Where should I begin when sharing our amazing journey thus far as a Utah Fits All Scholarship family? For starters, this is our second year participating in the program. We have two scholarship students, Owen (5th grade) and Reilly (3rd grade) plus little brother, Aidan who is preschool age! Since we were awarded two years ago, we have been able to provide so many rich educational experiences for our boys. Before UFA, they were not thriving or being challenged enough in their public school educational setting, just merely surviving. Now, with UFA we have been able to successfully harness the power of our vast community to seek out learning opportunities for them and customize their learning to meet their individual needs. We are able to live by the philosophy that education doesn’t just happen within four classroom walls nor does it stop once we graduate high school or college. As parents, we are continuously learning alongside our boys and able to instill in them a life-long love of learning and curiosity.
With this scholarship, they have been able to access accredited, high quality and rigorous curriculum through some online, distance learning schools. This rigor and ability to move at their pace allows them to spend time focusing on topics they need more practice with while quickly reviewing things they already know. Meeting my children where they are at and giving them personalized instruction in exactly what they need has really been the greatest gift I have been given as a mother and for them, too, as learners. We have been able to compile a nice family library of classic books for our evening read-alouds with Dad. Some examples of the quality literature we have read together are “The Chronicles of Narnia” series, “Pippi Longstocking”, “Sherlock Holmes”, “The Wild Robot”, “Harry Potter” books 1-3 and “Robinson Crusoe” (just to name a few). The boys also love books about fossils and rocks. After reading the books, we spent the summer rockhounding and fossil hunting near Hanksville, Green River, Vernal and Panguitch. We visited a real-life dino dig, too, and saw paleontologists digging out a 6-foot femur bone from an Apatosaurus! This was an experience that many only read about in a book but never get to see first-hand! Utah has such unique learning opportunities!
Owen and Reilly have also been able to explore more topics they are interested in as they have so much flexibility within a day. One WOW moment is how Owen and Reilly have such diverse, well rounded interests. They excel at writing lines of code with their BitsBox program and then are easily able to transition to identifying native Utah plants and animal tracks at their weekly immersive nature school class. They’ve both also become very diligent in practicing their piano recital songs after their lessons. They are so excited to learn Spanish and practice new words and phrases with their Spanish tutor. This scholarship really allows our family to embrace the idea that children are unique and don’t fit in a box, so neither should the education that we provide to them.
Owen, Reilly (and Aidan, too) also all participate in speedskating at the Utah Olympic Oval. Their coaches are former Olympic gold medalists or current athletes trying out for the 2026 Olympic team. Being part of this team is important for them as they learn perseverance, a positive attitude, a good work ethic and also camaraderie as they cheer on their teammates and friends in races! Again, this is just another example of their diverse interests and how they’re able to be part of the SLC community!
It has been amazing to have this opportunity and we are so grateful. We look forward to continuing to access this program and watch our boys grow into outstanding young men who love learning, being curious and enjoying being part of their community. Thanks Utah legislators!