, what comes to mind as kind of a biblical framework for this conversation? 

Steph Thurling: Yeah. I love what Ryan pointed out. I think fear is a huge driver for this conversation, and it’s something that we have to be really mindful of as Christians. But beyond that, I would say that, and I mentioned I’ll, this will come up again for sure because I’m very passionate about this, but parents are the primary.

Disciples of kids. And so I think sometimes we get this idea that if we send our kids to church and then if we send them to a private Christian school, we can kind of outsource their faith a little bit or just we have that extra boost and we can do less. Or they’re gonna for sure become Christians because they have all this pouring into them.

And all those things are super helpful. I think there’s a huge benefit to being at a Christian school for that. There’s obviously huge benefit for going to church a lot, but at the end of the day, parents are the primary influence on their child’s faith and you can’t outsource that. And so I think when you’re choosing that, you have to [00:15:00] remember that they, you don’t get to be replaced, you just get to have a bonus.

And that can look different for different families. When you think about community and mission, like there are some parents who feel like their kids are really called and their family’s called to be a gospel presence in the public schools. And that’s what they feel really strongly about. And then there are other parents who really feel strongly that they need to seek like-minded community and really keep their kids in that type of community for as long as possible.

And neither of those are wrong. It’s just different for each family. And just ’cause it’s right for one family doesn’t mean it’s wrong for the other. So I think those are important things to keep in mind and that we have to steward our resources ’cause God calls us to do that. And our resources are our time and our energy and our finances.

And some of these schooling options cost more money than others. And so those are things to be considered of too, ’cause God does call us to handle those things well. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. Good ideas. Good, good thoughts. All right we’re gonna take a little bit of a break and then we’re gonna come back and dive [00:16:00] into some of the specific things that Steph explored and that she discovered in her podcast series, and let that be a foundation for helping us understand the options that families are facing today.

So we’ll be right back in just a moment. Alright, we are back and we’re gonna continue our conversation about helping families find the right pathways for their kids’ education. Steph, you put together a five part series this summer that we want to push point people back to in our Christian parenting ministry.

That’s christian parenting.org. And the leader of that ministry is Steph Ling, and you can check that out on all your podcast platforms. You can also go straight to the website of christian parenting.org. But you decided to step into this conversation in a five part series. So this is your opportunity for commercially for this is your ad spot, Steph, for pointing people to Christian Parenting and to this particular series.

[00:17:00] Tell us about what you were creating, what you wanted to accomplish what were your goals in this series and kind of give us an overview. 

Steph Thurling: Yeah, well kind of like we touched on at the beginning of this conversation is I never expected to think so much about school. Like I just didn’t foresee this being part of my parenting.

Like I just thought that was gonna be easy. And I feel like everyone I talk to is just always a big decision. And it used to just be where do you go to college? And now it’s like preschool, kindergarten, all these decisions that parents have to make. And it’s really complicated and there are big opinions on it.

And sometimes that’s just from outside people. Sometimes maybe that’s from parents or in-laws or family or friends. And it’s just really overwhelming. And so at Christian parenting, we just wanna make things easier for parents. And so I just wanted to do a series where we just covered four different types of schooling options, public, private, homeschool, and online.

Which I feel like is a newer type of schooling option. Mm-hmm. And really just cover what are the pros. [00:18:00] What are the strengths? What are the weaknesses? What are the hard things? And what I have some experience has been so that people can just kind of hear the good and the bad of all different models to know that there isn’t one that’s the best, it’s just they’re all a little bit different.

So parents can just use it as they way to just discern and hear different experiences from parents and teachers and administration and all sorts of people. And then there’s an episode where my husband and I share kind of our own experience and thoughts. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, I, I, I called the, the episode of you and Trevor talking about y’all’s story.

I called that the ping pong episode because it was, it mirrored some of the other conversations I’ve had with other parents is we went this way, then we went that way, then we went another way, then we went. It just kind of ping pongs around and it can ping pong around based on an individual child.

It’s, mm-hmm. It’s not always that you’re making a decision for your family. You’re making a decision for one of your children or for one or [00:19:00] several different children. They, and those options may not be the same. Was one of, one of the things that came out in the series that kind of surprised me a little bit about how tailoring school options to the particular child may be necessary at some point.

Which kind of brings me to the next question, Steph, which is across all of these options are there some consistent kind of across the board concerns that. You saw that parents were dealing with, that, educators were dealing with that kind of, you know, were, were similar or were not similar.

When you came to some of these options, what were some of those handful of concerns and problems that people were trying to solve? 

