Cecilia Gauer approached home schooling with caution. The Moorpark mother knew her daughter was struggling in a traditional public school, but Gauer worried about failing as her teacher.

She found a perfect fit in the Moorpark Unified School District's home-schooling program, where credentialed teachers team up with parents to educate students.

"It was tough and scary," Gauer said. "If I was completely on my own, it would have been a lot scarier."

A growing number of school districts statewide, including Moorpark and several others in Ventura County, are reaching out to home-schoolers by offering help in the form of credentialed teachers, textbooks and enrichment classes like art.

Districts provide a standards-based curriculum that gives families an alternative to traditional campuses, said Marilyn Smith, independent study director for the Ojai Unified School District. In return, the districts get to keep the students in the public school system and hold on to state funding that is based on the number of students and attendance.

"In education," Smith said, "we've learned that one size does not fit all."

The Ojai and Moorpark districts, like others in Ventura County, offer home study programs for kindergartners through eighth-graders in which students and parents meet regularly with teachers. They also offer independent study programs for high schoolers, where students generally meet alone with teachers.

A growing practice

The number of students being taught at home has increased steadily in the United States. Nearly 1.1 million children were home-schooled nationwide in 2003, about 2.2 percent of all students, according to the latest numbers available from the National Center for Education Statistics. That was up from 850,000 students, or 1.7 percent, in 1999.

Gauer started home-schooling her daughter, who recently began her senior year in Moorpark Unified's independent study program, in the fourth grade.

She also home-schools her son, a seventh-grader, using the district program.

With eight years under her belt, Gauer said, she's much more secure in her ability to teach at home. But without assistance from the district's home-school teacher, "it would still be tough," she said.

Enrollment drop in Santa Paula

Most local school districts report steady growth in their home and independent study programs. But the Santa Paula Elementary School District has seen a sharp drop in enrollment over the past two years.

With only seven home-school students signed up for the 2007-08 school year, school board member Michelle Kolbeck said, the district had to reassign the program's full-time teacher — a move she worries will end the program.

At its height, the program had 35 students. Kolbeck attributed the decline to the state requiring districts to use only state-approved curriculums. Families have other options, including public charter and private schools, which aren't held to the same rules, she said.

The district will continue providing a part-time teacher to track student progress, but Kolbeck said she worries the cut will cause even more families to look elsewhere.

Parents and students choose a home-school program for a variety of reasons. Some are looking for flexibility because of religious reasons, athletics or employment. Others thrive in the one-on-one environment.

Public schoolteachers working in home-school programs also said flexibility and individualized instruction drew them to their jobs.

"I love it. It's a fantastic job," said Jennifer Bouffard, a teacher in the Ventura Unified School District's home-school program for four years. It gives her the flexibility to raise her own two small children, and she loves the team atmosphere working with families to plan lessons.

The home-school program in Camarillo's Pleasant Valley School District offers supervising teacher Becky Monka the chance to get creative as she works with families, she said.

Bouffard said she does miss the student discussions of a traditional classroom, but she offers a writing enrichment class that periodically brings the home-school students together for such discussions.

Yvonne Russell, who has taught in Moorpark Unified's program for 10 years, agreed that enrichment classes are an added benefit. "Kids get the best of both worlds," Russell said.