From Stress to Success: How Daniella Transformed Her Son’s Learning with ESA Funds

Homeschooling Journeys (Transcript edited for clarity)

Mike Goldstein: This is Curious Mike with Homeschooling Journeys. I’m here with Daniella Moreci-Pack, and I think I’m finding you in Arizona. Is it like 110 degrees there or something insane like that?

Daniella Moreci-Pack: Now, probably, yes, it’ll probably, I think they said this week is going to be in the 110s for sure all week.

Mike Goldstein: Unbelievable. Okay, so I’m sending you like virtual iced coffee.

Daniella Moreci-Pack: Thank you

Mike Goldstein: I don’t need any caffeine myself, because I’m really psyched to dig into your story.  You and I chatted briefly a few months ago….

What I recall is you said, you have a son named Peter, you described him as, I think at that time, like around eight or nine years is that-

Daniella Moreci-Pack: He’s 10 now. Yep. He turns 10 in April.

Mike Goldstein: Got it. You started this journey from a Montessori school, [00:01:00] which was not going well, to a year of unschooling and then a, like, the last year has been homeschooling, let’s say. Is that roughly the right story?

Daniella Moreci-Pack: We’ve had about two years of homeschooling.  But yes, absolutely.

Mike Goldstein: What resonated with me: you went full Mama Bear. You were like, wait a minute, this school is not going well for my kid. And I need to get my kid out of there. Am I characterizing that right?

Daniella Moreci-Pack: Yeah, pretty much. His schooling journey was interrupted at the very beginning with COVID, because he was at home

and he is a totally, super hyperactive boy. And keeping him on task is challenging sometimes.

Talking to a screen (during Covid) was not part of his repertoire.  I was having to do everything off screen anyways.

Then he was having so many challenges when they went back to school in person that it was not worth it.  It was not worth the stress that it was putting on him, or me, and so I said I was doing (the teaching) anyway, I’m just going to do it at home.  So we just figured it out.

Mike Goldstein: Yeah. And just, what was your emotion at that moment: were you [00:03:00] feeling anxiety about the shift, were you confident?

Daniella Moreci-Pack: Oh, I had a lot of anxiety about whether or not I could do what I needed to do. I had small amounts of background.

I have older children too that are now adults. And throughout their school years, I helped at their school. I actually taught a couple of reading classes and helped with, some ESL learners or Learners that were behind, one-on-one, in different grade areas.

So yeah, I had a ton of anxiety about whether I was doing the right thing.  Can I do this? Can I? Can I actually teach him how to read? I don’t [00:04:00] know that I know how to do that. But we’ll figure it out so.

While I had a ton of anxiety, I also felt like I didn’t have a choice. I wanted my son to succeed, and so the driving factor was literally, just (telling myself): “Keep it together because he’s got to be successful and it’s your job to do it.”

Mike Goldstein: Yeah, I love, what’s coming across, you have this Can-Do spirit, we’re gonna get this done, and the question is exactly how, but not whether.  And that’s appealing to hear.

If I were sitting at your kitchen table, from let’s say 9 till noon or whenever your, homeschool operates, just walk us through what might see?

Daniella Moreci-Pack: so I’m [00:05:00] currently sitting in my home school classroom.  We typically start our day with things to get him in the mix, right? I have little workbooks that are just brain starters, writing little words that he’s been struggling with, or if we’re starting a new vocabulary set of words, we’ll start working those out and figuring out how to spell those, and writing those out a couple of times.

Sometimes we color while I read a book, depending on what it is that I want to teach that day. If we’re going to do something on history that day, some colonial times, it’s going to be a colonial picture while I read a story to him about it.

And then we just have a lot of discussion. And then, depending on what he wants to do, we’ll switch gears. If he’s like, yeah, I can do math [00:06:00] today, then we’ll do some math today. And if he wants to, he gets to pick, if he’s like, Mom, I really just don’t feel like it today, can you just read something to me?