Steph Thurling: Yeah, I think that in general, when people are considering their school options for their kids, they really just wanna do what’s best for the general wellbeing of their child.

And that’s not just academics. I think that. Maybe, and I don’t know how much people thought about this before, but I think people are realizing that so much of their child’s life is spent at school. [00:20:00] And so they just wanna find an environment that’s gonna foster them as an entire human and help them, not just in academics, but in responsibility and potentially in their faith and in their friendships and relationships and how they interact with other people.

And so I just feel like people are really looking at their whole child instead of just academics. And again, that means different things for different parents. And that’s probably why more people are choosing like, we’re gonna do this type of school for one kid and another type of school for another.

And that is a commitment ’cause that is a lot of driving and a lot of coordinating and a lot of schedules. But people are really trying to figure out what serves our child best. And I think that’s really cool. I really just, the more I talk to all these people, they’re like, this is what we really think is best for our child and they’re just gonna go for it.

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. And yeah, it’s just, it’s one of those deals you’re just like, I didn’t know that this was part of the parenting journey. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I I think everyone’s been 

Steph Thurling: surprised by it, for sure. [00:21:00] 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. And that’s, you know, and that’s when I be, when I became a parent, I was like, I was, for whatever reason, I was vaguely aware of private options, you know, private school or whatever.

The case homeschooling wasn’t even on my radar at that point. And I just we just, you just go to school and you go to the school that’s, you know, around the corner and closest to your house. Yeah. So one of the thing I think we all three have in common is, is that we moved to communities, chose communities based on our perception of we thought it would be a good school district.

I live in a north Dallas suburb where much of the growth of our town has been attributed to. The reputation of our school district. And some of that has to do with the academics of the school district. It has to do with the safety of the school district. It has to do with the sports that are offered.

Because I live in Texas and sports are big in, in Texas. They’re big everywhere, but they’re particularly here. But [00:22:00] we had people, and we still have people and I mean, I, I served in the Chamber of Commerce in my town for a season, and I didn’t realize that business people were really, really concerned about how healthy the schools were because that’s where companies were going to choose to, to start or to move their companies was based on the quality, the reputation of the schools.

What do you think we were thinking when were there more specifics than I just want a good school district? Did, did we have some inherent criteria that. Was just going off in our hearts and our brains when we said we want a good school district. Did we know what we meant by that? 

Steph Thurling: I, so I am, go ahead, Brian.

Dr. Ryan Denison: Go for it. Steph, you’re good. 

Steph Thurling: Okay. So I’m not in Dallas. I’m in Minnesota and we have very strong schools here. And so really when we moved here, private was not on our radar at all because there aren’t very many of them. There are [00:23:00] more and more as time goes on, but there weren’t very many when we moved because our public schools are really, really good.

And so when we moved. It was what is one of the best ones? It was good academics. There were a lot of options. The high school has amazing options for kids to really explore, not just standard subjects, but like we have an aviation program where kids who wanna be pilots, like we have like flight simulators in our high school.

Like it is incredible. There’s really cool options for people who wanna go into nursing, like just amazing resources. We have a Spanish immersion and a Chinese immersion for elementary. It’s just, there are so many options and so that we thought like we can just really. Do whatever our kids need to do.

And maybe some of our kids will go in Spanish, maybe we’ll go in English. You know, like there were a lot of options. Additionally, my sister taught in that school district, she still teaches in that school district, and we wanted our kids to have the same spring break,

Dr. Mark Turman: all kinds of motives, 

Steph Thurling: you know, that was important to us. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yep. [00:24:00] 

Dr. Ryan Denison: Ryan. That kind of thing. Yeah, that kind of thing is important though. I mean, you don’t wanna, it, it goes, speaks to quality of life. And I think that was part of what we were looking at is a lot of the places that we wanted to live when we were looking between Tyler or White House.

I school districts, which are kind of the two big ones here in this area. The, the scope of how far you’d have to drive for some of the, for some of the Tyler schools, you’re looking at 20 or 30 minutes depending on where you live, at the outskirts of that. And it was just a shorter drive a little bit.

I was a little so we ended, that was part of our thinking, but as much as anything, it was just, we looked at what got the best ratings and where we felt most comfortable with that. And we moved kind of knowing that private school was an option if we needed it to be, but hoping it wouldn’t have to be in a lot of ways.

And that ended up being the case. Just, but it was interesting that for the, for the longest time, for the first, my daughter’s first, all the way through fifth grade, like we moved to this to where we are for the school district and then [00:25:00] transferred in to the one, to another one to go to that dual language school.

