Terri Wilson’s grandson is brilliant. So when his teacher asked his class to write a few facts to describe themselves and her grandson, Michael, called himself an “idiot” and said “I’m a mistake.” Terri says, “It hurt my soul.” 

She explains that doctors diagnosed her grandson as having ADHD and being on the autism spectrum. When he was attending his local public school, Terri says, “It was a struggle, to put it mildly.” Michael grasps concepts quickly, well before other students, which left him bored while the teacher explained the lesson to the rest of the class. Michael was prone to crawling under desks and moving around the room during class. She received calls almost daily from the principal. 

After several frustrating years, Terri learned about West Virginia’s Hope Scholarship accounts, the state’s education savings account program, which allows K-12 students to receive financial assistance that can be used for tuition, homeschool curriculum, and other qualifying expenses. 

Thanks to the credit, Terri began educating Michael at home. With his diagnosis, she says, he needed to be “unschooled.” “He needs to fly free with his creative ideas and his brilliance and I don’t think any structured school is going to do that for him.” 

After just eight months using Hope, Terri said Michael’s progress was “unbelievably beautiful.” “He’s always asking questions,” she says, and she has not regretted switching to the scholarship. 

Recently, she asked Michael to write five things about himself, and he wrote “smart, funny, picky, creative, and an artist.” What a difference eight months, a loving grandmother, and a scholarship called “Hope” can make in a child’s life.”