I will, we’ll pick something that, I’ll just read a story, or I’ll read a book, or we’ll, sometimes it’s something just fun, like, we’ll, grab a book about a particular animal and just do that. I have a lot of hands on things because he’s very textual, and so he has these little dissection kits.

I’ll just read the instructions and he’ll just mess around and we’ll find the parts.

I tried to do structure at the very beginning (of homeschooling) and I was feeling it was very public school-y.  What I was trying to do?

I had to redirect myself and say, “Hey, we took them out of that environment because it wasn’t working. Why are you trying to replicate it here?”

It’s pretty [00:07:00] child led here. He pretty much tells me what he feels like today and we kind of work around that.

Mike Goldstein: I started a charter school many years ago.  For kids that weren’t a really good fit for traditional school, we tried to make traditional school work a little better for them.  But from the kids’ point of view, it was like taking an experience that at their last school was like a 2 out of 10, and we were making it like a 3.5 out of 10.

It was still fairly painful for them to navigate the school day and we didn’t really have good solutions.

It sounds like your starting point is you map backwards from engagement.

That is, if Peter is engaged and doing any reasonable [00:08:00] learning related thing, that’s your anchor and you build outward from that.

Daniella Moreci-Pack: Yes. A hundred percent, because, what I know about him is that if he is really not interested in whatever the specific topic is, he is just not going to do it. and he’s certainly not going to learn if I force him to do it. It won’t stick. And what’s the point of that, right?

So I can dump a bunch of information into him, but if he’s not interested, cannot relate to it, and is not actually learning it, what’s the point?

I do have things that I do want to teach him. I just let him tell me how he wants to learn it.

Mike Goldstein: I appreciate where you’re coming from because I think in a typical school, the teacher feels pressure because we have to cover X, Y, and Z. We have to make it through [00:09:00] that year’s curriculum.

Daniella Moreci-Pack: Right.

Mike Goldstein: And so if we don’t cover, like I noticed you’ve got (in your homeschool classroom) the map of the U. S. and the solar system, and if we don’t cover the solar system…

Daniella Moreci-Pack: right.

Mike Goldstein: And then from the teacher’s point of view, that’s the non negotiable part.  What’s unfortunately negotiable is some kids are tuned in and some kids are not.

You are free to invert that and say, look, you have, as a mom, you have a reasonable list of and key things you want to get through in a particular school year, but can edit that to fit some extent where he’s, interested both at the individual day level and then at the week and month level.

Daniella Moreci-Pack: Oh, 100%. And even just year wise. there’s things that, like I said, he has his little dissection kits. And typically you don’t do those things in public school until, say, junior high, right?

I had [00:10:00] a parent who does not homeschool say to me, why is he already doing dissection (as a young student)? I’m like, because that’s what he’s interested in and that’s what he wants to do. So we’re doing it at a lower level right now. And by the time he gets old enough to process further on, Higher level thinking, he’s already been exposed. and it doesn’t have to be in 7th grade that he first sees these things.

I have the freedom to let him explore what he wants to explore right now. Just keep it at the level where he’s, his maturity is, or his developmental is, we just literally finished a book on Anne Frank, and it was not her diary, of course, because I don’t think he’s emotionally able to deal with that right now, but we are vacationing to Germany and Europe, this week, as a matter of fact, we’re leaving later on this week, and I wanted him to get a feel for, some of the things that, what we’re surrounded by.

So we did, I got a book on Anne Frank that [00:11:00] was his level and we finished reading it and now this week we’re gonna go and we’ll actually, we are gonna go to the Netherlands and actually go to the Anne Frank House so he can put together everything he just read and actually see what we read about.  I’m hoping that will stick with him the rest of his life, rather than just “Hey, read this book, pass this test.”

Mike Goldstein: (Educational travel) actually connects to, like, something I wanted to ask you about, Daniella, which is for our listeners, Arizona has a program called the Education Savings Account.