‘Cause we just felt like that’s where God was pulling us. And we had family that went there her first year and then they kind of switched up to do homeschooling after COVID. And so then, but by that point she’d made friends. And so much of it though does go back to, I think you’re kind of guessing at what you hope will be the future and making the best guess you can, which I think is why it’s important to stay flexible.

Because you do learn more as you go on, as you, especially if you’re new to a community when you start. Part of the other thing for us was we wanted to our kids to be able to go to school and church with the same people, at least some of the same people. ‘Cause growing up I, I didn’t really have that and so it was hard to manage two completely separate friend groups for a good chunk of my life.

And thankfully that wasn’t that much that case in junior high in high school, but elementary school, like I never had any of the same friends at the church and school, and that was tough. So we didn’t want that for our kids. And so that was another part of it, is just figuring out where God is calling us to worship and where God is calling us to [00:26:00] put our kids in school and looking for ways that those two things can pair off of each other.

Steph Thurling: You know what I just thought of when you were talking, I was like, how were, you’re just kind of guessing. Like you just are using the information that you have and making the best decision with that information. But when you think about school being our kids’ jobs, like we do the same thing when we take a job.

Like you just take a job knowing what you know about the job, knowing that you probably won’t, you don’t do your first job for your entire life, for the most part. You know, like you go into it knowing there’s flexibility to change and shift and advance and switch, you know, to total switch. And so if you keep that in mind that schools are kids’ jobs, it’s not forever, there’s the option to change.

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. And that’s, that’s the one of the big takeaways I think from this conversation and from the podcast series is that, that it is okay. It, the series kind of gives people permission to, to think about other options and not be intimidated by them. I mean, it’s, it’s can be just generally [00:27:00] intimidating to be a parent.

Period, right? Little bit. I’m in charge of this. I’m in charge of these other human beings, and it’s my job to try to get them to adulthood in a reasonably healthy fashion. And you’re looking for partners and one of the main partners that you’re looking for are good schools. So let’s jump in, talk about a little bit of the pros and cons.

We’re not gonna give away all the thunder. We don’t have time to give away all the thunder of the podcast series, so we’ll include that in the show notes. But let’s just talk a little bit, and we’re gonna start with my bias. We’re gonna start with public school because number one is, is we’re all paying for public schools even if we don’t use them.

And maybe that right or wrong is the best place to start. But, you know, I remember I read a book a couple of years ago by a guy named Rod Dreier who basically said in his book, the Benedict Option, all Christians should get out of public schools Now. And he had a very aggressive approach to that and some very strong reasons for that.

Just [00:28:00] yesterday, I don’t know if y’all caught this story, but I saw a major news publication that public schools across America are facing an enrollment crisis. Two thirds of the schools across the nation have seen a significant drop in their enrollment from 2019 to 2023. A lot of that is attributed to what we’ve already talked about with COVID, but it’s also attributed to the drop in birth rate.

And I never thought I would hear this, but some public schools have actually hired marketing firms to go out and to recruit students. Back away from options like private schools and homeschooling to try to bring their enrollment back up to try to get their, that, because that’s the way they get funding.

They get funding from their state governments based on their enrollment, and they obviously have lots of overhead in terms of buildings and land and employees. And so they’re actually marketing to get kids to come back. There’s lots of [00:29:00] conversation in our country about the problems with public school systems and their brokenness.

I hope we would all agree that they’re not hopeless. When I moved to the town that I live in, the the person who led the committee that brought me to this town was also the president of the school board, very dedicated believer. Every school superintendent that we’ve had in the 30 years that I’ve lived here has been an active.

Healthy Christian involved in a local church. That’s been comforting. Many of the school board members are that way. I know them personally. Many of the teachers and principals there are really great, healthy Christians in every public school that I know of. Steph, tell us some of the, some of the pros, maybe some of the weaknesses that you found in your conversation.

Really did enjoy that conversation with your friend from the public school environment. Tell us what you gained out of that conversation. 

Steph Thurling: Yeah. I just wanna say that no public [00:30:00] schools are not broken in hopeless. And I have the same experience you do. Our former superintendent, he has retired. He used to sit in front of us at church every single week.

My sister has taught in my public school that our kids are enrolled or that as our district for. 15 some years. She loves Jesus and her kids know it. I mean, she doesn’t preach it, but her kids know that she goes to church. And a lot of her coworkers are Christians too. It’s not like everyone in the public school is trying to tear your kids away from a faith.

They’re just not. And that is, if you listen to the public school episode, that is a lot. I talk with the public school teacher and that is what she’s saying. She’s there, you’ll hear things on the news, but we are just trying to teach your kids how to read and how to write and how to do math. Like we are tired.

