Bismarck, North Dakota - News

It all started in the third grade for Derek Berglund.

He was a straight-A student at Shiloh Christian School. His parents decided he needed to be more academically challenged. Their answer: Home schooling.

It was hard to adjust at first, Berglund said. He left behind friends he used to see on a daily basis. But eventually, he became accustomed to learning at home.

According to statistics, Berglund's parents aren't the only North Dakotans choosing that route: About 1,700 families in North Dakota are home-schooling their children this year. That number has been increasing by 10 percent to 15 percent each year for the past 15 years, said Gail Bibe, with the North Dakota Home School Association.

From fourth to eighth grade, Berglund used a correspondence curriculum called Calvert, based in Maryland. The curriculum included math, reading, grammar, vocabulary, art history, history and science. Every 20 days he was tested on the material. Tests are sent to Calvert, which scores them and determines whether students pass in the subjects.

Berglund, 15, said the curriculum was structured, with teacher's notes in the lesson plans. It also was challenging, which helped him get ahead in school, he said. As a sophomore, he takes some classes -- pre-calculus, Latin II and chemistry -- at Century High School, where most of his classmates are juniors and seniors.

Since his classes are challenging, Berglund said that the people in them are more mature than most sophomores, and it's easier to concentrate in class than at home, where he is around his siblings, who also are home-schooled.

Besides a challenging curriculum, Berglund said home schooling also has offered flexibility in his schedule. When he was in middle school, Berglund also was a member of a competitive ski team in Montana. He didn't have to worry about homework or missing too much school. He just took his school with him.

But when he started to take classes at Horizon Middle School last year, his schedule tightened up and he had to quit the ski team. But he was able to see his friends every day and he joined the baseball and soccer teams, which helped him make more friends, he said.

Berglund said he enjoys public school, but his parents helped him get ahead with home schooling. It allowed him to get the one-on-one attention and education that he couldn't have gotten in a class of 20 students.

"Even though home schooling is really different than regular school, home-schoolers are just like regular people -- they still have friends and they basically do the same things that regular teens do every day," Berglund said. "My friends don't treat me any differently than they treat other people, so I don't feel weird."

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