And the idea is someone like Daniella get money towards the expenses that she incurs educating Peter.

Just as an example of education expenses, my [00:12:00] family here in Massachusetts, we have two kids.  We spend a lot on services for our kids, right? There’s like karate lessons, there’s math tutoring, there’s a whole bunch of stuff. We just do it out of pocket.

(Whereas you have an ESA).  Can you walk us through your education savings account. What do you spend it on? How much is it? How’s that program going for you?

Daniella Moreci-Pack: So I actually love it. So the first couple of years, I Was not on it. I (funded) everything by myself Like I said, because when I first took him out it was, we just you know unschooled, right? We did a lot of zoos and museums. And yes, I probably could have used the ESA for that. but, it was just, I already had a membership to the zoo, so what was the point of that, right?

[00:13:00] I did sign up for ESA last year. I use the funds for curriculum – if I need, per se, that, like I just said, that Anne Frank book, for instance, right?

And a lot of the money that I use for ESA is for books and math manipulatives and, some of the, like, the kits, the solar system kit here, those dissection kits, a lot of, like, manual math manipulatives that he, likes to play with.

I have also, Peter does some dance classes, so we don’t have PE here, right?  I use ESA for [00:14:00] that. And, he does do karate and I do use ESA for that. that’s basically what, we use our funding for.

He has, some social skills that come along with ADHD that he needs to work on. We use the ESA funds for that as well. So therapies too.

I think the program is amazing. I know that there’s some struggles here in Arizona with, some people like it, some people don’t, and we are struggling to keep the program, from being villainized, because I know that we are the first in the country that has done this program this way, and, I think it’s so spectacular, and there’s so many parents that I know on it and have met that have been able to take [00:15:00] their education for their homeschool kids to just a whole nother level.

It is truly a blessing to have it, and I think school choice is freaking amazing, and I totally think that it should, whatever states can adopt a program like this, 100 percent should, because it would make a world of difference for the kids that don’t fit in that public school setting.

Mike Goldstein: I love it. There’s both a group of parents who don’t yet know what their opportunities are. And there’s some public policy people who have the wrong idea of what the typical mom is actually buying with their education savings account.  And it’s hard to imagine someone resisting the idea of, oh, a kid shouldn’t get a dance class or karate as a movement opportunity, [00:16:00] or a kid shouldn’t get occupational therapy and so forth.

Mike Goldstein: Some of the parents have told me, listen, I’ve been able to start buying things that we never bought before. They never had karate, then they used ESA for the first time, or they never had dance, or they never had a specialist to help their kids.

But (other parents told me they already were buying services out of pocket).   They say “It was hard for us to afford it, but we did, and now the government’s coming along and helping us afford what we would have already bought.”

I wonder, when you think about the types of services for Peter that you’re describing to us, which one better fits your story?

Daniella Moreci-Pack: I’m in the middle, there, Peter was already doing karate. And, and so we just, continued on. Right? [00:17:00] And not that we would have not. he was already doing dance. He was already doing those extra things. and the other half is, I don’t know that I would have gotten the amount of (curriculum).  I would have cut up paper instead of buying counting blocks, things like that.

So I’m in the middle.  (The ESA) afforded me the ability to do more, and also reprieved some of the expenses that I already had. So it was, it’s a little bit of both.

Mike Goldstein: How do you find services? How do you contract for it? Does it go smoothly?

Daniella Moreci-Pack: At the beginning, yes, I did join every ESA group there was to join on Facebook that pertained to Arizona’s ESA.

Let’s say I purchase History Unboxed.  ESA has a platform called ClassWallet and they have vendors on there and you can go through ClassWallet, to, go directly to that vendor and then shop their site.

And then it takes you through the checkout process using your ESA funds. So that’s how mechanically it works.  With History Unboxed, I saw a little ad about it and I was like, this is really cool.  It gives you a whole year’s curriculum of, whatever time in history you want to teach.