There’s not a lot of time to be doing other things. And so I think that. Sometimes our teachers get a hard time in the public schools because we hear things on the news, because our news wants us to be afraid. [00:31:00] And I think it does a really good job at making us afraid, specifically of the public schools.

But I think in general, there are amazing resources that are available at public schools that aren’t necessarily available elsewhere. At least here in Minnesota, like our private school that we go to. We don’t have a lot of resources for kids who need extra help at school. There are like mild learning differences that are totally fine at our school, but if you have a more extreme learning difference or other special needs, like our school isn’t the place for you because we just don’t have the funding to provide those resources, but public schools do.

And that’s something to consider and that’s something that families just have to. Acknowledge. Some families do at least. And then additionally, at least here also, like there aren’t resources at our school for kids who really excel, like the very gifted kids. There’s a little bit they can do, but not a lot.

But at our public schools, there’s separate programs that the really extremely gifted kids can go through that put [00:32:00] them on a different track and push them in different ways. And that’s just not available in some private schools. And so when you look, if your kid has specific need on either one of those spectrums, a public school is going to offer you those amazing resources for free.

And at least in Minnesota, we get free school lunches too. Yeah. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Wow. Which 

Steph Thurling: is great. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. Ryan, if if, if you and your family had concerns about public schools, what do you think those concerns would be? 

Dr. Ryan Denison: Honestly part of our concerns going into it just part of the concerns you get if you just base your opinion off the news, like we learned pretty quick, aren’t as relevant here.

And the one thing I wasn’t sure about when I really appreciated from the podcast series was I, in the back of my mind, I always wondered is that ’cause we live in like in East Texas? Is that why a lot of these concerns I see on the news aren’t a problem here? And it was great to hear that no, that’s, that’s the case for most of the country.

I mean, I’m sure there’s pockets of the country where [00:33:00] the concerns are different just because every part, every part of the country’s different. And, but it was really encouraging to be reminded that, you know, for the most part, teachers just are teachers because they love kids and because they wanna help kids learn and grow.

And that was, whether that’s in a private school or a public school setting. And so a lot of our concerns kind of, that we had going into it, just the more experience we have, the more people we talk to. We just kinda learned that they’re not really founded in reality oftentimes, or at least not probability.

There’s, every school has stories, every school has issues, so you’re never gonna find a perfect school either. But it’s been really encouraging for us just to talk with families that have kids that are ahead of ours and have that’s one of the reasons we switched, was we know people that go to the school district we’re gonna be going to now, and they’ve had amazing experiences with it.

They have one of my best friends, his wife teaches in these schools and so I feel like I can trust that I’m not being sold something. And that [00:34:00] would be really my encouragement, whether it’s especially with public schools, is if you do have concerns, talk to people who are actually in the schools rather than people who are either have chosen to get out for one reason or the other or just what you see in the news.

Like just talk to the people that spend every day in them and allow their voices to carry a lot of weight. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. Lots of, lots of opportunities to learn and, and to see good things. And, and, and we ought to be, you know, one things we ought to be doing as believers. We ought to be praying for all of our schools public, private, homeschool, all of it.

Because it really does matter. And there are really great things. Sometimes there are really hard things happening in these places both private and public. And let’s, let’s move a little bit now to that area. We have all had some kind of a touch with private schooling. Most likely private Christian schooling for all three of us.

But we’ll group all private schools together. A little bit of research. I found that enrollment in private schools has basically held [00:35:00] steady for more than five, up to 10 plus years. About 10% of all school, of all kids in America. Are going to some kind of a private school either religious based or based, otherwise academics, that type of thing.

Steph, tell us a little bit about the journey that you and Trevor made and what was it that maybe helped y’all get clarity about moving from really good public schools to a private school option? Tell us some about that journey. 

Steph Thurling: Yeah. We weren’t really looking to move, like I said before, but then homeschooling happened and I, as I was the primary homeschooler, realized, I really liked the faith element of the curriculum we were using.

I just really liked that for my kids. And then the more we reflected on it, the more our school in particular is huge, like a thousand in each class, and so it just is a large environment and felt really strongly that. At least one of our kids would do better in a smaller environment. And so we wanted to try that out.

Which is one of the benefits of a lot of private schools [00:36:00] is there’s usually smaller class sizes. Our elementary school class sizes were getting really, really big and we felt like one of our kids was getting, and both two of ’em really were getting lost a little bit. And so that was the primary driver was we just, it was size and we liked the addition of the faith element.

