PRINCETON, W.Va. (WVVA) – A scholarship aimed at helping students from kindergarten through the senior year of high school receive financial assistance for tuition in the mountain state is proving to be beneficial.
That’s according to an educator in Mercer County who specializes in offering a micro-school.
Erika Wimmer operates Head, Heart, & Hands Learning Academy in Princeton. The 2023-2024 school year was her first accepting the Hope Scholarship for students entering into her education system.
She operates her class out of the Princeton Recreation Center and says parents for six of her eight students took advantage of the scholarship which provided nearly $4,500 for the 2023-2024 school year.
“My school is shorter, the day is shorter. We don’t have to go exactly 180 days like public schools do. We only go four and a half hours a day. My students actually pull out to home school and I am their designated instructor,” said Wimmer.
Wimmer is a certified teacher and taught in Mercer County for 14 years. She says the Hope Scholarship has been a game changer for her elementary aged students because many of them are neurodivergent. She says her education style caters to them and other personalized needs for students.
“They can go to the bathroom whenever they want to, they can get up and get a snack whenever they want to and they know they’re allowed to move. I have other kids that are gifted and they just weren’t in accelerated enough programs,” said Wimmer.
Wimmer says her program mixes online work with classroom work. She says providing the one on one time to her students was the biggest reason she decided to start her own education system.
Wimmer says she hopes to encourage parents to look into the scholarship if they notice their children having trouble learning in public schools.
“All my students loved to come to school this year and that’s exactly what I wanted. They made tons of academic progress but my main goal is to get them to love school and they did,” said Wimmer.
Wimmer says her micro-school will be expanding from eight students this school year to eleven students in the fall. Nine of them will be using the Hope Scholarship. She says she’s not planning on adding many more students in the future.
For the 2024-2025 school year the Hope Scholarship will provide nearly $5,000 to eligible students in West Virginia. For more information on the Hope Scholarship you can visit the scholarship’s website HERE.
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