I went on the ESA Facebook groups. I was like, has anybody used this History Unboxed? Does anybody like it? I got a couple of warnings from people.  That this curriculum includes food food in their boxes and food is absolutely a non allowable in ESA (technical rule).

But the vendor does have an option on their website that says, please don’t include any food in this box. So I ordered that version – it’s basically a box a month.

Mike Goldstein: Okay, so just to back up or so I can process this, There’s some random rules in every state about the details of ESA, and your state happens to have a rule that says: no food. And so you have this curriculum company, maybe for the Boston Tea Party unit, they throw [00:20:00] in a couple teabags, but that would render, it would trigger this eligibility crisis,

Daniella Moreci-Pack: Correct.

Mike Goldstein: You have to click the box that says, don’t put the teabags in with Boston Tea Party, even though any reasonable human being would think “No, that’s fine.”   But you don’t want to run afoul of the regulators who are looking to find any rule breaking they can to come down potentially on a good faith effort by a vendor and a parent.

Daniella Moreci-Pack: Right.  They’ll deny the entire order for the ESA.  . yeah, there’s been a, it’s, that’s,

Mike Goldstein: Got it.

Daniella Moreci-Pack: The other half is that you can pre purchase something yourself and then go in the state’s platform for a reimbursement, that they can or [00:21:00] cannot allow depending on what it is that you upload for backup,

I don’t know if you’ve heard yet, but we just got instruction on a new (regulation).  Every item (for reimbursement) needs a curriculum now. And so we now have to upload a curriculum for anything and everything that we purchase (not just a receipt).

Mike Goldstein: Got it. So is karate on the ClassWallet platform?

Daniella Moreci-Pack: some vendors would be, right?  If that karate school has gone through their, certification to be one of their vendors and submitted all of their credentials and things to be on their platform, then they are, if they are not, then, you would have to pay for it yourself and get reimbursement.

Mike Goldstein: Got it. And that’s your situation, [00:22:00] right? You have a person that you like that you’ve been with for a while.

Daniella Moreci-Pack: Right, right. …At our karate school, they even have like a homeschool class. So it’s cool.

Mike Goldstein: Got it. And so what listeners are missing is a little bit of background is there’s a political battle in Arizona over this program and school choice generally.

And so there was a recent battle at the legislature. Will we restrict and add red tape to the ESA, this education savings account program, where some people think they’re just trying to block parents from being able to easily use the fund.  Versus other people who want to make it easier for parents to use the fund.

And so you as a mom are caught in between these [00:23:00] warring factions. And now you’re in a situation where it’s just more bureaucracy. If you want to make a certain purchase of a service, you have to say, here’s the curriculum that’s attached to the service.

Daniella Moreci-Pack: And it’s not just services. The newest, for lack of better words, shenanigans that have come down from the legislature…things like pens, pencils, paper, art supplies, and now the newest thing that has come down is that, those, that entire list of items has been [00:24:00] eliminated.

So if we want to purchase paper, pens, art supplies, crayons, markers, those things now also need a curriculum.

Mike Goldstein: It’s attaching a rule that only applies to moms like you. It’s not true in a public school. (In a public school) you can buy all the crayons you want. You don’t have to say, these eight crayons are going to be for math class coloring in first grade. You just buy stuff.

But now it sounds like the ESA receivers have to do this extensive documentation that just makes it more cumbersome for them to, navigate the program.

Daniella Moreci-Pack: Correct. There was some verbiage that came in that email as well that said that there would be future guidance in the way that they want that curriculum to look.  So that is frustrating for us homeschool moms because, and dads, because, the whole point of not being in a public school is to be able to do the things that are good for our [00:25:00] kids, and not have to be burdened by a public school set of rules.

Mike Goldstein: You have this platform of Class Wallet, that’s essentially the software intermediary, for lack of a better word, between you and the state for this ESA.