That was what really made our final decision was those two things. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Okay. Yeah. And that kind of mirrors in some ways, I think some of the reasons that homeschool parents have listed home schooling’s grown as you said. Mm-hmm. From COVID a number of people like you were pushed into we have to do some kind of education for our kids.

And depending on where you were in the country, your schools may or may not have opened, you know, over a couple of months, over a longer period of time. And, and put families really into a crisis like we’ve never seen before. Of what are we gonna do with these kids? How are we gonna keep our jobs?

And how are we gonna help them keep up with their education? I think we will [00:37:00] be spending a lot of time over the next number of decades trying to understand how the COVID experience affected kids and he, and affected their education as well as other aspects of their lives. Not surprising that homeschool opportunities and families choosing homeschool have more than doubled since the COVID experience in 2000, 2001.

Some of the reasons that parents have chosen both private school and homeschool have to do with just concerns over the environment, the social environment of what happens in every school the desire among families for both moral and spiritual. Instruction, Steph, as you were talking about, that’s been a reason that is in the top five.

The opportunity of family togetherness that people learn particularly in COVID. I had, I had a family in my church when COVID came. They had one daughter out of college, one [00:38:00] son in college, and another son in high school. And when they figured out how this was gonna work for an indefinite period of time, they bought a motor home and they got a really great internet connection.

And they went and just explored the country and did school on the road because you had to do it through the internet. And the internet could work anywhere. And they created family memories over a year that will stay with them for the rest of their lives. So that kind of illustrates the family togetherness though.

And then the, the fourth reason that families gave for homeschool, but also relates to private school is just a dissatisfaction with the academic quality that they were finding in their particular local public schools. What do you think, Steph, you, you talked about how you discovered that you’re probably not the person called and gifted to be a homeschooler.

I just gotta tell you the, it’s almost like my wife and I [00:39:00] just never even considered it to be a legitimate option because we both felt so unqualified to even think about that pathway. Ryan, what level of consideration have you and your wife given to homeschooling? 

Dr. Ryan Denison: Honestly, it’s, our story was very similar to stuffs where, we were fortunate in that our daughter school went back the fall of 2020. So we were able to start back in person, but that spring of 2020 she was in kindergarten. So we’re not talking terribly advanced scholastic requirements and I still couldn’t do it. And one of the things that I really remember that resonated from that is just my relationship with my daughter when I had to go from father to teacher was not something I wanted to perpetuate.

And it was bad for her. It was bad for me. That’s something I’ve had to remind my kids about because they look at friends and family that homeschool see the schedule they get to have and they think that sounds awesome. So [00:40:00] it’s been interesting conversations to kind of reinforce it like. We can’t give you, like your mom and I can’t give you a good homeschooled education.

Their parents can, that’s why they can do it. But that’s not something we’re called to do. That’s not something that will be good for our family. It’s not something that will be good for you no matter how much you want it. And that’s a hard conversation to have at times with your kids when they see something that looks better.

But for us, it’s just, my wife and I both work and it’s just, it was clear that this was not our calling and not something we were gifted for. Hmm. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. And that’s, that’s a concern or a question, Steph, when we come back from our next break, I want to talk to you about is just how the capacities and capabilities of parents factor into this decision about where your kids are gonna go to school and how they’re gonna be educated.

So we’re gonna take another quick break and catch our breath, let you do the same, and we’ll be right back in just a second. [00:41:00] All right, we’re back and we’re gonna wrap up our conversation on helping our kids find the best educational pathway for them. So Steph, I wanted to ask, we were talking about private school, we talked about homeschool a little bit and some of the challenges.

I love the way your podcast kind of describes the experience of what is it like to homeschool and kind of intrigued really about how much freedom all the homeschool families that I know. Some of the folks that we work with at Denison Forum and Denon Ministries are homeschooling. One of the advantages they get to travel in non-peak times.

So if your goal is to get to Disney World, you can get to Disney World in a less crowded environment if you’re homeschooling in many ways. But talk about some of what you experienced and what you learned about how important the capabilities of parents have to be a part. Of that decision, as Ryan said before the break parents, kids might want to pursue something like homeschooling, [00:42:00] but you have to factor in the, the, the framework of your family, the framework of your jobs.

Talk a little bit about that. 

Steph Thurling: I will just start by saying that, so when COVID hit and that end of the school year was going on and we were all online school, not homeschool, but like online school, my brother-in-law was living with us and he actually has a picture of me like curled up in a ball on the floor.

’cause I just could not handle doing online school anymore. So when I told him, I was like, we’re gonna homeschool next year. He showed me that picture and was like, are you sure? Are you sure? And I said, yes, I’m gonna homeschool because I don’t wanna do that again. And we didn’t know what school was gonna look like and I want the flexibility and this is gonna be great.

And it truly was like we went to New Orleans for a week and studied the Civil War. We went to Florida, the Space Coast, and we did a unit on space and we did a unit on the ocean and we were able to do all of these amazing things, which is the obvious benefit in going to Disney World if that’s your jam.

I learned that I am just [00:43:00] not a structured and disciplined enough. Person in that specific capacity to provide structure for my kids in that way. And so I feel like I do not regret that year at all, but I don’t feel like I set my kids up well for learning some of the like executive functioning skills, like using a planner and planning out their day and making sure they got all their assignments done.

Just because. Of who I am as a person and my specific personality type and the way my brain works. I probably could have grown into that and figured out a system. There are so many resources and so I don’t wanna discourage people that if that’s you, like you can’t homeschool because you can. Any homeschool parents probably mad at me right now, but because there are a million resources you can use to take your capabilities if you feel like that’s your calling.

But you have to be real about who God wired you to be and say, okay, if I’m gonna take this path, I have to work through these issues to set my kids up well. And [00:44:00] I knew it was temporary, so I just probably didn’t do that. I, and honestly, like I am called to this job. This is what I’m supposed to be doing.

And so I can’t homeschool my kids especially since it would’ve been a challenge for me and work a 40 hour a week job. Some people can do that. I don’t know how, but people say it’s possible. Not for me. So I think that if you have to work or you feel called to work, that’s okay too. I think there’s kind of a feeling sometimes that that may be less, or like you’re sacrificing a lot by doing that.

But I, I don’t know. I feel really comfortable where I am. I feel like this is exactly where God wants me to be, and that’s because of who he wired me to be. And so you have to take that into consideration. And also your kids too. If your kid is someone who really doesn’t do well in a school environment, homeschooling might be really great for them because you have more flexibility.

There’s more hands-on learning that you get to do together. You get to wiggle a little bit more, run around more. There are also schools that provide that too. [00:45:00] So I think just really looking at your wiring and what you need to do and can do is really important. ’cause that was, that was very much a reality for me.

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. And we, and we’ve touched on some other aspects of this, like just the distance of, of how far is it from your house to the school. Mm-hmm. Some of those practical realities really affect the way the entire family works. It’s, it’s, it’s a balancing act between what does this child need, what do all my children need, what does my family need?

All of those dynamics play into how this works. And Steph, while you were talking, I was also thinking about, my feeling is, you know, about the time I thought that I was getting to be a really good parent, I didn’t need to parent anymore. And it seems kind of cruel that it’s wired that way right About, about the time that I think maybe some of this fruit of the Holy Spirit is actually blooming.

I think that may be exactly about the time that God takes me to heaven. It’s like about the time that all that [00:46:00] stuff’s may, maybe it starts showing up and then I don’t actually need it here on Earth anymore. I don’t know. Wanted to take a moment. You talked about in one of your episodes online school mm-hmm.

As being different from either private school or homeschooling. Tell us what your episode is about. What do you mean by online school? And that was something kind of new. It’s kinda oh, we, that we had that forced on us in COVID. Why would I ever want to go back there again? But. Talk about how that is becoming an option.

Steph Thurling: Yeah, that was a very different type of online school ’cause that was our current schools trying to figure out how to be online with no preparation. So take that outta your mind. ’cause it’s not that an online school is, there are multiple, so many options. You’ve probably seen commercials on tv, but there are secular and faith-based options for online school where your kids are at home, but they take their classes online and it’s very self-paced.

And it’s kind of like a mix of [00:47:00] homeschooling and being in a classroom. Huge benefits of it. One of my dear friends, her son, two of her kids are at our Christian school. One of her sons is online and that’s who I interview in the episode. She has seen great. Great growth and benefits in this type of schooling for her child.

It’s kind of a way to get a little bit of homeschooling in for your kids without maybe if you’re like me and you are not as structured in Type A than an online school is a really good way to incorporate a traditional school type of setting. ’cause it’s more like a traditional school, but online that you do at home.

Hmm. 

Dr. Mark Turman: And so lots of emerging resources mm-hmm. Really for all of these options. Yeah. Was one of the things I learned from just being a part of the podcast listening to that wanted to ask both of you, but Steph start with you, of just as you got into this work, as you explored and had these conversations, were there some things that you learned about the choices and that you [00:48:00] didn’t know or something that surprised you out of doing this podcast series?