How well does that work? If I were a new homeschooling parent and I was about to use Class Wallet and I said, Daniella, what do you think? Would you say it’s pretty good or would you say, ah, it’s choppy?

Daniella Moreci-Pack: I would say it’s pretty user friendly. It’s pretty basic. There’s not a whole lot of, it is not very, lack of a better word, like a big [00:26:00] intellectual, platform. It’s very basic, very user friendly, I think.

I would say, hopefully, if you have ever been at work where you’ve had to use any kind of computer system at all whatsoever, you kinda would know how to use this program.

There’s not a whole lot of buttons to click. It’s drop down menus.  It’s relatively easy to use, I think.

Mike Goldstein: I know you’re probably just doing a lot of your trip planning to Germany and the Netherlands…

Daniella Moreci-Pack: Right.

Mike Goldstein: but as you think to August, September and next school year: are there any pain points or things where you’re thinking, here’s something I haven’t solved yet where I think I want to do it differently, but I’m not sure how?

Daniella Moreci-Pack: I don’t know. I’m pretty resourceful, right? And there is a lot of resources for parents, homeschooling parents, [00:27:00] especially in Arizona. Homeschooling, different than ESA, has been around Arizona a long time, so we have a lot of cool resources.  A lot of meetups, a lot of parent groups, co op schools.  So there’s a huge community here in Arizona, so I don’t think that I haven’t gotten stuck for too long yet.  I don’t foresee changing anything that I’m doing right now. I think right now is working for Peter and, and for me too.

Mike Goldstein: And what’s Peter’s take on homeschooling?

Daniella Moreci-Pack: I think he very much enjoys [00:28:00] the fact that he has to stay at home.  Like I said, there are days that he just does not, he’s like, I’m not feeling this today, mom.

But I think, all in all, I think he’s pretty happy with the fact that he gets to learn from me, and that if he’s frustrated, there’s a lot of one on one that if this particular way that we’re looking at something isn’t working, we have the ability to shift to a different way of thinking.  That we can put something down and come back to it.  That there’s no reason to be frustrated or feel like you can’t get it, there’s a lot of freedom in, in, in being able to maneuver around.

There’s good days and bad days and every kid has them. I think overall he’s pretty happy with the fact that he gets to stay home and that we get to do things at his pace instead of, just [00:29:00] have to do what’s on the board and then move on, whether you were done or not, or,

whether you got it or didn’t or, so I think he’s pretty happy with our situation.

Mike Goldstein: Let me first jump in with my, comment to the listeners. if you’ve made it this far listening to our conversation with Daniella, thank you. we welcome comments. you can email pioneer@pioneerinstitute.org.

Go explore the Pioneer Institute website. The mission is to communicate ideas that advance prosperity and civic life.

You can donate by pounding the donate button.

Good people there are trying to understand, how can we help [00:30:00] everybody in America succeed in education.  And, Daniella’s been sharing, obviously, a great story about how she’s been helping Peter.

Daniella, last question for you. You probably come across some parents that are right on the bubble. They’re between, I don’t know or think that traditional school’s working for my child. But, I’m a little daunted by the idea of jumping into homeschool. I wonder if you’ve encountered people like that, and how do you talk to them? What do you say?

Daniella Moreci-Pack: For sure.  Everyone’s first reaction is, oh, I could never do that. And literally what I tell people is I used to think the same way.

There was just no way that I thought that I had patience for that. Or there’s, I don’t know how to do this. There’s no way, but the fact of the matter is that, it’s a lot easier than you think it would be because it doesn’t have to be like public [00:31:00] school.

You don’t have to sit in a chair and lecture and test and teach to a particular person. set of rules that you get to do things in whatever way fits you and your child and that it is, it’s so much easier than you think it is. you can make it as complex or as simple as your child needs it to be.

And I just tell parents all the time, like, you are your child’s first teacher and you can very well be your child’s only teacher. It doesn’t have to be hard. I tell people when they’re on the fence, do it. 100 percent do it.