Steph Thurling: I think I really enjoyed talking with Ashley, who was the public school teacher, just to hear her heart, not just for her school, but for her community. And I think you guys kind of echoed this too, is there’s a really great community that you can find in a public school that’s different than you would find in a different school setting.

Just because it’s the people that you live right next to. And there’s something very special about that that I think you miss in different schools. We’ve noticed that a lot in our private school is that our kids’ friends are spread out all over the place. And so while we may not have to drive very far to get to school, my kids actually take a bus.

To get to their friends. It’s a longer drive than if we had gone to a PRI or a public school where they can just ride their bike to their friends’ houses. ’cause they all go to school together and they all go to kind of a local church. And so there’s community is really important. And so I think taking that into consideration, is it really important to you to have a [00:49:00] community that’s close to you that where you can find the Christians and the like-minded people in a close proximity?

Or is it important that you have a super solid Christian community, faith-based, like-minded community that you’re gonna find at school and you might have to drive further to get to them? Either way. Community is really important and I didn’t think about that when I was choosing a school. I was really thinking academics, convenience, size, and the community part was something that I just totally overlooked.

And it was, I heard the community element in both interviews, private and public and actually homeschool too. ’cause you can have co-ops, you find your own community in the homeschool environment as well. But I think to really consider what is most important to you when you’re finding your people, and that will help guide your school choice as well.

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. Yeah. So Ryan, what do you want to add to that? This is the Faith and Clarity podcast. So what, what’s become more clear or piqued your interest as we’ve stepped into this [00:50:00] conversation? 

Dr. Ryan Denison: Like what Steph was talking about with community, just the degree to which, no matter what setting you choose for school, you have to be intentional about building that community.

Even like in a setting where you live around kids that you go to school with, making sure that you’re actually investing in those relationships. And I, I think that stuck out to me partly because that’s not something I’ve ever been terribly great at. And so it’s one of the, it was interesting looking back on it and just thinking through all the I don’t wanna say necessarily missed opportunities, but just, just the degree to which.

You have to be intentional about cultivating that community, and especially as parents of kids, that you don’t just view it as important for your kids. That these are opportunities and relationships that you can invest in as adults and other adults to grow and to know who your kids’ friends are, which is important for all sorts of reasons but especially even beyond that, to look for opportunities that God can really use you to invest in the lives of other parents.

And when your kid, when you have something built in a [00:51:00] built in commonality that your kids go to school together, just the degree to which that opens doors to make that a process simpler is, which is really encouraging to hear about and be reminded of. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Hmm. Yeah. It’s so important. You know, I think all of us have that sense that when we’re in school, especially as we move into secondary schools into our teenage years, we know that friends become so significant in our life.

You know, in, in some sense we’re like. We’re all tied to the high school experience that we had. Whether it’s musically or socially. We all, we’re all just marked in many ways by experiences that happen at school, particularly as we get older and have a, a stronger sense of memory. And so that’s all a part of it.

It’s a part of academics. I, you know, I can remember when the teacher that was the most popular teacher at my middle school made a compliment about me. And I, I’ve carried that compliment because it came from the most popular school, the most popular [00:52:00] teacher at the school. And so teachers and administrators and coaches have enormous influence and opportunity to touch our kids’ lives.

As we do as parents, and we want that to be the healthiest environment and possible experience that we can create. There is a temptation in here. I wanted both of you to just touch on for a moment before we finish up, which is the, the temptation that we have to think that our choices are the best choices for everybody and to drift toward judging people who don’t make the choices that we might make in any of these options.

And then on the, on the flip side of it, when you feel that judgment may be coming toward you from somebody who thinks that their way for their family is the way it should be for your family we face this kind of pressure. Sometimes we give this kind of pressure in a lot of topics, but particularly in something as emotionally charged as this.

How would you guys help us to guard [00:53:00] against, you know, judging what other people do, compared to what we do? Or what do we do when we feel that pressure coming from others? Steph, what would you recommend parents do in that experience? 

Steph Thurling: It’s so hard. It is so hard because everybody’s gonna give you their opinion.

’cause that’s just what we do. And if people aren’t giving it to you directly, you’re gonna get it on social media. I just think there isn’t, you just have to remember that there’s no right way to do school. You know, like the Bible says we’re supposed to train up our child in the way they should go, and we’re supposed to impress God’s commandments on our children, but that’s telling parents what they’re supposed to do, not what their teachers are supposed to do.

And so I think it’s just really important to remember that, that this is discipling. Is your job at home and you can do without what you want for taking into consideration school. But there is no right way in scripture. It doesn’t say go to private school. It doesn’t say that. It doesn’t say go to public school.

It doesn’t say keep them home. [00:54:00] You know, you, you can. Yes, that’s that, that’s that. I could go off for a really long time, but there is no right way to do school. And so that’s every parent’s discernment. And so just rely on the Holy Spirit to guide you in which way your family is supposed to go. And stay strong in that conviction because if you’re hearing from God that, that you’re supposed to be at a specific type of school for this time, again, not forever, just stay firm in that conviction.

And it’s okay if it looks different than other people’s convictions because there is no right way. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Ryan, a closing thought. 

Dr. Ryan Denison: I think that’s a perfect, perfect submission of it. I mean, it really is, and I think so often, just to speak to the other side of it too, I mean, if you feel that temptation to judge others to and because you see their kids or you see kind of, I don’t know, you see something in their life where you’re like, Hmm, I don’t know if I would do it quite that way.

Just ’cause you wouldn’t do it that way doesn’t mean God’s not calling them to do it [00:55:00] that way. And so a little bit of humility goes a long way with this on both sides of it to understand. It’s like when you’ve received that criticism, maybe take a second to go, God is, is that valid or not? And then if God says no, you brush it off and keep right on going.

If God says maybe there’s a little truth to it, then maybe that’s a bit of the Holy Spirit’s conviction that you should take into account. On the other side, if you are tempted to speak, start with questions. And try and get to know their situation before you ever try and cast judgment on it. Because I think that’s the, it’s so easy to look at a small glimpse of someone’s life and assume that represents the totality of what’s going on when that’s just never the case.

And so that would be kind of my recommendation with, or my, my advice with all of that is whatever side of the judgment spectrum you’re, you’re tempted to be on or you encounter, just to remember that God’s truth is the only one that really matters and God’s perspective is the only one that really matters in this.

And to make sure he’s his voice is the one that you’re listening to. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. Such a good [00:56:00] word. And a reminder that in all of this, as in all the parts of our lives and faith, is that we just have to pray, pray, pray and pray, and keep asking for the Holy Spirit to make it clear. Because, you know, one way to turn this around is to say, thank God we live in a place where we have really good options.

Yeah, we’ve got good options for public school, private school, online school, homeschool, charter school. Some, some of those things are emerging as well. And how great is it that we have those kind of options, even though the options sometimes feel like they put pressure on us and they do. They absolutely do put pressure on us.

But a couple of words that I would just say that have grown out of all of this great work Steph, that you did on the podcast and this conversation as well, is number one, curiosity and then faith, not fear. Just be curious about what these options might be. You can actually learn about an option and not ha you don’t have to take it.

[00:57:00] You can, you can learn about it enough to know that’s not where God’s calling me. For a lot of reasons. That if you walk with it in humble faith, you can be confident that God is leading you to the path that’s right for you and your kids. And it’s not gonna look exactly like somebody else’s family. It may be similar, but it may be very different.

And that’s okay. God can work in the midst of all of that. One again, once again, wanna point people to where they can find the series. Steph, did you give it a overall name? They can find [email protected]. They can also find it on podcast platforms. Is the series called by a particular name?

Steph Thurling: There’s not a particular name, but if you, if you type in, if you search Christian Parenting Podcast in school, the all the, they’ll all. Pop up. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Okay. Five episodes that start with Steph and Trevor’s personal journey in this area as they continue down this road. And then some really great conversations that explore four options.

[00:58:00] And hope you’ll check that out through Christian parenting.org. Wanna thank you for being a part of this conversation at Faith and Clarity, and if this conversation’s been helpful to you to understand how to walk in this issue with faith and not with fear, we hope that you’ll rate and review us and share this with others.

And Steph, one last word. Other resources that people might look to besides the podcast. Are there print resources or other things that people can check out that can help them in this conversation? 

Steph Thurling: Yeah, we actually have a free digital guide on Christian Parenting called School Simplified. And it has different articles and podcasts including that series and some videos too that go through all sorts of schooling issues that people are talking about, from school choices to issues that come at school, come up with school from preparing your kids to launch, whether you’re launching a kindergartner or someone to college all sorts of school issues and it’s free download.

You can just go to the Christian parenting website, christian parenting.org, and we have a store there and you can go download it there [00:59:00] and there’s lots of resources. 

Dr. Mark Turman: Awesome. And we’ll include that in the show notes as well here on Faith and Clarity. Remember, we are a podcast sponsored by Denison Forum, and you can find additional resources from us as [email protected].

Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next time on Faith and Clarity with Mark Turman. Thanks for being a part.